My posts can be snarky when it comes to my job. Teaching is often exhausting and frustrating, and for me, snark is the go-to hedge against despair. But as snide and nasty as I get about the stuff that happens in school, the snark stops when it comes to the kids themselves.

The truth is, I love my middle schoolers.

I realize it’s not even remotely normal to dote on these awkward specimens, with their raging hormones and lack of impulse control. They clutch you with one hand while flipping you the bird with the other. They forget their homework and make up ridiculous excuses, leave messes, incubate pimples and revere media whores. They use too much deodorant or worse, not enough. But they are who they are, unremittingly so; raw and open and malleable. They act tough, but really, they are just posturing bundles of tender, exposed nerve endings wrapped in Northface fleece. Being with them is a déjà vu nightmare of my own middle school days, amplified down the corridors of time.

I know I can’t advise them on how best to survive the purgatory that is adolescence. It’s a uniquely painful journey that I watch them struggle through every day. They aren’t interested in navigational advice, anyway, much less the rules of grammar. They would, however, like the occasional soft cushion for the ride, which is where I come in.