Anyways, as for learning a foreign language, I prefer to make the analogy that foreign-language speakers are just starting over as infants in a new tongue. Your students are at the toddler phase where they recognize the language and have learned some words or syntax but have only figured out the real meanings of a few; they are at that stage where they might start yelling “PLEASE STOP!!” when faced with mashed peas, baths, or strangers.
That makes you their foreign language mom. You have to continually teach them with the blind faith that they will eventually grow out of it and into functional adults one day (functional English speakers in this case). You’re not an empty vessel; you’re an ESL parent. I suppose my comparison is ultimately the same comparison that you were making (parents are all just ships taking their kids out to the ocean of the real world?), but it sounds slightly more… upbeat.
I think when reading this post I felt that you were down on your own role, as though your position as their English teacher is insignificant or trite. And it’s not!