And that right there, folks, is the general attitude I've run into in the last year about my decision to become a full-full-time mom. At least that's the general attitude of nice people anyway. Not everyone has been as encouraging.
But you don't make a crazy decision like this to win popularity contests at family reunions or church potlucks. Trust me.
I'm happy I can say that after struggling through our first year, the support for our family's outside-of-the-box efforts is growing.
So, just why did I decide to go rouge?
Well, to be honest, I've been kicking against the pricks for years now. I actually bought my first how-to book on homeschooling before my oldest son was even in kindergarten.
Yup, I bought it, thumbed through it for about 10 minutes and promptly put it on a shelf for the next three years along with all the other books I have every intention of reading someday.
The idea of educational efficiency intrigued me. I imagined how much more my kids could learn and do without the many time-wasting activities inherent in a classroom.
It was a cool idea, but one I just wasn't ready to tackle. At the time I'd just moved thousands of miles away from family and friends to a foreign country known affectionately as "the South" with three kids: 5, 3 and 6 months. I was too busy trying to get my house in order, learn a new language (folks, I'm sorry, it's called a shopping cart; buggies are for babies) and otherwise acclimate to my new environs.
So Ga-go went off to kindergarten. Things were great. He had a wonderful teacher and he seemed to be thriving. For a few months. Then he had an incident with another student. The kind that makes your skin crawl and your stomach queasy. Yeah, that kind. To their credit, the teacher and principal handled it just right and the situation was dealt with. No permanent damage. We all moved on with our lives.
But it seemed that each year I was stressed out and worried sick over some issue or another. Whether it was a teacher penalizing my child for showing initiative, other students' bullish behavior, hours of homework agony and unproductive effort after school, time wasted idling in carpool lines, or poor curriculum choices--my favorite being the required reading assignment in the 2nd grade wherein the protagonist in the story was rewarded for stealing and lying to his father and teacher--there always seemed to be something to deal with.
But the straw that broke the camel's back happened half way through Poe's 1st grade year when I showed up as a concerned parent to a teacher conference. Even though the teacher had assured me all year Poe was "doing just fine," I could tell something was off, but had no idea just how serious the situation was. Imagine my shock when his teacher informed me that my child had been failing for 3 weeks straight! (Just when was she going to get around to telling me that?!?) The fact that the class had not done any kind of recess or activity outside of the classroom (because it was just too cold) didn't have any baring on his behavior. What he needed was medication. There was no other solution. The end. Have a nice day.
Poe was in another class by the end of the week with a good teacher, but I realized then that we would be dealing with situations like this throughout my children's educational careers. With four kids, that was going to be a lot of years! If it wasn't one problem, it would be another. I felt like I was playing Russian roulette with my children's lives. And the thought was exhausting to me. I was tired of the rat race. There had to be a better way.
Private school wasn't an option. There was only one in our town. We couldn't afford it and we weren't invited anyway since we weren't real Christians. Besides, private school was still no guarantee that my kids would get the educational experience I desired for them.
So homeschool became the logical solution--the last resort.
I was essentially putting my hands on my hips, sticking my tongue out at traditional school and shouting "So there! Take that! I'll show you!"
Like a spoiled child pitching a fit over a petty disagreement with a friend.
Not the greatest motive in the world. I know.
My husband knew it too. He was all on board with the whole homeschooling idea (I think secretly he had been for a while even before I did), but being the sage adviser he is, he encouraged me to ponder "the why" of my decision.
He knew for me to be successful I couldn't do it out of spite, or to be a martyr or for any other negative reason. Instead he reminded me to think about why I wanted these kids to begin with, what I wanted for them, and mostly what I wanted from them.
Yes, that's right. From them. Why be a mother? It's a lot blood, sweat and tears. What do you expect to get out of it?
That was a life-altering thought for me. I realized my relationship with my children had become superficial. Shallow. It didn't start out that way. For the first 5 years of their lives I loved them, taught them, nurtured them. Then they had that magical fifth birthday and it was time to shift the primary responsibility onto a "real" teacher, an "expert," a stranger. Because that's what you're supposed to do.
In that process I had allowed myself to get sucked into the cultural attitude of "I love my kids, but I can't wait until they go to school so I can have my life back" or "I'm dreading summer vacation with all of the chaos when kids are home."
I saw my kids as a liability instead of the asset they really are.
Is it any wonder?
Every day I struggled to get them out of bed and off to school on time. Then we spent our afternoons together anguishing over homework assignments when all they wanted to do was go be active kids after a day of being trapped in a classroom. The weekends were spent trying to catch up with what we didn't get to during the week. And then it started over again.
The time we spent together wasn't really ours. And there wasn't enough of it to really know each other. I loved my children, but I didn't really know my children or like them all that much
because most of our time together was spent with me in drill sergeant mode. Get up so you can go to school. Do your homework so you'll get good grades. Go to bed, so you can get up and go to school.
It wasn't fun for me or the kids.
I honestly asked myself this question posed by Julie B. Beck:
"Am I aligned with the Lord's vision of me and what He needs me to become, and the roles and responsibilities He gave me in the heavens that are not negotiable? Am I aligned with that or am I trying to escape my duties?" (see the video of her talk at BYUTV).
I resolved right then and there that it was time to change. Forever. I wanted to know my kids. Not just keep them around as trophies to show off to everyone. I wanted to have a deeper relationship with each of them. Get the chance to understand their hopes and dreams. I realized my time with them was short enough without sending them away to spend most of their days being raised by someone else. I wanted to be there when they discovered something new and wonderful about the world around them. I wanted when the light bulb of understanding finally clicked. And I wanted to learn with them, from them.
Sister Beck said it well in a recent interview:
"I wanted to raise people who would be my friends when I was old. That means we had to do some things when they were young that would build them into the people I would enjoy being with when I was older.
We had to teach manners--you have to be clean, you can’t be stupid, you have to have something in your head we can talk about. I wanted to be around thinkers when they were older and people who could laugh and enjoy life and do some fun things. That meant I had to be a parent when they were young so I could be their friend when they were older.
It is difficult to parent on a day-to-day basis with precision. You’re never perfect at it, it takes a lot of revelation and help to know how to get through a situation day by day and know the needs of a person--a unique person--who is developing and you don’t know who they really are inside and how to get that out but you’re working toward building somebody you want to know when they’re older.
If you can’t build those characteristics in them when they’re young then you won’t like them when they’re older." (Mormon Channel, Converstaions with Julie B. Beck)
Please understand, I am certainly not saying that someone is a bad parent for sending their child to school. Not at all. I think you can still have a close relationship with your children regardless of where they are educated. But for me, the opportunity to learn alongside them at home presented itself and I decided to go for it. Even though I was anxious about my ability to teach my own kids (which sounds really absurd when you think about it), I knew it was the right thing for me to do. As a mentor and friend of mine says, "Homeschooling may not be for everyone, but anyone can do it."
About the same time this epiphany hit I came across this from John Holt's book Teach Their Own:
We can sum up very quickly what people need to teach their own children. First of all, they have to like them, enjoy their company, their physical presence, their energy, foolishness, and passion. They have to enjoy all their talk and questions, and enjoy equally trying to answer those questions. They have to think of their children as friends, indeed very close friends, have to fell happier when they are near and miss them when they are away. They have to trust them as people, respect their fragile dignity, treat them with courtesy, take them seriously. They have to feel in their own hearts some of their children's wonder, curiosity, and excitement about the world. And they have to have enough confidence in themselves, skepticism about experts, and willingness to be different from most people, to take on themselves the responsibility for their children's learning. But that is about all that parents need.
It was at that point that I knew homeschooling was the right thing to do, for my kids, for my family, but especially for me.
I have to say there are days it has made me crazy. Sometimes I let doubt and fear and outside expectations overwhelm me. I've spent more time crying this year out of fear and frustration than I care to admit. I'm not perfect. (I know y'all are shocked to hear that.) And my family isn't perfect. (Newsflash there too.)
But we've spent a year learning and growing and crying and creating and laughing and exploring and struggling and rejoicing together. It took a few months, but we have learned how to live with each other, and even like each other... most of the time. :-)
And I can honestly say I know my kids better now and I've come to appreciate them for the unique individuals they are. And I'm proud of them.
So, yes, I am a little crazy. But I've never felt better about myself, my family or my role as a mother.
