For most of us, deciding whether to homeschool or not is an agonizing decision.
So, let’s say we choose to homeschool. What if we wake up one Saturday late because we are exhausted and realize with terror that we’ve ruined our kids? That they are irrevocably broken?
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We were visiting the largest city in our region and decided to stop at the library to borrow some books for our youngest daughter’s summer reading cache. We walked in awe, looking up in wonder at the size of the magnificent building. There are so many books inside!
Here is a real-life experiment to illustrate an important point: Husbands, (I recommend hockey gear first before you try this) the next time your wife gets annoyed, try asking your wife if PMS is real.
If you were unwise enough to ask, you will find out the answer to this question soon enough.
Those cement factories overseas, where people labour in dust and despair, with no relief in sight by the power of unions, would be a hard place to work.
Homeschooling our kids is not as strenuous as working in one of those factories. But neither is homeschooling sitting next to the pool, a martini in hand, flipping through a magazine as we ring a small bell every hour to usher our kids onto their next subject. Homeschooling kids would eat you alive if you tried that.
Head in hands again. Trying to shut out the noise. The kids with their needs swirling around me.
We are homeschooling in February.
Continuing this thankless task in February becomes my annual despair, one shared with all homeschooling families (Except for the perfect families we all hate. Don’t feel jealous. They’ll crash and burn out too. I’ve been homeschooling for a while, so I’ve seen a few things.)
If you are not homeschooling in February, what is your despair?
We all have the odd despair that tries to attach itself to us like an unwelcome leech.
Anyway, I sat on the couch, my overwhelm consuming me. Do I declare (another) fun day and take the kids cross-country skiing?
Should we call all our homeschooling friends and organize (another) hockey party on the free outdoor ice rink?
Do I give them as much “independent work” as I can and try to tackle the mess of stuff in the basement, the pile that seems to have acquired a life of its own and that roars at me as I pass like a Yeti in the basement?
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to hide behind the fun. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that our home is so disorganized that we can no longer find pencils to do our math. Or that no one cares. “I like using a green crayon to do my math, Mommy!” she asserts.
She is not trying to make me feel better. She is genuinely happy. Her needs are met.
And mine?
“I’m not worried about the kids,” my husband would assert. “I’m worried about you.”
So I offer you tea and a listening ear, dear friend, and ask:
And after we put the ridiculous plans we cling to for creating super kids off the shelves of our egos . . .
After we slow down and watch our kids learn for a while (Healthy plants in healthy soil grow. Similarly, healthy kids in a healthy environment learn, even and especially when we don’t beat them with rods to “encourage” them to know exactly what WE want) . . .
Then we’re finally ready…
For what, you ask?
To learn the one most important lesson that overwhelm teaches us, which is that:
When we feed ourselves with unhealthy food, our tummies won’t feel very good for a while.
However, This is GOOD NEWS because we can go to the store and buy carrots today!
And how does this relate to homeschooling, for example?
If you follow the crowd and eat whatever they eat (50% highly processed foods), your tummy will get a bit upset afterward. Similarly, if you follow the crowds and set up your homeschool to mimic public school goals, for example, you’ll find that burnout is as certain as feeling bad after eating an entire box of Oreos.
Overwhelm is the blaring red light that tells us that letting our minds and actions drift with the crowd isn’t a healthy option.
There is a better way, friend, and overwhelm, our teacher and friend, unlocks a higher path.
More on the first step of HOW to get out of overwhelm next time.
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I’m mad at you! At all of you with a child over seventeen years old who left home! I hate you all! Why didn’t you tell me it would be this hard to say goodbye when they left for college!?
And all of you with babies too, babies that are older than my oldest baby, I hate you all too!
Before we had babies, why didn’t you tell us that looking after babies would be so hard!?
Ah, yes . . .
It is because we wouldn’t have believed you even if you would have spoken up.
And if our teens truly understood the depth of our loss, many of these kids wouldn’t leave home. They are good kids. I relayed these thoughts to my husband, processing them aloud through my tears.
“And we want them to leave,” I cried out. “Yes, we do,” my husband comforted. Then he shoots me a sideways, knowing look. I remembered that this morning, our teen was DEFINITELY right when she was DEFINITELY wrong, and instead of bursting into tears, I burst into laughter.
I feel some joy mixed with some sorrow.
And so, “Goodbye!” we say as we wave.
Except it’s not kindergarten, and they are heading to school on a bus. We homeschooled, so we missed that milestone. It’s 600 km away, and the tearing, the necessary, painful cleaving continues.
Reflecting God’s nature, He created them male and female. . . Therefore, a [person] leaves his father and mother
I told you it would be that way, Jesus reminds me softly. Many years earlier, in prayer, Jesus showed me a picture of my daughters, one after the other, ready to board a plane to soar off on their journeys of independence. He began preparing my heart to say goodbye many years ago, even then.
Many of us homeschooling parents pushed the love boundary of our hearts a little further than expected when we cracked open those brand new math texts on day one of homeschooling.
The depth of love surprises us all and surpasses the boundary markers we set up to protect ourselves. If we love what we know, we will get to know these kids, and our love for them will transform us. Love always does.
I’m not saying that homeschooling is one domino after the other of perfect days.
I have homeschooled for 4,745 days (I’m convinced you don’t have enough math skills to figure out how many years I have spent homeschooling- Who does?). Of those days, I have NEVER yet had one perfect day.
The possibility of [sorrow and failure] is necessary to the joy of deliverance . . . giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.
And so saying goodbye to the teen as she flies off to college is just another homeschooling day: some joy mixed with some sorrow.
We will be ready because we have been practicing daily for this: some joy and some sorrow, repeat tomorrow.
We’re going to be OK.
And so, as we watch them soar, we nurse our grief a little and then flap our baby wings and listen for the call from Him into a new adventure.
And in the same way that we invest in our future by putting aside a few dollars each month, is He asking us to invest in our spiritual future by putting aside a few minutes each day to listen to Him calling us, comforting us, asking us to set aside the old, and to pick up the new?
We enjoy publishing a letter and sending it to all our friends and family for the Holidays.
In this letter, we tell you some of the embarrassing things they (the other family members and friends) said last year!
(Yes, I take notes on what my friends and family say all year, JUST for this express purpose!)
For some reason, however, not many people talk to me much at the beginning of each year, and they seem a bit sulky. But don’t worry – it doesn’t last long!
I was looking at my husband with tears filling my eyes after I opened a glimpse of pain deep within my heart.
Andy looked back at me and . . . smirked (!)
Me: “Why are you smirking!?”
Andy: “I think you’re just PMS-ing.”
Andy laughs.
I realize he’s probably right and think, “You know you’ve been married a long time when…”
While driving to the ski hill:
Me to Andy: “Why don’t we drop off our ski boots first this time and then…” etc.
Andy: “But I always do it the same way!”
I thought, “Well, I guess that topic has now been exhausted for all time!”
I can sense a compliment coming. I wait in eager anticipation:
Andy: “Thank you for being so… nice.”
Me: (!!!)
On Homeschooling
The perils of playing board games with homeschooled kids:
I borrowed a board game from the library based on the movie “Dune.” We recently watched the movie together as a family.
Kyah: “I can’t play that board game!” she announced, frustrated.
Me: “Why?”
Kyah: “I haven’t finished reading the book yet!”
Me: “Maybe you want to play squash with me sometime, Kyah?”
Kyah: “Well, I don’t know. I’m pretty aggressive…” (Even though the wind blows her over sometimes)
Kyah continued, “And I also have martial arts, so I’m pretty busy…”
Kyah: “But I love you so… Yeah, sure.”
On Choosing Healthy Food
Andy called me when he was out buying groceries from the list I wrote for him:
Andy: “So when it says, ‘soy sauce,’ do you mean… ?” He lists 10 related items and brands.
Me: “No, when I say ‘soy sauce,’ I mean the stuff that isn’t actually soy sauce. It says ‘liquid aminos’ or something like that on the bottle.”
Andy: “Oh, ok.”
Andy: “When it says ‘noodles- mushroom’, what kind of noodles are those?”
Me: “Those are the ones that aren’t actually noodles. They just look like noodles. They’re long and thin. They’re in the mushroom section. I don’t know what they’re called.”
Etc.
Etc.
Me: “I feel better because I fasted and prayed today. It gives me hope.”
Andy: “I didn’t fast, but I did have a chicken salad sandwich from X restaurant today, so . . . that probably counts.”
Me: (?) “And why is that?”
Andy: “Because it’s not very good! I didn’t have lunch from Y restaurant!”
So, “fasting” for Andy means eating out at a lower-star-eating establishment. Well, we all start somewhere!
I offered our friend a chocolate chip cookie. She excitedly stretched out her hand to take one, but then a look of horror came over her face, and her hand hovered above the plate mid-air.
She asked with increasing trepidation, “Wait. These don’t have black beans or something like that in them again, do they?!”
Happy New Year, friends.
(May you laugh much at your ridiculousness in the coming year, too!)
Restoring Life 