|
by Kimberly Misra
I have a confession to make. I am on the quest for homeschooling perfection. Not just any perfection, but a gloriously lit, well-dusted, gourmet (yet low-fat!) perfection. While I am happy with the overall path our homeschool journey is on, there are moments here and there when those pesky seeds of self-doubt begin to sprout.
I am reading through one of my favorite online homeschooling forums, when I come across a thread where people are describing their “typical days”. And suddenly my typical days, which heretofore seemed fun and educational, pale in comparison. Look at all the stuff these families are doing! Why aren’t we doing these things? Why don’t we bake our own bread every week? Why haven’t we tried the do-it-yourself volcano? Why aren’t we spending three hours every afternoon fixing up our house while discussing philosophy? Why doesn’t my three year old play violin? Why don’t we mummify a chicken? Okay, so I know the answer to that last one, it’s because I don’t WANT to
mummify a chicken.
At our homeschool swim time, I am nearly always the last one out of the locker room. And while logically I know that this is because I am the only one there with three kids under six, I frequently chalk it up to my own inadequacy. I feel disorganized, even though I’m not. I feel I’m not doing enough to instill a sense of discipline in my kids. Why don’t they pick up their towels without being reminded 25 times? If they heeded my warnings to walk slowly on the wet floor, they wouldn’t end up sitting on their rear ends screaming while I’m trying to finish dressing the baby!
When we are out on errands, I always seem to have the only kid dumping books off the library shelves, the only baby trying to toss the eggs out of the cart at the grocery store. It seems like every other kid around is sitting calmly in the grocery cart, quietly picking out their books, and getting their coat on right away when it is time to go. Now, of course I know I do not have even close to the worst-behaved kids out there. In fact, I’m usually pretty proud of the way my children behave. My theory is that
the worst behaved kids, the ones who would make you think your kids had foamy white wings attached to their backs, are not brought out in public. Therefore, at any given time you are seeing only a small, relatively well-behaved subset. The results are skewed in other words. But on those difficult days this does not stop me from thinking that if I was doing things right, my kid would not be sprawled out on the floor at the grocery store checkout. Not screaming mind you, just lying there for no apparent reason except to embarrass me.
It is as though a clear, bright, internal light led me to question what most everyone else was doing (sending their kids to public school), and ultimately led me to choose a different path for my family. But sometimes that same light becomes a spotlight aimed at my family, as I question everything we do, and more importantly, everything we “don’t” do. When I am in this perfectionist state of mind, it seems like everyone else is doing so much more than us, and doing it so much better. I know logically, that I am not the only one with doubts, that there are many parents out there who feel just as disorganized and confused as I do at times. But I can’t stop myself from thinking that other homeschoolers have it all together, while I wade about in a sea of lost sippy cups and whiny children.
Deep down, I feel I should be able to keep a perfectly neat, well organized house, complete with a playroom with beautifully arranged shelves full of educational toys (made of natural materials of course, not plastic). I feel my children should eat like well-mannered royalty, not like a pack of starving wolves. I feel I should make my own soup instead of opening a can, and we should have a homemade dessert every night. We should go on several educational field trips every week, be active in our homeschool group, and each child should pursue at least one extracurricular activity they enjoy. We should go to the library on a daily basis. We should also have many days to spend at home, so the kids can have lots of free playtime. We should have an enormous vegetable garden and apple trees, grow giant pumpkins and goats (the pumpkins being giant, not the goats). We should have our own chickens, take bike rides every day, and go on vacation to exciting, exotic places several times a year. I should exercise every
day, spend hours writing everyday, and finish getting our house fixed up. The kids should have unlimited time to play, yet also be engaged in a rigorous classical education, which of course they will enjoy.
Now obviously, many of these things are at odds with each other. If we have a full schedule of outings, we can’t spend a lot of time at home. If we have a virtual mini-farm, it will be difficult to take vacations. And if we are able to do all the stuff on this fantasy list, what will it mean? There will always be something new coming along to add to the list. Why don’t we go skydiving every week? Egad, our five year old doesn’t know how to play chess yet! Even though I know logically that we can’t do everything, that doesn’t stop me from wanting to try.
When I’m having these bouts of self-doubt, I’ve found one of the best things to do is just talk to my children and find out what is important to them. After criticizing myself for not taking my kids to the library every week, I was surprised to find that my daughter actually preferred to go less often so she could spend more time with the same books. After taking my three year old to story hour on a crazy-busy week because I felt guilty that he didn’t have his own activity, I realized he could care less about the story. He wanted to go home and play pitch and bat. Kids tend to have much simpler
wants than adults think they do.
On a recent rainy Saturday, when we were unable to attend a fair we had planned to go to, my daughter asked what we were going to do instead. My mind began racing with alternatives for a possible outing. After all, we always have an outing on Saturday! To stall, I asked her if she had any ideas, hoping that whatever it was wouldn’t be too far away or expensive.
“I’d like to make a fabric doll,” she said. “We have everything we need, and Daddy can help me sew.”
Simplicity. It’s what I always come back to. You can never truly reach perfection in homeschooling, no matter how hard you try. But by listening to what you and your kids really want from your homeschooling journey and your
life, you can come awfully close.
About the author:
Kim Misra is a freelance writer and homeschooling mom of three who resides in New Salem, Massachusetts. She can be reached at
kmmsra@gmail.com.
|
