The "H" Word

When The Big Thing happened to us, our life was going pretty smoothly. My husband had worked hard and had arrived at a point in his career where he was earning a good wage and had a great benefits package and a nice chunk of vacation time (not that we have ever taken a vacation). We had five kids in a small private school and I was finally approaching my dream of having entire school days to myself.

To organize my home.

To cook the elaborate meals that everyone else seemed to have time for.

To knit and journal and craft.

To run errands without the ball of noise that usually surrounded me.

To visit coffee shops and bakeries.

To meal plan and grocery shop in peace.

To have "me" time.

To be normal.

I grew up in a household where dad went off to work, the kids went off to school and mom stayed at home doing whatever moms did at home while the children were in school. If you've ever read a Ramona book, that was pretty much exactly my childhood (only I was Beezus, Ramona was a little brother and we lived in Central Illinois, not Oregon). My visions of motherhood, once I had come to terms with the fact that I wasn't destined to be single forever, were not much different that that which I had observed of my own household as I was growing up.

I would have exactly two children.

The first would be a girl.

Followed four years later with a boy.

My husband would have a stable, well paying job.

I would stay home and raise my darlings.

At five years old they would start Kindergarten.

I would stay at home and bake things.

The children would attend school until graduation.

They would leave the nest.

Stuff in between.

Retirement.

Of course, all of this would happen in my life without the mess my own parents made at the end of my time in high school. But yeah, this was the plan. Until I had a son first. And then three more. And then a daughter. So already my plans were being messed with-but aside from a couple of false starts, we eventually had them all in school and for one glorious semester, I was living the dream. I was even able to take a part time job in the preschool of the kids' school for fun money. And then The Big Thing happened and my world changed. For the first year after The Big Thing we were blessed to have a pastor that understood and cared enough about us to allow my kids to experience some normalcy in their lives. It was a pure gift and a huge blessing for them to all to stay at their private school so that The Big Thing wouldn't hurt them as quickly and as much as it could have. For that I will ever be grateful.

Knowing this grace would definitely not happen again, we had to make plans for the next school year. The public schools here aren't the best, and we had a terrible experience with the elementary school and its principal before we decided to send all of the children to the private school, so for us, public school was not an option. We had to start seriously considering the H-word.

Homeschool.

The thought of it made me sick to my stomach. We had dabbled before in homeschooling a couple times- once with my oldest for Kindergarten, and once again for my second oldest in second grade. It was a nightmare. I have ADD and I didn't consider myself disciplined enough to be responsible for my children's schooling. Feeding and general care? Got it. But school? Gah. No.way. With my oldest, it was difficult, even in Kindergarten, because he is a typical first born: he loves order and having a plan and knowing what is happening every half an hour.  Couple that with the fact that he loves everything about being in school, from the standing in line to the little desks to the seat work, having a mother who-if pressed into homeschooling-leans more toward the Charlotte Mason way of doing things which means no real schedule and definitely no seat work. 

Like I said: difficult.

When we attempted it again for my second oldest's second grade year, it was another disaster. I had two younger kids at home and underfoot and he was (and is) a stubborn student. In fact, he is the exact opposite of his older brother in that he hates school. Hates everything about it and would happily exist living under my roof, illiterate, for the rest of his life if not for the fact that we have made it clear that this is not an option and if he doesn't want to be homeless when he is an adult, he's got to do the learning thing. 

Like I said: difficult.

So when faced with this option, I cried. I don't mean that I silently cried inside. I actually bawled my eyes out. Maybe even more than once. This time, the prospect of being the one responsible for their education wasn't even the issue. I wasn't scared of homeschooling. Even in the short ten years since we had attempted it the first time, the resources for homeschoolers have expanded and people of all walks of life (not just nutty separatists) have started taking the education of their children back home. Loneliness was of mild concern, but really it was my own loneliness that worried me. No, what made me cry and throw a fit was something quite different this time.

I was mad. I was angry that I was losing my grip on my plans. I was upset that my expectations for my life weren't panning out. That I was going to miss out on my alone time. That this was happening to me. Me. Me. Me. What about me?! Did God not care that this was going to change my life? That it was going to push me far outside of my comfort zone and make me face things inside of myself that I didn't want to see? That it was going to challenge the way I had become a lazy parent?*

Oh He cared. He cared a great deal. He still cares.

And that is why He allowed it to happen. Because doing things in my own strength and with my own plans equaled success in my eyes. If I could do it (anything) on my own, it was work I could be proud of. The "I made this" is strong in me. It was (and from time to time still is) a stronghold that needed to be broken- a place in my heart and life where I had replaced God with hard work and a can-do attitude. A stubborn rebellion to His whispers of "Let me show you what I can do through you, flawed as you are, silly girl."

Over the last six or so months, He has shown me that there is no way I can do this on my own. That most days it is Him and only Him that pulls me out of my depression long enough to teach lessons to my younger kids and assign work to my older kids (we won't talk about the two weeks of "fun school" we did on my bed because I couldn't bring myself to even leave it).
It hasn't been without its problems: a few months into it, I realized that, while doing the work was not a problem for him, my oldest child was becoming a shell of himself-squirreling himself away in his room to do lessons, sleeping, and occasionally reading, then making an appearance long enough to whip the other four kids into a frenzy just to disappear back into his room, leaving me with the aftermath and hurt feelings he caused. My husband and I discussed and with much worry and anguish and copious amounts of prayer, we enrolled him into the second semester at the local public school. He is slowly returning to himself- the outgoing, happy kid that I know so well. He is less annoying to his siblings and while some of the schoolwork there isn't very challenging for him (two of his 10th grade level classes are covering topics that he learned in 6th grade), it is in the trusting God with his heart and mind that I have found strength in our decision. I have no Earthly idea if we've done the right thing, but I trust that God sees us and knows that in our hearts, we are trying to do the best in each kids' situation.

And that is what it is about, isn't it?

Doing what is best for them. 

Trusting in God. 

Knowing He has my heart in His hands.

In the end, homeschooling hasn't been that bad. Though my sarcastic, wry (and stunningly honest) answer to those who ask me how I like it is "It isn't my favorite" doesn't always belie that fact.  I now try to quickly add "But it's growing on me!" at an attempt to not sound completely like Debbie Downer. This year, I gave myself very specific parameters when it came to choosing curriculum with the hope that whatever job my husband eventually acquired would afford us to again be able to send them back to private school. Alas, that didn't happen, so homeschooling is our day to day for the foreseeable future. The problem with the curriculum is that after a while, it is humdrum and boring and difficult to teach if you aren't teaching a classroom full of children. Next year, I plan to stretch myself a bit more and really find things to engage myself my kids. 

And next year, I hope to have some of the angst and worry that's been driven by deep depression (and a few other physical issues) that has gone untreated for such a long time. My hope is that once I am out of the fog, I will be a better teacher.

A better mother.

A better everything.

~M~

*Please do not read this that I think that non-homeschooling parents are lazy. I am not passing judgment on anyone in any way that they choose to educate their kids. I am definitely not a homeschooling snob who thinks that if you aren't doing it yourself, you're doing it wrong. I know that folks like that exist, but I am not one of them. No, this line is purely about me. And it is a post for another day that I will explore what it has come to mean to me to be a "lazy parent".