A Homeschooling Not So Fairy Tale

Son #1 - Handwriting Without Tears - 2nd grade

The plea on the page was like a time portal carrying me to days I navigated the same heartbreaking struggles:

My son and I have had a truly frustrating day. It took him a whole hour to write, "The king of Egypt was called the Pharaoh." Any suggestions for keeping a badly ADHD 6-year-old a little more focused than that?

I thought back to oral spelling tests when my six-year-old wrapped himself in a blanket and danced on first one foot and then the other to the tune of 'c-a-t'.

How strange we would have looked in my former classroom of twelve boys aged five to nine. Even in that setting, a psychiatric inpatient program for boys too disturbed to participate in a public school class, we expected our students to sit still in a desk.

In truth, they sat but were rarely still. They drooped. They draped. Knees and elbows bounced with the ferocity of human jack hammers. Pencils slipped out of wiggly hands, and rescue maneuvers required contortionist-like feats. Still, they sat.

Son #2 - Junior Olympian 2013

I had no idea how much my life as a teacher was preparing me for my future as a homeschool mom.  Ironically, I also had no idea how my past classroom experience would hamper my adjustment to homeschooling.

I still have one perpetual motion machine left to graduate. In two short years, my nest will be empty. How can it be? Only yesterday, my young friend’s heartfelt cry was mine. Wasn’t it just yesterday I was reduced to tears by a child who just would not sit still and do his work?

I am standing on your horizon looking back at you. I see all the days between the two of us. Perhaps today you feel weary, provoked, frazzled, puzzled and desperate. In fact, you may be wondering if it is time to throw up your hands and call it quits.

I shake my head in wonder because I remember those days. If I told you the truth, I’d tell you I’m not sure I know how we got through all the days I felt the same way you feel now. I can tell you we did, and I can say we are all better for the journey.

I am not an ironfisted homeschooler who will label you a failure or heretic if the day comes when life dictates you make another schooling choice.

Son #1 September K5 Self Portrait 

Among my friends are folks who have a child in public school, one in private school, and another in homeschool all in the same school year.  Some friends transition between private, homeschooling, and back again because of expense.

Over the years, I held my freedom to homeschool loosely. In fact, there have been times I have mounted desperate campaigns to join the traditional schoolers in brick and mortar schools.

I laugh at those efforts now. God made it plain his plan was for me to keep my nose to the homeschool grindstone even though I was buckling under the strain.

How did I know? My husband was laid off every single time we got the private school applications submitted. After a while, even I can take a hint.

We tried public school. I volunteered in our son’s class every day teaching advanced students how to read while the teacher worked with the others on letter recognition.

Son #1 May Self Portrait K5

One day, that courageous woman pulled me aside. “Get him out of here. He will never survive. My son is only in this school because I teach here.” 

I had never really been a snob about homeschooling. I just didn’t know many who had made the choice way back in 1997. 

I did spend eight years chanting, “I will not homeschool.” Every day from the day my pregnancy test came back positive till the day before I brought our son home to school, I sang that song.

God must have laughed at my song. He knew he’d spent a lifetime preparing me to do what I was about to do.

Eleven years later - just after returning from China

We brought our son home to school in the middle of his first grade year. The Valentine’s Day party was on Friday. We took him out on Tuesday. It broke my heart in two. 

I still think of that day every year around Valentine’s Day. Does that surprise you? As I begin to figure out the framework of my post homeschooling life, my friends tell me it is time for me to tell you our story.

I suppose I have hesitated because I feel so mediocre and ordinary. I’m just me, and we’ve just plodded along over the years doing the next thing. There’s nothing heroic or inspiring about that, do you think?

But, yesterday when my friend’s question transported me back across time, it was as if God said, “Now’s the time to tell these mothers all the things you wished someone had been there to tell you. Now’s the time.”

Courtesy B. Creasy -2010

So, I hope you’ll follow along over the next few months as I begin to tell you a once upon a time story that didn’t lead straight to happily ever after. Along the way, I hope we will both be empowered by my journey.

For the link to part 2:
click here

Isaiah 41:10 (NLT)

Don't be afraid, for I am with you. Don't be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.

Monday Meet Up – Week 2

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I was feeling pretty desperate to breathe today. The pace of life leaves me dizzy at times. Over the past three weeks or so, I needed great big gulps of air to keep checking things off my never ending to do list. What about you?

When I decided to start this Monday Meet Up series in preparation for the in(RL) virtual conference on April 26^th and 27^th, I had no idea how life would unfold today.

It’s been one of those days when I think God’s sense of humor has taken license with my life – if you know what I mean?

A month or so ago, a friend approached me with a business idea. It was courageous, gracious, and timely given my life circumstance.

We discussed my reservations but agreed we would move forward and work together to create a win-win for both of us.

Courtesy Aly Hughes

Neither of us had attempted a project of this nature before, so we weren’t really sure what the finished product would be. We gave it a courageous try knowing things would take shape as we progressed. 

Then, life began to happen. What looked good in theory became frustrating and cumbersome in reality. We backed up and took a run at redefining and redesigning our ideas.

Just when I thought we had come up with a solution for the issues that had perplexed us, I received news that blew our best laid plans to bits.

Given the news, I simply could not, in good conscience, commit to the plans we had hoped to accomplish.

It was heart-rending to face the music and break the news. It was even a little demoralizing to admit I was done before I had gotten a chance to begin.

As a people pleaser addicted to pleasing, it hurt even more to know I was letting down a friend. I chastised myself for letting my family down because the plan would have benefited all of us as well.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Even as I winced and wrestled with myself and God over the decision before me, I had a serene sense that he was in the midst of the details.

It was as if he whispered, “Your dilemma, the question behind the question, is what happens if you let go of better in search of what is best. This plan, as wonderful as it is, has come at the wrong season of your life. It is o.k. to let go. I am here.”  

As I re-define my life in light of the encroaching empty nest years and the present reality of a marital separation, I have looked at the future with fear.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Will my marriage heal? How does a woman in her fifties re-create a job history with current work experience when she has not worked full-time in over 2 decades? Who will I be when I am no longer the homeschooling wife and mother I have always been? 

How can I walk away from an opportunity like the one my friend offered when it seems to be exactly what would answer all those questions and more? Oh, the agony.

After my jangled nerves had stopped clanging like an old fashioned church bell in a belfry, I sat down with my copy of Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe. I took a deep breath. One of those cleansing breaths they talk about so much in Lamaze classes (which I failed by the way).  

I opened the book and re-read the first two chapters looking more closely at the things I highlighted the first time through. Do you see the humor I see in my life when I tell you that the first section is entitled: "The Dream Life . . . Altered"?

Today, my life dreams were refined. Again. I am the fraidy ‘bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ cat. I was prying my bony claws loose from the bird in the hand all day long. I read Sarah Mae’s words.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Many of my ideals were good, but the standard I set for myself to meet them was completely unrealistic. (p.5)

She was speaking of her struggles as a young mother to meet her goals for mothering. Yet, in her words, I saw my story taking place in a different season of life.

Mine is a fraidy cat story of being torn between better and best. What’s yours? What are the high standards, the unrealistic expectations of self, that rob you of oxygen?

I’ll be blogging a bit more about the first two chapters of Desperate by Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson this week. Come back and bring a friend. You and I both know we are all struggling to breathe given the hectic lives we lead these days!

See you soon, fraidy cat? Don’t make me come looking! 

Courtesy  B. Creasy - 2010

Isaiah 41:10 (Amplified Bible)

Fear not [there is nothing to fear], for I am with you; do not look around you in terror and be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen and harden you to difficulties, yes, I will help you; yes, I will hold you up and retain you with My [victorious] right hand of rightness and justice.