How homeschool is going
It's complicated. Thoughts from the trenches of year one
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As some of you know, we’re on year one of homeschooling over here, about four months in now! My kids are 8, 6, and 3. Homeschooling is something I’ve had on my radar since becoming a mother but wasn’t totally sure about. Then, it was something I did really want but felt practically out of reach, so we sent our kids to school for their first few years.
Now, we’re doing it.
(I talked in this short podcast about what changed—why it felt like it was time to make the jump vs. years previously feeling like we/I couldn’t manage it.)
Many people have asked me how it’s going, and it’s hard to give a response because I have so many thoughts. And it’s… not a simple answer. How’s it going? Um, depends on when you ask me?
It’s going fine!
It’s really overwhelming.
It’s everything I knew it would be.
It’s not working.
It’s honestly incredible.
There have been moments of total chaos, where I’ve thought, “Yeah they’re going back to school next year.” And there have been moments of pure joy, where I’ve thought, “This is absolutely amazing. I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
Luckily, I’m used to this back-and-forth. This is exactly how I felt frequently as I’ve been home with my kids: alternating feelings of “this is bliss” and “this is torture.” I felt a deep call to care for my kids in their early years, but it’s the truth to say that I’ve also found it really challenging.
I think that’s because it is really challenging. As Lane Scott wrote in her excellent piece “A Mother’s Gauntlet”—
“The reason most women flee the home is because homemaking actually is the most difficult job in the world. It is the job of making oneself and one’s children self-governing.”
Despite the way many of us may be inclined to think of it due to years of cultural indoctrination, being home with your kids isn’t easy, really at all. When you choose to be in charge of your kids and home—whether homeschooling or not—you’re taking on a lot of responsibility. Not only that, but no one is watching or helping or paying you.
It’s, um, a lot.
And yet here we are. So how’s it going? Well, here are 9 things I’d like to share, a smattering of observations, realizations, resources, random thoughts, and tactics gleaned from my first four months of being a homeschool mom.