I feel like I want to share this and I don’t know where else to do it (because no one in my life is on a similar path!)! My husband and I and our four children attended a family reunion/bbq yesterday at his aunt and uncle’s house. It was lovely. His family is great and it was nice to catch up. There were a handful of cousins for our kids to play with that they rarely see and it was so wonderful to see the kids of various ages playing together. Truly a lovely day!
After I would say hello to somebody and we would start catching up, invariably they would start asking about school and when the kids would start and then, phew, I would get a break from all the kids. So I would tick off their ages and grades and agree because we decided we aren’t sharing our decision to homeschool at this point with the extended family. We don’t want to hear from the peanut gallery right now as it’s a new decision and we are excited and nervous and just don’t want to hear the negative. BUT, the fact that every person I talked to asked about school reminded me of how much “school” is ingrained in our culture. It made me reflect on how we (collective) have all these kids and then are so enthusiastic about shipping them off to school so we don’t have to deal with them all day. Now that my eyes have been opened to this dynamic and the possibilities of homeschooling, I find it a bit strange and unsettling. And yes, I will admit that all the cousins asking me about schooling then makes me doubt a little if we are really doing this for the right reasons. My husband’s family is very accomplished. We have a CEO, retired Navy captain, general counsel, Stanford grad, etc. And they are truly sweet and lovely people. But seriously… how/when did our society become this way about school? Why do we have kids if we don’t want to be around them? And please don’t get me wrong. I love my children but I am no saint and am not the most patient parent. And I need breaks just like anyone else. It’s not that I literally want to spend all my waking hours with my children (although that’s what we’re about to do, essentially!) But this whole “how quickly can I get rid of my kid” thing really rubs me the wrong way. And not in judgment of those families and people who say that because frankly I was one of them a couple years ago. But is this the best our society can do? We have kids and then finds ways to offload them? We micromanage every second of their day and then wear ourselves out and ship them off because we can’t do it anymore? (Vs previous generations where children were basically sent out to play and weren’t see for hours…)
It all makes me wonder if I’m missing something after 7 years of being a parent and that I really need more of a break than I realize.
I’d imagine quite a few of you have had similar conversations over the years. I am sure I will have plenty more. But the way that every single adult I talked to yesterday brought this up really hit home with me. It’s not so much that I’m doubting homeschooling as I am questioning what exactly we’re doing to make it so bad to spend time with your children and how exactly did I come to the conclusion that I don’t fit into that mold?
Excuse my massive rant this morning. I get philosophical early in the morning. LOL! Feel free to chime in if you’d like!