Who'schooling: Mom

Once upon a time, I tried so hard. With the books, and the papers, and the pencils, and the assignments, and the sighing, and stomping, and flopping with exasperation, and the crying baby, or the morningsick me, or needing to spend the morning mowing a lawn rather than battle my son's ironclad apathy about completing worksheets at the kitchen table. I did try.

Gears ground hotly in my head as my careful plans were, at best, rejected. At worst? Done badly, barely. My integrated and exciting activities were reduced to mere hoops through which an obligatory jump was half-heartedly executed. 

And I didn't even have packets.

 I was packetless. 

I'll back up. See, homeschooling wasn't my original plan when having kids. I loved school, and couldn't wait to enroll my own li'l learners, while simultaneously getting all up in the PTC/boosters/fundraisers/whathaveyou. 

Plot twist: The oldest two did not feel like playing along with my grand delusions of someday owning one of those My Kid SuperLoves School bumper stickers. They never even liked school, showing and saying so in a number of ways. I tried to talk them out of it, volunteered at the schools, backed off, pushed in, celebrated victories, tried to appear nonchalant about victories, ignored defeats, and nearly sounded like I was threatening them when their unhappiness stubbornly flared and I'd bring up The Homeschool Option.

I never expected them to take me up on it.

But they did, and we've got the blog to prove it. No need to say much more. Messy, fun, brilliant, frustrating years followed, as we learned and lived in the same sticky spot. A spot we find ourselves in, once again. 

With packets. 

And Zoom meetings, calls with specialists, and weekly online quizzes.

Across the world, millions of parents are currently realizing what I struggled to hold in my head without shame all those years: School at home, kind of sucks. It feels like a tremendous buck with very little bang, running in several different academic directions every day, while juggling a home and raising siblings/pets/corn. 

Reading friends' Facebook memes these days gives me no satisfaction. That thing I found so difficult? Really is difficult.

We are doing that difficult thing as well as we can right now, to stay ready for the fall, whatever it brings. But, these days have me reminiscing about a time when, instead of playing school at home, we did everything else, everyday, in the space created by bowing out of civil conventions.

Staying home can be the start of something valuable, something that might not have happened otherwise. That's how we rolled, for years, literally.

It is this belief that compelled me to have a talk with the homestudents,Thomas, George, and Mae, about contributing something here, soon. This blog could use some new voices, saying stuff about things.

This week, the BU crew has an unofficial assignment of the home variety: I have asked them to fill this space with their own original posts, photos, thoughts, antics, and exploits. What they're up to, what we're up against, and what it's all about.  I'll do what I do best: set the stage, rake up the aftermath, and call the authorities if necessary. See you all between things, just doing what I do best: trying to keep up.