Letter from an Imperfect Homeschool Mom

I got the idea for this post from a post on HSBA from Darcy.



Dear Fellow Homeschooling Mom,

Although at first glance, during a random homeschooling social event, I may appear to be a fine specimen of a devoted homeschooling mother and my children may appear to be on the verge of child prodigy status, this is not in fact the truth. I am guilty of the following imperfections:

Yes, our family is devoted to our homeschooling lifestyle. This devotion does not however prevent me from a variety of threats, when my child is particularly annoying or rebellious. These random threats will almost always include taking my child down to the nearest public school and enrolling them.

Because of our homeschooling lifestyle you may hear me send a child to his room for timeout, I will then yell "And no reading books, while your in there!" to further punish that child.

Sometimes, I take a whole week to work on "life skills" with my children- they clean their rooms. Often this week of "life skills" lessons is triggered by the fact that my child's bedroom floor is so completely covered in Lego's that I can no longer get to their dresser to put away clothes.

While working with a struggling learner, I will have a moment of sheer panic, when I doubt myself, my child, and my ability to teach them anything at all. I rethink the whole homeschooling thing. Can I really do this? What was I thinking? And I look out the window longingly as a school bus drives by. What would my alternate reality be like....Kids out of the house by 8 am, a whole morning and afternoon to myself, a clean home, shopping ALONE, lunch with my girlfriends, and back to that struggling child-Why can't that PS teacher get through to him? He is still not reading, this is all HER fault. "MOM! The baby poured blue Tempera powder on the carpet!" a child yells and I am snapped back to reality.

You know how everyone always asks you "What about socialization?" Well-we don't have a problem with that, we sometimes socialize TOO MUCH. My mother-in-law once kindly observed, " You sure aren't really home much to HOMEschool, are you?" I'm pretty sure, watching videos in the van, does not qualify us for car-schooling.

This will be my most shocking revelation yet....we have library fines! Yes, we break, repetitively the most sacred rules of library card usage. (I'll wait a moment as you recover from your shock...) We visit the library almost every week, but sometimes life happens, and I get busy and forget to renew. Shoot I forget what we even have checked out. The library books make friends with the books we own and blend in despite their glaringly obvious bar codes. And we are at the library checking out again and the librarian says " Oh, you have $14.50 in fines for..."-some obscure book titles I have never heard of. So when they start construction on that new wing of the library, do not be surprised if there is a plague that states, This project funded by the Mitchell family's library fine.

My children are not 2 grades ahead, they are not geniuses, they are not child prodigies. They are just normal average kids. They have some subjects they are better at than others. Sometimes they are behind, in their "grade level".Will they grow up to change the world in some huge way? Maybe, but I'd be just as happy, if they grew up to love their life, learning, and gave me a few grand-kids.

"You look so confident, and you have everything all together." Who are you talking about, because I can tell you right now, that person is not me. I am completely terrified and have no idea what I am doing. I wake up each day and get through it with sheer determination to stick to what I said I would do, I try my best with what I have, and I have the faith that God would not let me completely mess up my children by homeschooling them.

So those are some of my imperfections as a homeschooling mom. Some of the mantras that keep me going despite my glaringly obvious mistakes are:

LEARNING IS NOT A PRODUCT, IT IS A PROCESS.

DO YOUR BEST AND LET GOD DO THE REST.

A LITTLE HOMESCHOOLING A DAY, KEEPS CPS AWAY.

Most of all my fellow homeschooling mothers, I want you to know you are not alone. Non of us are perfect, we all struggle, we all have days where our fuse is short, our patience used up. What we also have in common is that we all want the best for our kids, that's one of the reasons we homeschool. Your heart is in the right place and for the most part you are in-tune to what your kids need-So don't be too hard on yourselves. Don't be afraid. You can do this-If I can, you can!
In the immortal words of my loving mother-in-law, while I,as a new mother,was stressed out that my 3 1/2 year old was still not potty trained, "Don't worry so much, he'll definitely be potty trained by the time he's 16!" So-fellow homeschool mothers, DO NOT WORRY, by age 30, they will surely be successful members of society.

Wishing you a homeschool day in your pajamas,
April Mitchell