The fragility of homeschool

moveable hearts & minds & winding rivers of sanity

When learning is self-care aka. Bunnies

There’s a fragile feeling to homeschool sometimes.

You can work to build a community while simultaneously surrendering to the fact that you don’t know how long that community is going to hold. You can hope that you’re all in it together, and that there’s solidarity within the group - a commitment, even if opinions differ - but everyone homeschools for different reasons and the reality is: some people go into it knowing that it’s temporary. For others, it becomes temporary - kids change, parents change, circumstances change…

I suppose this is true with any community.

We are moveable beings: minds and hearts. Bodies in space.

Change is in our design. (Thank goodness.)

And. Also. I admit to feeling like: nobody leave! Lol. Stay put!

My kids haven’t ever asked to go to school. Questions about what kids do all day in school? Sure. But I think if they didn’t feel a sense of community outside of school, and they didn’t get to see other kids during the weekdays when their public school friends are in school…it might be different.

Even though they are still young….the questions have already shifted to: will you homeschool through middle school? And high school? (Which tells me - first and foremost - that people have accepted that we’re here through elementary school at least lol. Credibility heyaaaa)

I try to assume best intentions when people ask, like…they’re just curious. But it’s hard not to receive it as a judgement sometimes, too. My mind immediately goes to: what is it you think they’ll be missing?

I think people still think of homeschool as being this super sheltered thing - a bubble vs. the real world. Can it be? Absolutely. I don’t want to defend all homeschools because as I’ve alluded to before….it can go wildly wrong and it can be abused (as can school-school.)

But I feel like asking back: will you/your kids do public school through middle school? And high school?

It’s not like anyone is asking public school kids: are you gonna keep doing that?

BLASPHEMY lol

Actually a friend of the kiddos was sitting at our kitchen table, asking me a dozen questions about homeschool. Why we do it, if we were ever going to send them to a “real school,” what we do all day, “woah, you aren’t always home? They have homeschooled friends?!” - it was very cute. I could see her brain sifting through new information; world expanding. She had clearly been told things about homeschooling, which was interesting…like she came in with an idea of what it was and I took great delight in debunking her myths. And then a little bit later she sighed and said, “I wish I was homeschooled,” to which I did an internal fist pump - not because I think she should be homeschooled, but because I was grateful for the validation for my kiddos, who were there listening, chiming in, and asking questions about public school right back.

I share this because what this points to, for me, is the collaboration that lies at the heart of homeschooling. It’s not just a question of whether or not the kids want to do it, but whether or not the parent/adult can and also wants to do it.

I would say more often than not, when we have hard homeschool days, it’s a me-bandwidth problem. My kids (at least right now) don’t resist the work. In fact, they ask for it more than I’m ready for…which doesn’t help the me-bandwidth problem lol.

But that is part of the learning process, for me. How does homeschooling stay sustainable for the one who is doing the homeschooling?

(Not to say that if you start, you have to keep going. My friend said it well: there’s also a danger in “over-attaching to the identity of a homeschool parent” and perhaps refusing a change you might need.)

But even if your whole self is in it (which mine is)…and your kids are thriving (which they are)…there are still hard days. For me, they are never so hard as to make me want to throw in the towel. But they do have me thinking creatively about how I take care of myself in relationship to the demands. Oddly, staying up till midnight writing on substack is one of those things. Should I be sleeping? Probably. But this feels like care, too, and honestly - I’m crankier when I can’t get my words out lol. I’m learning a lot by watching other moms on the path, as well; each of us carving out our own winding rivers of sanity. It’s inspiring to see what people need, and how they are getting it. And conversely, what happens when the needs aren’t met, and how we all respond.

It feels less fragile, when you have that.