I love homeschooling my kids. Our family has chosen to homeschool for a variety of reasons that have evolved over the years. The number one reason I homeschool my children is that I believe they are getting a really good education at home individual instruction and learning that is tailored to their own strengths and weaknesses. I have a lot of respect for good teachers, and I believe that there are a good number of good teachers out there. Even the best teachers, however, cannot be expected to make 30 individual lesson plans dependant on the ability of each student and then spend hours of one-on-one time with each child, every day. That is ludicrous. Since I have the ability to homeschool my kids and give them that kind of attention; I do.
Of course, there are other perks. For example… if we’re sick, we can do school in our pajamas… we never miss the bus… we can chose to go on vacation in the middle of November if we want to and then make up the time on Saturdays or in July… and I never have to cry on the first day of Kindergarten… The list could go on and on…
But here’s the problem I seem to be having lately. I’m just going top put it right out there, and you can do with it what you may. Most homeschooling families seem to have vastly different reasoning than we do behind their decision to educate their children at home.
In recent years, I have identified a couple of different homeschooling “groups”. First of all, there are the ultra religious homeschoolers who aren’t allowed to associate with anyone else. Coming from a pastor’s wife, you might find this statement funny. There is nothing funny about it. In fact, we met some of these people, and they would hardly talk to us or acknowledge that we were in the room. At some point, a few weeks later, the “secret” came out that we were a pastor’s family, and suddenly they wanted to be friends! Uh… I just don’t work that way. I mean… not that I would be any better than anybody else if I refused to associate with them, but I don’t feel all that comfortable with people who only like me for my husband’s job. So sue me.
The bigger issue with this is that it really limits your sphere of influence. I did have to laugh the other day, though, because as I was sitting in Caleb’s music class I realized that 80% of the kids were homeschooled. And to be completely fair, I really do like one of those families and I don’t really know the others. The 20% that aren’t homeschooled come from a wonderful, Christian family, and I like them, too. I have heard members of that family express the pressure to homeschool, however, as if some people do not feel they are being good parents because they put their kids on the bus. Give me a break. That’s totally not what this is about.
Along those same lines, though, it occurred to me that our sphere of influence is pretty limited. Part of the reason I enrolled my kids in classes was to get them out there where we could meet different people. And here we find ourselves… every week… immersed in life with other homechooling Christians. I’m not pulling my kids out of classes because of it. That would be stupid… and judgmental… and discriminatory. But I am wondering where we can go for a little more diversity…
Now, the second “group” seems to be the high class, designer jeans, perfect Mary Kay make-up, professional hair cut, and I’ll one up you with 2 or 3 more perfectly behaved kids than you have to boot group… These are the ones I ran into today…
I have no class…
You know, most days I do manage to take a shower and comb through my outrageously wild curly mane of fluff. If we’re going somewhere I try to dress the kids in clothes that match and run the comb through their hair, too.
Today was not like that.
We had a couple of little issues that got us off to a rough start…
The first one was the broken washing machine. The washing machine has been broken all week. In our family, that is almost a crisis. Phil ordered the part we need to fix it, and it was supposed to be here today, except we forgot it was Veteran’s Day (no mail). Miah has been wearing her brothers’ old clothes for the past two days. There were precious few things to choose from, this morning. I think Seth just wore what he wore yesterday (which isn’t all that unusual for a 10 year old boy). At least he matched. I hope he changed his underwear. Caleb was completely out of pants, so he borrowed some from Seth. Ian was completely out of clothes except for pants, so he borrowed a shirt from Caleb. Grace… who is a diva… came down dressed to the 9s in a pink shirt and skirt, leggings, and matching shoes and socks. I don’t know where they came from. I mean, I do remember buying them… she didn’t rob a department store or anything… but the child has so many outfits it’s hard to keep track. The matching shoes and socks caused me to survey Caleb and Ian’s feet. They were bare, as expected. I sent them to the mismatched sock basket (where socks go in our house after the dryer eats one mate). Each of them put on two socks. The socks did not match. Mercifully, I found an outfit for Miah that is a size too big and stuffed her into it along with her nasty disposable diaper (I mean, it was clean. I just hate disposable diapers but had to give in and use them this week, because I can’t wash the cloth ones due to the broken washing machine).
The second issue was the backed up bathtub. Are you kidding me? Most of the kids shower, so no issue there, but I am not a shower person… and even if I was, I am not using their shower. I have lived in this house for almost 3 years and have avoided that shower completely (I think… although now that I wrote that I may have one memory of having to use the kids’ shower)… At any rate, it didn’t make much of a difference, because we were out of time, anyway. I threw on clean underwear, my clothes from yesterday, and a hat.
We then proceeded to drive an hour and a half away (after stopping at Dairy Queen for chicken strip baskets… I know the drive-through people by sight and they know me. I think it must have been pretty obvious that my day wasn’t going too great, because they gave us extra chicken). And our homeschool science adventure of the day began…
To be honest, Caleb, Ian, Miah, and I had a wonderful time for the first hour and 15 minutes or so. As far as I know, Seth and Grace had an enjoyable time, as well. Caleb participated in a demonstration about estimating and then we ventured around the science center taking part in various activities including a moon walk simulation, which was pretty cool. We sent Caleb off to his lab after that, passed Seth and Grace on their way to their demonstration, and Ian, Miah, and I headed for the toddler/preschool area. I proceeded to nurse Miah while Ian ran around like a tornado and got soaking wet in the water table. Ironically, this seemed irritating to some of the other parents. I am always a little shocked at parents who completely ignore their children while talking to their friends and then wonder why their kids are wet when they left them playing at the water table or in bubble solution unattended… I am almost sure that one mother thought that Ian had drenched her child, but the truth is her kid almost fell into the bubble table some 10 feet away from where Ian was playing. He had absolutely nothing to do with it (ahem… for once…)
As I attempted to get Ian out of a slide (easier said than done), Seth and Grace came running in (kind of loudly), and I instructed them to wait quietly… and without motion… while I coaxed their brother down the slide and out of the area. They did. It took awhile. We all headed to another level and picked up their math packets, which didn’t make Seth too happy, but both older children started working on them anyway… slowly. As I helped them, I accidentally turned my back on Ian for approximately 3 seconds as he managed to disassemble a metal exhibit and throw it at a little girl. This is the one moment in which I would have understood if one of the perfect homeschool moms was angry. I apologized. She smiled (sort of) and moved her child to a safer area. I rebuilt the exhibit.
By this time, it was almost time to go. We all jumped into the elevator with the janitor who seems to me to just be a precious elderly woman whom I have never seen anyone else speaking to. I talked to her on the trip down. She seemed surprised and genuinely pleased. I was pleased, too, because no one else would talk to me, either.
When we reached the lab classroom, all of the children (including Caleb) were gone. I was not too happy about this. The other moms looked down their noses at me like I was irresponsible for not being there when the doors opened. I have never had an experience there where they have released the children without parents. In a slight panic I began calling Caleb (probably a little louder than most people would have liked). Seth, Grace, and Ian were begging to go into a quick walk through exhibit, so I told them to go ahead (as long as they stayed with Ian) and that I would meet them at the end (hopefully with Caleb). Caleb materialized quickly and told me he’d been looking “everywhere” for me. We pushed the stroller to the end of the exhibit I’d sent Seth, Grace, and Ian into, but after waiting for what seemed like forever it became apparent that maybe they weren’t in there, after all. We began walking toward the start of the exhibit when the mom of the very wet, fell into the bubbles, toddler exclaimed, “Is that your son?” I said, “yes,” before I even saw Ian, because I knew it would be him. He was too scared to go through the exhibit now and was blocking the entrance. I attempted to collect him, as Caleb begged to do a quick run through. I agreed, and as I worked to get Ian down and away from the entrance, Caleb got a little over excited and sort of plowed through a couple of kids who were waiting in line. I don’t think he meant to, but there stood guardian mom, again, and she got all over Caleb. This was almost my breaking point. However, instead of saying what I really wanted to say, I looked only at Caleb and said something to the effect of, “You must wait your turn behind the other children who were here first.” I really said it like that… with a sickeningly sweet voice. Caleb looked at me like I’d totally lost it, but he quickly got behind the other kids, which was what confirmed it for me that he wasn’t trying to be pushy… he was just excited. But… oh… we still hadn’t retrieved Ian! At this point, several of the other mother’s children and friends decided that they, also, were too scared to go through the exhibit… Well… what do you know… and they ran over Caleb on their way down the ladder. Caleb and I just stood there looking bewildered, but without such a crowd he was able to climb up and I was able to yank Ian down.
Ian, Miah, and I waited at the end of the tunnel for Seth, Grace, and Caleb. Eventually, Caleb and Seth came through (it took a long time). Then we waited some more (remember, this place is getting ready to close), but Grace never showed up. I sent Seth to the entrance to call to her. After quite a while, she came out. Except now Seth was missing. I sent Grace to the entrance to call to him and told her to come right back. Seth came out… No Grace. So now I’m getting flustered (and thinking this is kind of like a bad episode of The Three Stooges). I sent Seth, again, to call for Grace and told him not to go back through. I mentioned to the other mom that maybe there was a full moon tonight. She told me she didn’t think so, because it was just a sliver last night. I knew that, because I’d actually taken note of the moon last night. I admitted that we had no excuse for today. Grace came out. Seth came back. And we proceeded to wait in line for the elevator.
Eventually, all of the other people waiting in line gave up and took the stairs. We pushed the button again and the door opened.
I think some of my “normal” friends would have laughed with us. But it’s OK. We survived even without friends today.
We drove through Chick-Fil-A for more chicken and fries. We drove an hour and a half home. Phil had Casey’s chicken waiting for me. Seriously… you are not what you eat…
Lisa
