Rebekah
I am overwhelmed, feeling like I am doing, doing all day long for my kids and fall into bed at night exhausted, with little accomplished. We seem to get farther and farther behind on homeschool. How do I get out of this hole? [Read more…]
My son Ammon is a sensitive, intelligent boy who loves plants. He is a careful 17-year-old, and he has been working studiously on his budget. I noticed that his budget includes a monthly allowance for “breaking things”. I was amused that he would list such an expenditure, but over the days since we talked about his budget, I have had a taste of what it would be like to be a teenage boy.
Emily is only six years old, but she loves to vacuum! She is too small to maneuver the vacuum cleaner very well, but that doesn’t matter. She is in training, and a partially-vacuumed carpet is better than an unvacuumed carpet!
When I began homeschooling ten years ago, I was in for a shock. “Where do you find the time to do homeschool in addition to the regular daily tasks you were accustomed to doing such as housework, grocery shopping, laundry, and gardening?”, I asked. After several months of exhaustive overload, I figured out the plain and obvious fact that there wasn’t enough mother to go around. From a sheer survival standpoint, I had to delegate the housekeeping duties. Now, looking back ten years later, I can see what a blessing in disguise it has been to not be able to keep up with my workload. As a result, my children are all well trained in housekeeping and cooking. They don’t balk at carrying a hefty portion of the housework chores. It really has become second nature to them, and each new little one that grows into toddlerhood in our home is expected to take on their portion of the work.
With 9 family members taking a daily bath or shower, wet towels built up quickly! I found myself having to do a load per day of just towels.
I solved this problem by buying 4″ lengths of colorful grossgrain ribbon. I let each member select the color they liked, and write their name on the ribbon in permanent marker. This ribbon was safety-pinned to the edge of a bath towel to last all week long. Every Saturday morning, one of the young children was assigned to go and collect all the towels in a laundry basket to be washed.
Mother! The most important person in a young child’s life, indispensable to her husband, focal point of the home, and the one who makes everything right. Big job.
Also, the most exciting job: my first choice! I wouldn’t want any other. The joy of being with my children, the diversity of their personalities, the thrill of learning together daily, and helping them learn about life and how to live uprightly– these things make me feel devoted to motherhood! There isn’t a job that holds such rewards!
There is an eternal law decreed that for every X number of good homeschool days, you will have to endure 1 bad homeschool day.
Calculating the frequency of bad homeschool days is an easy matter. Simply multiply the number of children you have under 5 by the number of children you have going through puberty. If you are pregnant or nursing, multiply this total by 2. (If you are morning-sick, overdue, or having nursing problems, multiply this total by 100.) Add the number of insensitive comments made by your husband since dinner last night. Divide your new total by the number of hours of sleep the students got last night, or the number of hours the teaching mother got last night, whichever is less. If students have eaten junk food within the last 8 hours, add 10. Divide by the number of days in a year and there you have it!—a completely accurate forecast of today’s chances for a blooper day.
I find it a rather interesting fact that 80% of all homeschooled children are boys. That makes a definite statement about the inability of most little boys to sit in desks and endure the regimentation of public school. Little boys are wiggles and adventure. Sitting in a desk for hours on end sounds like cruel and unusual punishment to an energetic little man.
We know we should exercise, but it sure seems hard to make it to the gym, or get out walking or jogging on icy roads. Having children at home for school complicates it even more—who is there to supervise while you are gone?
I’ve come up with a plan—sort of goofy, but it works! So, who can argue?
Today I thought to myself, “If I didn’t have kids to teach, I’d go back to bed.” Ever feel that way? Teaching children really helps us to do our best—doesn’t it?
