The Things We Don't Say

As our girls get older, homeschooling gets scarier.  Easier in some ways, yes, but still scarier.

There's more at stake now, you see.  If a six-year-old can't read, it's easy enough to shrug it off and diagnose time, that fabulous cure-all.  If a seven-year-old can't read, the anxiety begins to build.  Will time be enough, or are more drastic measures called for?  If an eight-year-old is still struggling to decipher a sentence, there is a definite tightness in the chest...  Well, at least, that's how I'm imagining it would be.  Thankfully my oldest two are reading and Chatterbox is well on her way.  At least there I can breathe a sigh of relief.

But homeschooling a fourth-grader is starting to step up the pressure - albeit internal pressure.  Lately, I've been feeling overwhelmed by life.  I find myself wondering each day: "what should I be doing?"  "Am I doing the right thing?" and the eternal question of the homeschooler: "Am I doing enough?"

What if I miss teaching something really important?  Will my kids complain to me as adults about how horribly embarrassing it is to be the only people in their workplace who know absolutely nothing about AFL?  And what about friendships?  We seem to know and spend time with loads of people with kids of Chatterbox's age, but Miss Curie is the one who is starting to really crave friendships and we just don't seem to come across many people around her age who she really "clicks" with.  OK, we just don't seem to come across many people her age at all lately.

Who do I talk to about these challenges?  I don't want to talk to our friends with kids at school, because I know that dreaded question will come up - even if it's unspoken, I'll read it in their eyes - "why don't you just send them to school?"  And then what would I say?  What I think is: I don't have a choice. Which, of course, is ridiculous, because I do have a choice.  But to me it's like a choice between right and wrong - home is right, school is wrong.  I can hardly say that to a friend with kids at school, can I? Because that would be saying "I am right and you are wrong".  Which is not what I mean or what I think... well, not exactly.

The further I get from the school world, the more wrong it seems.  Appealing sometimes, yes.  Tempting, definitely.  But wrong.  And yet, I have no doubt that other parents give very careful consideration, and very often prayer and study, just like me, to the question... and come up with school as the answer.  And so... what can I say about these challenges to my schooly friends?  I could hardly blame them for thinking "you made your bed, you lie in it."  I think that myself.  I chose to do this the hard way, so I shouldn't complain.

AND, there's that quiet worry that any admission of hardness or - gulp - failure - will reflect badly on the homeschooling community.  I've learned to value that fragile freedom to choose our own educational path.  I dare not jeopardize the opportunity for others to walk that path by admitting that homeschoolers aren't always entirely competent (gasp!).

BUT if I don't admit to the hard times - to the insecurity and fear of failure, to the feeling that "if one more person touches me today I think I'll explode", to the actual explosions that do happen - then I'm in danger of creating a universe of false expectations among those who walk with us and those who come after us.

BUT if I start talking about these scary moments, I might get so intense that we frighten others off the incredible blessing of this magnificent journey with our children.

And so, if you're like me, with all these opposing thoughts bouncing back and forth, you get trapped in your own head.  Silent.  Overflowing with all the things we don't say.

THEN maybe after a while I get past a scary bit and a bunch of things come together (hoping for this to happen soon!) and life and homeschooling all start running together like a well-oiled machine.  And then of course, in our joy and exuberance I go and tell...

Hang on.  If I start sharing the wonderful things we're learning and doing with schooly friends, they might start to feel defensive.  It could well - probably will - come across as putting down conventional schooling.  It would be like bragging.  Oh.

SO, maybe I can share those great moments with homeschool friends.

EXCEPT a few have just had babies and are in survival mode and I know what that's like.  Better not to say anything to them, because it might hurt them.  And some others used to send their kids to school - they probably don't need me to rub their face in the regret of the difficult couple of years their kids just had at school .  And... And, and, and...

Once again, the silence, overflowing with all the things I don't say.

Is it just me?  Or is it all of us?  Not just homeschoolers - all mothers?  Are there a bazillion things we don't say because we just don't know how to say them right?  Are we afraid of looking bad, or stupid, or obnoxious?  Are we afraid of hurting each other?

I truly believe that I should be actively seeking not only not to hurt others, but to build up and encourage.  How do I do that?  That's the bit I'm still working on, but I'm pretty sure that there are some things that should be said, and I just need to work out how to say them.