The Struggle

The Struggle

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts and reading a lot of articles on homeschooling, free schooling, unschooling and the like. I’ve been reading, researching and listening as much as I can in order to figure out how to make this learning at home, learning from life thing work for our family.

Unfortunately, I don’t know that any of this work I am doing is really helping, though, because it all sounds so wonderful and idyllic.  Our life, a year since we pulled our kids from school, still feels quite random and chaotic.  

And as lovely and inspiring as it is to hear from all these other families out there how awesome homeschooling and unschooling is and can be, it’s also quite frustrating because it does not feel that way to us. 

Every week we go to the park to gather with other homeschooling families to let our kids run and play in the sun.  And we have even joined a homeshcool co-op which offers the kids an opportunity to learn some new things from new people for 12 weeks at a time.  I would love to say that these things have made a big difference for us, but I don’t know that I can. 

It makes a difference for my kids to see other kids their age every week, but to me it all feels exhausting- the park day and the co-op. At least doing those two things every week makes me feel like I am at least doing something and it helps a little to quell my guilt and worry, but it does nothing for my spirit nor does it nurture a love for homeschooling or unschooling. None of this has felt easy or idyllic and I would really love for this experience to feel that way.

It feels a lot the same as motherhood has: hard. And what sucks about that is that the message that seems to be out there is that it must be my fault that motherhood is or has been hard, and I must have created all of this in my head with my thoughts. What if motherhood and bringing our kids home to learn is hard? What if no one is really being honest about the struggle inherit in both raising kids and homeschool?  It sure feels that way to me.  

I would like to believe that we can figure this out. I would like to believe that my kids natural love of learning and participation in life will happen, but I’m not sure.  I’m not sure if my 11 year old son will ever get excited about learning again after the crash and burn we experienced during third grade. I’m not sure my 6 year old daughter will ever have enough time to play with other kids every week to fulfill her needs.  And I’m not sure I will ever like this homeschool gig, though I would like to. 

All I can think about is how do we get to the good, the sweet, the peaceful in all of this because we are all still struggling?  How do we create a calm, joyful, harmonious home and learning experience for all of us? Will this ever change? Will my husband and I ever not feel stuck in this? I don’t know.  All I know is that all I can do is take this journey one step at a time, one day, and sometimes one hour at a time.  All I can do is just keep trying new things in the hope that something will work and stick. 

Maybe it’s hard for everyone who goes this route at first even if others don’t really talk about it? Maybe it takes at least 3 years of struggle before a family finds the way of learning that works best for them?  Maybe my sharing this will let others who are struggling with finding their way in homeschooling or unschooling know that they are not alone? Maybe we can actually talk about the fact that sending our kids to school is probably a lot easier than keeping them home and that keeping them home to learn requires constant engagement on the part of the parents and that is super hard.  Maybe it will all work out as we go along, it will just take time. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

Maybe all we can do is hang in there and not give up.