A Musing Maralee

June 4, 2013
by Maralee
5 Comments

Improving our “Diets”

In my typical day I see some pretty disturbing sights. I watch my kids put things in their mouth that would make the adult world gag. They are happy to lick rocks, put handfuls of dirt in their mouths, or eat food they found on the ground. Which makes it all the more frustrating when they turn their noses up at the meal I spent an hour preparing. I’m convinced that if I could just add some nutritional value to Play-Doh we’d all be happy. Maybe next time I’ll mix up a batch with some green beans smashed into the dough.

While I’m focusing on creating healthy meals with homemade ingredients, my kids are focused on talking their grandparents into sending them more candy or taking them out for pizza. They know fast food and candy aren’t necessarily good for them, but it’s a struggle to help them make good choices about what they put in their bodies. While I’ve learned a little more discipline when it comes to my food choices, I understand the struggle when it comes to what I feed my mind.

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June 2, 2013
by Maralee
Comments Off on A Life in Status- May #5, 2013

A Life in Status- May #5, 2013

(Watch it unfold in realtime here or even here)

Daughter (seeing me with a whisk): Mom, why you losing that for?
Me: Honey, it’s “using”, not “losing”. U-u-uuusing.
Daughter: U-u-losing.
Me: U-U-Using.
Daughter: U-u-LOSING.
Me: No, Honey it’s-
Daughter: Mom, why you have that?
Close enough.

All of my usual plates are dirty, so I am eating off of the Happy Birthday plate. What should be a plate of joy has become my plate of shame.

Daughter comes out wearing a seasonally inappropriate outfit.
Me: Oh Honey, we can’t wear that out today.
Daughter: Oooooooh. Okay. I get a new hat.
#almost

Child accidentally walks in the room while you’re changing clothes. Startled, they yell, “A monster!”
Not a confidence booster.

At this point I’m not sure if my daughter sleeps on a bed or just a sort of bed shaped pile of stuffed animals.

Four year-old woke up early and came to snuggle with me on the couch in our quiet house. He said, “I love when Daddy say” and then he did a perfect imitation of Brian snoring in the other room. Ah, Saturday mornings.

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June 1, 2013
by Maralee
4 Comments

The Public School Parent Pledge

Public school moms,

We’ve got our quirks and struggles. We are a diverse group, but we’ve got some things in common. Let’s make a pledge to work on this stuff:

-Let’s remember that education doesn’t just happen between the hours of 8 and 3. We need to be teaching our kids the important stuff that happens during the rest of life.

-Let’s be involved in our children’s schools– volunteering, having lunch, encouraging our teachers.

-Let’s quit publicly complaining about having to deal with our kids over long breaks. As difficult as it can be, that time with our kids is a blessing we need to cherish.

-Let’s eat meals as a family and be intentional about having meaningful conversations.

-Let’s invest in the moms of the children at our school. We can be praying for each other, our kids, their teachers and administrators.

-Let’s not close our eyes to the failings of our schools just because we appreciate the service they provide.

-Let’s actively find times for our kids to engage in relationships with friends who share our beliefs.

-Let’s invest in the homeschooling moms around us. Their schedules are different, but their hearts are the same. We need to make the effort to be involved in their lives.

-Let’s use our available time while our kids are at school to be building relationships, helping others, and using our energy wisely so we can really have meaningful time with our kids when they get home.

-Let’s not over-schedule our limited time with our kids.

-Let’s teach our kids to respect authority by being supportive of their teachers and seeking to understand their side of any conflicts.

-Let’s be sure we communicate to our kids that education is important, but character matters more.

-Let’s be sure we’re opening the door for questions our kids might have about difficult topics. We need to be the first ones to address those issues with them and they need to know we aren’t afraid.

-Let’s be conscious of what we say about others in front of our kids. Let them hear us building others up and valuing unity.

-Let’s own the hurts that have been caused to our homeschooling sisters by thoughtless remarks, even if we weren’t the ones that made them. We can validate their pain and make a step towards healing.

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May 31, 2013
by Maralee
7 Comments

School Choice- In their own words

It’s been great to be able to share with you my thoughts and feelings regarding school choices. I hope what you’ve heard from me is that whatever your decision, make it with a dedication to love your children well and support your sisters who are loving their children well even if their school choice is something different. I will have one more post tomorrow, but I really wanted to get this one to you as soon as possible because I think it’s so good.

I know my experience (just having one Kindergartner) is limited, so I’m delighted to share with you the voices of some people I admire. I can vouch for the character and faith of each one and I’m thankful they were willing to share their stories with me. Here are their school choice thoughts in their own words:

As someone who has been homeschooling for 14 years and now has children in both public school and homeschool, I can honestly say that I have never once experienced someone making snarky comments to me about our choice to homeschool. I’ve had cashiers ask my children what school they go to, but we were always proud to smile and say we homeschool. For some reason it was never offensive to me. It was always an opportunity to be a light. I appreciate the different points of view from both my public school mom friends and homeschool mom friends. . . they keep me balanced. For us the choice of education has been tailored to each child and what their needs are/were. I know that we tend to have this need to passionately defend our choice, but then we close the door to something that may be better for a particular child. It’s really not about us and what works best for us as moms, but what is best for the child. I had to let go of my dreams when I realized public school was a better option for one of my kids. God broke me when I realized it would be pride and selfishness on my part to keep him home. But what a relief to be in His will! We always need to be willing to listen to how God is leading, and if we speak so negatively about the other side, we put ourselves in a difficult position if God does lead us the other way at some point.

-Cristy

I am a parent of seven children, and through our children’s (many!) years of education, we have done just about everything—private Christian schools, homeschool co-op, and public schools. Plus, I have many friends who are homeschoolers. I respect that choice—and frankly, all choices of schooling that are made by parents who are making them in the best interests of their child’s education. This is not a “right or wrong” decision, but one made (one hopes) with wisdom and deliberation and humility.

Having said that, I have to say that there is something that I have heard many, many times from both private school-ers and homeschoolers, and that is something along the lines that they chose their particular mode of schooling as a way of protecting/shielding their kids from all of the bad stuff/bad people that are “out there”.

Dear, dear friends—the biggest sinner your child will encounter in his lifetime is YOU. He is around you more than anyone else, and is seeing up close and personal your foibles and failures. Your hypocrisies. Your secrets that you think no one knows. Your failure to be patient, loving, and forgiving. The evil is not “out there” somewhere; it is in our hearts. It’s being gently and tenderly rooted out by the Master Gardener, one day at a time, it’s true; but it is there and real, and has more of an impact on your kid than probably anything else in his life. Even that kid next to him, who isn’t as well behaved or doesn’t have good social skills or is flailing around in most of his subjects.
Make an informed decision about your schooling for your child–YES! But if you are making it on the basis of keeping your children away from sin, then you will probably only succeed in raising a well-educated Pharisee.

– Kerri

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May 30, 2013
by Maralee
46 Comments

School choice and social media manners

Confession: I get a little cranky about people acting like parenting is a different experience now than it was for the eons of time before. So much of good parenting is consistent from generation to generation, BUT I think there is an element of social media now that has made relating to other parents difficult in a new way. I find that when I talk to my homeschooling friends face to face we find much we agree on. We can share parenting joys and struggles and support each other. Where I have the most frustration is in the realm of social media. The same way this is true with other controversial topics, it is very easy with schooling topics to throw a bomb and walk away.

I will say that I have seen this much more from homeschoolers than public schoolers. I’m trying to think if I’ve ever seen a post by a public schooling family that said how homeschooled kids are going to end up dumber, heathens, and unemployed because their parents didn’t obey God’s call. I can’t remember that, although it has probably happened. I do feel like those in the homeschool community are more likely to post such thoughts. I really do get it! When you feel like you’re the persecuted minority, it’s easy to want to justify what you do. And with how much work homeschooling requires, you wouldn’t be doing it unless you really believed in it.

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May 29, 2013
by Maralee
20 Comments

The Homeschool Debate (Oh Be Careful Little Ears What You Hear)

I don’t like putting moms in categories. Of course it’s an easy enough thing to do and has some value. There are moms who breastfeed and those that bottlefeed. There are moms that vaccinate and those who don’t. There are moms who co-sleep and those that have their children cry it out. There are homeschooling moms and those who choose public or private school options. But before we are any of those categories, we are MOMS. We may be different from each other because we have chosen different schooling options, but we are all trying to do best by our kids. I don’t want you to think you can’t identify with me because my child is in public school. I don’t want to stop trying to relate to you because I think you’re a different kind of mom because you chose to homeschool. We are all just moms.

The Bible doesn’t give us a commandment about school choice. We are called to love our children, which can look like different kinds of schooling choices in different families. Not all children have the same needs and not all school systems have the same strengths or weaknesses. So while we aren’t called to the same school choices, we are called to love each other.

I was sad to see after the deaths of little children inside their public school classrooms in Newtown, Connecticut that people were using that as support for why they were right to homeschool. As though tragedies can’t happen in homes or libraries or groceries stores. As if God isn’t sovereign inside our local public schools. I have heard mothers put each other down for choosing to shelter their children from reality by homeschooling. I’ve heard a homeschooling father make a careless math mistake and say, “Well, you can’t blame me. I’m a product of the public schools” in a gathering of families who have made a public school choice for their children (I get that it’s a joke, but a joke about the terrible public schools made by a homeschooling parent in a room full of publicly schooling families? Maybe not a great choice for unity’s sake.). In short- I have seen families create a dividing line between sisters and brothers who agree on many other topics because they disagree on this issue. And it frustrates me.

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May 28, 2013
by Maralee
2 Comments

Homeschooling Moms- we’re on the same team

Homeschooling Moms,

I know it’s tough to do something outside the norm. I know it’s weird to have people question your life choices or make snarky comments. It’s frustrating when strangers feel compelled to offer their opinion on a decision that feels very personal. I know it’s tough because I’ve been there. I’ve been there as a woman who homeschooled (as part of our group home work) and as a woman who has an unusual family (multiracial formed through adoption) that often gets our share of stares and comments.

I know it’s difficult when you just want to run through the grocery store for a few things, but instead have to answer a bunch of questions about why your kids aren’t in school. It’s frustrating when you’re together with other moms and you feel awkwardly left out of their conversations about the irritations of lunch packing and remembering what day your child needs to return that school library book. It’s hard to feel like you can’t get together with other moms because you don’t have that free time during the day they do while their kids are at school. You wonder if you’re being left on the outside.

So I get that you may feel a little preprogrammed to be defensive. I’ve been there myself. I’ve heard women who have families like mine say they have responses ready to go to shut down whatever rude person dares to ask a question about their family. Women have a sense of pride when they shamed somebody over asking them a question about why they chose to have a large family or adopt across racial lines. From some of the information and responses I see about homeschooling these days, I’m starting to think homeschooling families probably have developed a similar repertoire of phrases and responses to prevent people from asking those questions again.

I want you to reconsider this tactic.

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May 27, 2013
by Maralee
11 Comments

Why I didn’t homeschool this year

(You can read my intro to this topic here.)

I have been deeply involved in homeschool culture at an earlier point in my life and I enjoyed it. I have friends who are homeschoolers. I am supportive of the homeschooling option and will argue for its value when the topic comes up. I very seriously considered the pros and cons of homeschooling our oldest child instead of sending him off to Kindergarten this year. When it was time to drop him off for his first day of school, I felt total peace about our decision and I wanted to tell you why.

–The homeschooling families I respect most tell me they do it because it works for them. They tell me they reevaluate it year to year. They tell me they like hanging out in their pajamas until noon or taking family vacations in the middle of the school year, or they need the flexibility that homeschooling offers. They are often the homeschoolers that have taken advantage of public school resources or have sent their kids off to their local school for a year or two as they deemed necessary. This has all helped me to see that homeschooling isn’t an all or nothing choice. While this year we chose to send Josh to public school, that doesn’t mean that it will be the right option for him every year or that we will do it with all of our kids. We decided to send him to public school fully knowing that if it didn’t seem to be a fit, we could change our minds.

–I knew I would not be a happy homeschooler right now. I’m going to use a cooking analogy. I devote most evenings to the hour or so process it takes to get a healthy meal on the table because that’s what’s important to me. That also means that my kids often watch an hour or two of TV during that time so that they are safe and contained while I make this meal. It isn’t my ideal, but it’s a compromise I’ve come up with so I can do the cooking I need to. When my time is limited or we chose to spend that time running errands or playing outside, then I throw a frozen pizza in. I have come to realize I can’t do a good job cooking and also be a really attentive parent so sacrifices are made. I know there are other parents who are better cooks than I am who have no trouble making a great meal while watching their kids. I know there are other parents who have no problem with doing drive-thru or frozen fish sticks every night so they can focus on just being with their kids instead of cooking. I know the way I deal with cooking would be similar to how I deal with school. The kind of energy I would need to put into doing homeschooling well would make it really difficult for me to also safely parent my other three young children. Something would have to be sacrificed. I’m not saying other people can’t do this well. I know other moms with more children than I have who seem to make it seem really pleasant and smooth. I am totally supportive of that and proud to be their friends. I see some who sacrifice scheduled school to be flexible and spontaneous (“unschooling”), which works great for doing school while having little ones underfoot, but I am not that person. I see other moms who are hyper scheduled so they can be sure everybody gets their needs met while also providing a calm, quiet school atmosphere for their child. I am also not that person. While I know I am capable of teaching my child, I know it would be a constant frustration for me that I couldn’t give it my full attention while also parenting my little ones. Constant frustration doesn’t make for a happy home or school environment, although I’d figure out how to deal with it if I felt it was best for my child.

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May 26, 2013
by Maralee
Comments Off on A Life in Status- May #4, 2013

A Life in Status- May #4, 2013

(Come see for yourself)

How is it that the last week of Kindergarten is more emotional for me than the first?

Me: Hey, it’s time to clean your room.
Daughter: It too much! I can’t clean all that.
Me: Well, let’s look at it together. Can you start with one thing? Pick one thing to clean.
Daughter: Yes.
Me: What do you pick?
Daughter: My room! (bursts into tears)
. . . I think we have a miscommunication. . .

Me: Okay, I need you to pick up the toys you dumped out.
Daughter: NO!
Danny: (in perfect Mommy imitation) Excuuuuuse me?
Daughter: Yes ma’am.
My work here is done.

Josh: Hey, can you give me a collage?
Me: What? I’m not getting the art stuff out now. It’s almost bedtime.
Josh: No, a COLLAGE. You know. (pulls up shirt)
Me: A massage?
Josh: Right. That’s what I said.
#almost

Nothing quite like hearing your precious princess yell from her bedroom, “Autobots! Transform!”
#littlesisterwithbigbrothers

Son: I sorry, Sister.
Daughter: Sorry?! All you can say is SORRY?!. . . It okay. I forgive you.
She is nothing if not dramatic.

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May 24, 2013
by Maralee
6 Comments

School Choice Introduction

I know, I know. After dealing with vaccinations recently, I probably should have left things alone for awhile. But as the school year is wrapping up, I have been thinking more and more about the issues involved in school choice. I wanted to talk back in September about why we made the choice we did for our little Kindergartener, but it seemed wise to wait until we saw how this first year went. So now it’s over (WHAT?! How did this happen?) and I’ve got thoughts. Lots of thoughts. So next week we will have a series of posts about homeschooling and public school.

What this won’t be:

I am not doing a series of pros and cons. I will not be doing lengthy interviews with people about how they make their school choices. We won’t be talking about curriculum or statistics or graduation rates. I will not be implying that there is one right way that everybody should choose.

What this will be:

I want to talk about unity. I want to talk about why we make the choices we do. I want to talk about how we explain our choices to our kids and how we expect them to handle that information. I want to talk about supporting each other even if our choices are different.

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