They're all amazingly important and necessary to our survival. I should know. My mother is 80, temporarily living with us, and still a vital and influential presence in my life. She didn't homeschool me because when I was growing up, it wasn't expressly legal in Texas to do so. She was homeschooled for a year, though, as a child growing up in Arkansas, and has never once wavered in her support for our decision to teach our own.
Then there are the women I meet with from time to time as part of a small faith-based community of homeschoolers. They come from all walks of life, many of them college graduates, a former professor among them. And I can't forget the women I know through my daughters' Brownie troop. Graduates of prestigious universities stand shoulder to shoulder with long-time homemakers, an accomplished violinist, a degreed pastry chef.
All of them have chosen to put their former lives on hold in one way or another for the sole purpose of raising their children in the intensive lifestyle of homeschooling.
I haven't met a homeschooling mother yet who isn't fully qualified in every way to teach her children, contrary to a popular accusation of organizations like the National Education Association (teacher lobby).
Okay, so what about the mothers I know who don't homeschool their kids? They are equally courageous and in some ways moreso than those of us who sleep until the sun is actually up and then leisurely guide our children into the day's activities.
The moms of traditionally schooled children must rise early, prepare lunches, check backpacks to make sure the right child gets the right one, round up shoes, homework, books, and then either ferry the children to school or walk with them to the bus stop. I don't know about you, dear reader, but my capacity for polite small talk at 7:30 in the morning is extremely small.
If a child is sick, the traditional schooling mother has to drop a job, a task, maybe another small child and go to fetch the one who's ailing.
The traditional schooling mom may volunteer at her child's school in ways few folks can imagine. I have one good friend (who I shall write more about in a later separate post) who juggles four children and somehow manages to read to the class of one of them, have lunch with another, handle all manner of wildlife as a volunteer for the school district's science center, and on it goes.
She has four children in THREE different schools and hasn't lost track of one of them yet -- neither schools OR the kids themselves. Remarkable.
I have another friend who teaches at her children's private school where she is responsible for art classes for grades K through 5. There's no way you could get me to tackle this important but daunting task. Yet she's done it for a year now, so well in fact that the school would like to have her back.
In short, regardless of where they've decided their children learn best, these moms from all backgrounds, from all faiths, and all worldviews have one vital thing in common. At the end of every day they (we) each breathe a sigh of relief, maybe a prayer, that we've kept our children and families together once again.
No job on earth is tougher, more intense and intensive, rife with far-reaching implications, or more necessary.
Mothers. Where would we be without them?
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