Schoolless

Not off to school

This cute little cartoon arrived in the mail on the last page of my new copy of the Costco circular.

(artwork used without permission, but with all due respect)

I don't normally spend long hours perusing this particular publication, and certainly don't engage in regular analysis of its contents. But this carton caught my eye.

A few years ago, when I began telling my friends about our intention to begin homeschooling our kids, one of the most common responses was incredulity. How could I voluntarily chose to spend these long days with my children? It turns out that many people, even those who are home during the day, do greet the sight of the school bus with anticipation, relief and even relish.

(a typical school building)

The message contained in this cartoon, and widely accepted in our society, I'm afraid, is that we tell our children we love them, but the exciting life, the adult life, the real life, happens without them, behind their backs.

(another typical school building)

It is true that living with children around the house day in and day out is not easy. They have needs, tantrums, energy, lack thereof, bad days, whims, spats, difficult character traits, conflicting purposes, selective hearing, personal agendas and, not least of all, stuff. Stuff all over the place. My husband and I regularly engage in time and space discussion with our kids. "Look kids,we do everything in this house. Live, play, learn, work, eat, sleep. No one tells us what to to, or where to be and when to be there. We set our own schedule. And that's exactly why we have to be really respectful of the needs of the other household members. When daddy is working, he can't make you an egg. And when mom is on the phone, she can't solve an argument for you. And for heaven's sake keep your voices down when I'm talking to a client!"

(our "school" building)

No, it's not easy. But I love my children, and I would rather spend time with them than anyone in the world. Since taking them out of school our relationships and communication has become richer and more effective.  We have learned to let go of the reins, and accept that our kids want to make choices and have greater control over their lives. Not all the choices they make would be our first choice, but as we allow them to grow and develop at their own pace, we've observed that their decision-making, and communication skills evolve and strengthen. And so do ours. We grow together, not as kids and adults, but as a family.

Let others rejoice at the time they have away from their children. I revel in the time I have with mine.

Garden variety

I was going to post these pictures as these flowers were blooming. A long time ago. Last month... last week...
After this long winter, that dragged in one monotonous, snow-sodden day after another, you would think we deserve the have the pleasures of spring linger on. But she is a tease, and here are some of her cohorts.

This lilac is called Beauty of Moscow. She's also the beauty of my back yard. Can you just smell her? Gorgeous! Stays that way for about a week, then all this profusion turns brown and limp, and it is done for another 51 weeks. A nondescript, rather leggy bush in the corner of the yard.

The peony buds, big as golf balls, and seemingly as firm, burst open into their vulgar, gaudy display.

The magenta ones are the most obnoxious, but the white ones are not far behind.

They're even worse than the lilac. Once opened, the petals last only a couple of days (during which there invariably come violent thunderstorms which beat them mercilessly to the ground), and the they droop all over the surrounding foliage, as if a large bird had taken a rest there to commune with nature.

The shortest bloom award, however, has to go to the poppies.

Spectacular! But even in the best of circumstances, their blossoms don't last more than a day or two, but since they bloom at the same time as the peonies, they also fall victim to the storms.

I love these extravagant flowers, but I have to admit that I find them a little stressful: the anticipation while the buds take their sweet time to open, the high drama of the peak bloom combined with the constant fear of impending storms, and the keen disappointment after the flowers fade...

Although I vastly prefer this ever-changing display to the monotony of a lawn and its constant and unvaried maintenance, I breathe a sigh of relief when these drama queens are finished, and summer brings in the somewhat plainer, but more dependable summer cast.

D**n the consequences!

I think probably the book that was most instrumental in my decision to homeschool my children was Alfie Kohn's Unconditional Parenting. I never could figure out how people got their kids to stay in time-outs, how they kept track of and were consistently able to enforce various consequences, and how, through all this, they managed to remain apparently unmoved and detached.

My own adventures with my kids were much more emotionally charged. When I first cried in sheer exasperation in front of my son, and later worried that I've scarred him for life, my husband said emotions were part of family life, and it was good for kids to see them. When I tried setting limits and consequences in more traditional ways, my mother pulled me aside and whispered: "I think you're breaking his spirit..." I was thinking the same thing.

The idea of imposing consequences never really got a toehold in our house, because, well... I don't believe in them. I've always wanted to treat my children and full-fledged members of the household, capable of speaking for themselves and making their own decisions. The problem is, of course, that children are  children, and they don't always know what they want or what is in their best interest. They're also not that great at keeping and eye on the broader view, like the needs of the whole family, or the personal or professional needs of the parents.

The way most institutions, and indeed, many families, deal with that, is to impose rules and limits of acceptable behaviors, and consequences when the limits are breached.

It's not that I don't believe in the need for any rules and limits. But I feel that for them to be meaningful, they have to to be accepted by all parties involved. And I don't believe that I can get buy-in by imposing consequences for non-compliance. And when you don't have buy-in, are you really getting your kid to understand the true consequences of his actions, or only encouraging him to become better at evading the consequences he knows you'll impose?

I don't have all the answers by any stretch. I often leave a room, and close the door with conviction and finality, only to return a few minutes later waving a white flag. I don't want consequences; I want harmony!

The other day we had a rare afternoon of sunshine. Three out of four household members were enthusiastic about taking a walk. My son was not. One thing led to another, and the idea of a pleasant walk deteriorated into a family argument, door slamming, threats and tears. I pointed out to my son for the nth time, that I couldn't make him do something he didn't want to do, but I could, as a consequence, keep him from doing something he enjoyed. Needless to say, my lecture brought only more unhappiness, more tears, and failed to resolve anything.

In the end, while Chris went for a walk with our daughter, I managed to get Peter out of doors on the condition it would only be around the block. Fine. I'll take what I can get. While climbing the mountains of plowed snow around our neighborhood, we talked about his need for control. Regardless of what I think, Peter complained that he feels he is always told what to do. Interestingly, he was willing to admit that he didn't always know what he ought to be doing, and needed some guidance. We talked quite frankly about his craving to make his own choices throughout the day on the one hand, and on the other, the need for us to accomplish things as a family, as working parents, as a homeschoolers.

Did we solve the problem? No. At least not yet. But, as many times in the past, I feel I have gotten through. I have observed him many times making the kind of argument we make with him: using his reasons, his logic, trying to find a win-win, and to get us to buy-in to whatever ideas he has of his own. Although it often seems we're taking a couple steps forward and a step back, I feel that our open discussions, frankness, and the willingness to include him as a partner in our dialog will pay off in the long run.

I hope.

Why I don't make New Year's resolutions

I missed the both the Baby Boomers and Generation X by a few years. I'm a forty-something foreign-born American, business owner, wife, mother of two homeschooled children. I grew up first behind the Iron Curtain, and later on the north-west side of Chicago, and attended a very prestigious university, from which I earned a graduate degree, and which has absolutely nothing to do with what I am doing today. In 1989 I threw my academic career and caution to the wind, and took up with a scruffy bicycle messenger, whom I later married. Throwing caution to the wind became a pattern, and a few years later, with not much more than five grand of cash in hand, and another five in vendor credits, we decided to open a bicycle store.

My leather-bound, hard-earned diploma stashed in a a dark corner of the attic, I went to work changing countless inner tubes, cleaning and oiling gritty chains, fitting people on bicycles, and talking up the benefits of urban cycling. It was exhilarating work. I loved it! I had discovered a passion for doing things with my hands, earnestly interacting with people, and building and creating a business we wholeheartedly believed in. Amidst all this (not literally, of course), children were conceived and born, a house was bought, and comfortable, middle-class existence beckoned.

Unhappily, our quirky little neighborhood business grew much faster than we could handle, and we found ourselves in debt to the hilt. All credit card debt. How much? Well, the round number had five zeroes behind it. I'll leave the interest rates to your imagination. It still makes my heart race. After six years,a flirtation with a second career, many sleepless nights and desperate arguments, and untold wrinkle-inducing stress later, we are, with the exception of our mortgage, debt-free.

There are lots of us out there with lives like this. Well, maybe not exactly like this, but similar enough. Ordinary (or less ordinary), full (sometimes too full) lives, revolving around the problems of daily living, money, love, debt, jobs, family. Lives lived in more or less perfect homes, filled with children who sometimes misbehave, but most of the time they make your heart ache, and irritating spouses, with their bad habits, who love you unconditionally, and without whom you would wither, and aging parents, who know better, tremble over you, but stand by you anyway, and pets, and books, and bills, and shoes stacked next to the front door... and hours ticking mercilessly on and on...

And everyone out there -- strangers, all of them -- tries to tell us how to make these lives better.
What you could be, if only you had enough. Enough of what? Determination, perseverance, self-control, focus, money? We lap it up. Seven habits in 30 days. 20 pounds in a week. Four hours a week to early retirement. From $100 to $1,000,000 in a heartbeat. Meaningful goals. Prioritized objectives. A better you: organized, pulled together, fit, focused, financially sound, sexually fulfilled, regular, and balanced. Millions of ways to help you get a life.

Except that most of us already have an amazing life. As my friend Deb asks: So, if my life and self are only ever this, as they are now - why would that not be enough?

I thought this would be a blog about homeschooling. But, to borrow someone else's phrase, homeschooling has revolutionized the way I see the world, and I can no longer separate it from the rest of my life. It has made me look at my life, and see something I like. After the years of indescribable anxiety and stress, homeschooling brought unexpected solace, allowing me to walk full-circle back to my core beliefs, and to realize that everything I need is already right here. If you're anything like me, your glass is already full.

So drink.

Doorbells

When we moved into our house, the doorbell didn't work. 
It was the least of our problems, as many things in the house were not working at the time. Basic things, like running water and gas. We let the doorbell go, and counted on determined visitors to walk around to the side and rap on the kitchen window.
This worked for a little while, until I came home one day and heard a disturbing buzz. The buzz seemed to be emanting from the depths of the house, somewhere in the hollow space between the hall and bathroom, yet slightly above it. This was roughly in the vicinity of the smoke alarm, but when I opened it up and removed the batteries, the noise continued. And it did not appear to be coming from the smoke alarm. I ran downstairs and up, pressing my ear to walls and floors. I went into my bedroom to get a stepstool, and realized the noise was louder here. I followed it, and discovered, screwed to the ceiling deep inside the bedroom closet, the thing that buzzed.
Why anyone would put the inner workings of a doorbell on the ceiling in the bedroom closet was a mystery. Why the thing was buzzing, when it did not appear to be connected to a source of power in any obvious way was a mystery. Why, when attempting to cut the wire that did not seem to go anywhere, we nearly got electrocuted was a mystery (however it proved beyond any reasonable doubt that there was a source of power somewhere). In fact, there was little about this that was not mysterious. Cut the wires we did, despite it's resistance, and that was the end of that.
However, after a couple of doorbellless (that's 3 l's) years, and several missed overnight packages, I decided that I would like to have a doorbell after all. So I purchased a wireless one for $10. It worked great for a little while. Until our new neighbors moved in.
Our new neighbors purchased a large and opulent house that was erected on top of a much smaller and modest house that formerly sat on the lot next door. With their house came a suitably opulent doorbell, one of those things with long chimes, that plays several bars of a symphony when you depress the button. The unforseen complication arose from the fact, that is operated on the same frequency as our $10 gizmo. So, every time the Shaw's got a pizza, we would run hopefully to the door. Needless to say, this got boring pretty fast.
So, we picked up Poseidon at a junk yard this summer. He's fierce, and low-tech, and pretty darn loud.