All Things Hold Together

A blog about cooking, crafting, faith, family…you know, the good stuff.

I know I am late chiming in on this one, but I just had to say a few words about the Daily Mail column by Helen Kirwan-Taylor in which she admits that she is bored by all things mommy.

If you haven’t read the actual piece yet, which has already been blogged about ad infinitum, you really should take the time to read it.

At first, I thought that this must be hyperbole. She details how she would send the nanny to take her kid to birthday parties and instead go out and shop or have her highlights done. I know that kid activities can become tedious, but this woman does not even engage occasionally, the way the piece is written.

Unfortunately, I do not think it was an exaggeration.

Not only does she not do birthday parties, but she goes on.

My children have got used to my disappearing to the gym when they’re doing their prep (how boring to learn something you never wanted to learn in the first place).

They know better than to expect me to sit through a cricket match, and they’ve completely given up on expecting me to spend school holidays taking them to museums or enjoying the latest cinema block-boster alongside them.

Then follows later with,

Research tells us that mothers drink the most when they have young children. Is that because talking to anyone under the age of ten requires some sort of lobotomy?

Of course, she notes that a psychotherapist has vindicated her,

Psychotherapist Kati St Clair has listened to the frustrations of scores of mothers. ‘Women now feel great pressure to enjoy their children at all times,’ she says. ‘The truth is, a lot of it is plain tedium. It’s very unlikely that a mother doesn’t love her child, but it can be very dull. Still, it takes a brave woman to admit that.’

She goes on to cite some research that she feels backs her up, including

Research increasingly shows that child-centred parenting is creating a generation of narcissistic children who cannot function independently.

and

Sometimes, apparently, the best thing parents can do for their children is to let them be bored.

And concludes from that

This, of course, makes mothers like me - who love their children but refuse to cater to their every whim - feel vindicated. By sticking to our guns, we have unwittingly created children who can do things like make up stories (very few kids can any more).

And

Because I have categorically said: ‘I am not a waitress, a driver or a cleaner,’ my children have learned to put away their plates and tidy up their rooms.

It’s so nice that Ms. Kirwan-Taylor is able to sleep at night by deluding herself this way, but in reality what she is doing goes far beyond making her kids self-reliant.

My children put away their plates and tidy up their rooms, too. (And vacuum, and wash the walls, and empty the dishwasher, and take out the recycling.) My children get bored and I make them entertain themselves (have you noticed the frequently updated blogs?). My children can make up stories. In fact, Painter won runner-up in the Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators Contest this past year.

I also attend birthday parties, go to all of their soccer games, and take them to the movies (or rather watch movies at home since we rarely can afford the theater). I read bedtime stories, daytime stories, draw with them, make Lego structures, play street hockey and 500 ball, play cards, make cookies together, take them to the park, and just hang out. And all of that was before I homeschooled! (I also did most of that stuff when I worked full-time.)

I love my children and refuse to cater to their every whim, too. They spend two hours in individual quiet time, IQT as we call it, every day, so I can have Me Time. That is not including my blog time or the time I spend reading the paper. I hardly center my life on their interests. The difference is that I do spend time involved in their interests, even if it does bore me at times.

That is what you do when you love someone (when you are not a self-centered). I cannot tell you how many hours I have spent bored almost to tears listening to my husband go on about his latest martial arts interest or the latest Linux distro.

And don’t you think he ever gets sick of hearing about politics all of the time, or the latest post on PHAT Mommy, or how many Weight Watchers Points my lunch was? But he listens and so do I because we love each other. I know his interests are important to him, so they are important to me, even if they are not always interesting to me.

This is why I find this piece so…well, sad. The saddest part is that her kids have given up on ever having a mother who wants to spend time with them.

They stopped asking me to take them to the park (how tedious) years ago. But now when I try to entertain them and say: ‘Why don’t we get out the Monopoly board?’ they simply look at me woefully and sigh: ‘Don’t bother, Mum, you’ll just get bored.’

How right they are.

I just finished my curriculum for the upcoming school year. It feels so good to have it done, but I can’t send it in until I have the assessment done. I was planning on doing a portfolio of the children’s work, but since I was not as organized as I had hoped, I am going with a teacher evaluation. I found a teacher on a homeschool message board and we will be getting together in early August.

I wanted to have the rest of the paperwork done and out of the way, so I sat down tonight and did the curriculum, although I have been gathering the information for some time now.

For those of you not in Vermont, there are 6 subject areas that we are required by statute to cover. They are: basic communication skills (which is reading, writing, and “the use of numbers,” otherwise known as math), citizenship, history, and government in VT and the US, physical education and comprehensive health education, literature, the natural sciences, and fine arts.

As I mentioned before, I am using Learning Language Arts through Literature this year, which covers all of reading writing and literature, or at least I hope. For literature, I listed the four book studies that will be done with LLATL and added that the children will read other books for enjoyment to be chosen by each child.

In fact, in most subject areas, I listed the skills that I want them to gain, but the topics will be determined by the children. I don’t know if this is acceptable to the Home Study Office, so I am a little anxious about what they will say.

For language arts, I included the scope and sequence of LLATL and for math I included the scope and sequence for Switched-on Schoolhouse Math.

For history the children will decide the topics, but I will help them if they need it and make sure it is appropriate. I want them to learn how to find information on the chosen topics, write a simple report or narrative to share what they learned, and make projects that are relevant to the topic. Hopefully, this is adequate. I know it is, but I just hope the state agrees because I am not sure what else I can give them. I am not going to force the kids to learn arbitrarily determined subjects when they should be able to follow their interests. I did list a few Vermont History topics, but they were vague. And we will do some geography as well.

For Phys. Ed., it will be child-led, but I listed a few activities I know we will cover, too, and for health I listed some topics I got from a sample curriculum I found here.

For science, we will be using an experimental biology book for kids that a neighbor gave me. It has brief explanations of each topic and an experiment to go along with it. I figure we can always get books from the library if we need to dig deeper. Then we will do a weather book I bought last year. It gets into the factors that affect weather and then teaches the kids to make simple forecasts. Finally, we will do something on the planets and stars, probably based on library books. Plus, the kids have been dying to make a solar system model.

For fine arts, Painter has a guitar that he wants to learn how to play and Jokey has a Djembe drum. I am also going to teach them some fundamentals of art, such as line, shape, color, value, form, etc. I think they would really get into that, especially Painter. The rest will be child-led.

So that’s it. I’ll see how it goes and hopefully they don’t ask me for more than that because frankly, I don’t know what I would add!

The Carnival of Homeschooling Week 30 is up at The Lilting House. Stop on over and enjoy this week’s Schoolhouse Rock themed collection of homeschool blog posts. You are sure to find something helpful, interesting, or just plain entertaining.

Last year at this time, homeschooling was the furthest thing from my mind. I had never even seriously entertained the idea.

Baby Smurf was born the August that Painter started kindergarten and Jokey started grade 1. Sending them off to school was the only thing I thought I sanely could do.

I never was happy with the public school. Despite the fact that we lived by the best, most award-decorated elementary school in the city, Jokey was miserable there almost from day one. Painter was little better.

The teachers and other staff was as helpful as they could be, but the problem was systemically ingrained in the modern paradigm of institutionalized learning and there was nothing they were going to be able to do to fix it. Let’s just say that public school is not a good fit for some kids.

Two weeks before school was to start last year, I called the school to make an appointment to meet the boys’ new teachers on the day before the first day of school, as all the parents are encouraged to do. That night, I was sick with anxiety over dealing with another year of school. Desperate for an answer (and some sleep), I prayed and asked God what I should do.

When I awoke the next morning, I had my answer. Homeschool. (Wait, are you sure God? Isn’t that where I stay home with my kids all day every day and fight with them to do school work? Can you give me a different solution?)

I mentioned it to my husband - who is a huge critic of public schools - and it turns out he is a big advocate of homeschool. He even e-mailed me articles that very day about the benefits of homeschooling.

I asked the kids if they would ever want to be homeschooled and they ran around the neighborhood yelling, “We get to be homeschooled!”

“Okay,” I thought, “I guess we’re homeschooling!”

I spent the next two days on-line trying to figure out how one goes about homeschooling.

In Vermont, we have to submit a curriculum to the state Home Study Office for approval (which they say is not really an “approval,” yet they have to say it is complete or else you are truant). I scoured the internet for guidelines, textbooks, standards, and anything else I could get my hands on to write my curriculum.

I submitted my paperwork to the state and then went in and told the school principal, who was surprisingly very supportive, that we would be homeschooling.

It was almost official. We were going to be homeschoolers.

Almost a year later, I can’t imagine not homeschooling. It has been stressful and difficult, even maddening at times. There were times I questioned my sanity.

There were also great times; in fact most of the times are great. My kids and I are much closer. I am constantly learning more about them and from them. They are less stressed out. They enjoy learning. They are experiencing life. They are growing their gifts. They are following their interests. They have no desire to go back to school and I have no desire to send them there.

It is official. We are homeschoolers!

The more we see cases like the one involving Abraham Cherrix (which I blogged about on She’s Right), the more important it is for us as parents - especially us homeschooling parents - to know how candidates for political office feel about the parents’ rights vs. the government’s rights before we vote.

I am currently working on compiling questions to put together for a candidate survey that will be mailed out to all state-wide candidates in my home state of Vermont. This will allow homeschooling parents to determine which candidates share their views on the role of the state in homeschooling.

I was surprised to learn that there is no single view shared by all homeschooling parents. I hold the view that the government should play no role in home education, but I have come across other parents who feel that some government oversight is necessary.

Since there is such a wide range of views held by homeschooling parents, I would like to base the questions on as much input from the homeschooling community as I can, inside and outside Vermont.

What kinds of questions would you want to ask a candidate to determine if he or she is “homeschool friendly”?

You can respond in the comments field, or e-mail me here.

Thank you for your contribution to this effort.

I am finally getting around to posting some crafty pics.

I made a 5-tiered broomstick skirt from scratch. This is the first article of clothing I have made since Home Ec. in Jr. High School. I was quite pleased with the results, except that the fabric and color scheme is more geared toward fall.

Here is a close-up of the fabrics.

I used the left over fabric to make a matching purse.

You can see in the close-up, that the blocks are not even, but I made it in like an hour, so I wasn’t going for exactness.

I also tried my hand at free-hand quilting on the light purple patches. I inadvertently used a real marker instead of my disappearing ink marker of the same color, so now I have to figure out how to get the purple ink off.

Other than that, this project came out great, in my opinion.

I just stumbled across another homeschool blog carnival called, “The Country Fair.” This homeschool carnival provides an option for those homeschool bloggers who are boycotting HomeschoolBlogger over the issue of corporal punishment.

This carnival does not allow any links to HomeschoolBlogger or any submissions that advocate/support corporal punishment. They also ask that submissions are not overtly political or religious.

This carnival offers a great alternative for those seeking a straight up homeschool focus without any of the divisive issues thrown in.

The current Country Fair can be viewed here at the official site, along with submission guidelines.

It is published monthly.

I just had to give this update about my quest to buy Learning Language Arts Through Literature on ebay.

I ended up paying $10.73 for the orange book and $7.99 for the yellow book (prices include shipping). These books retail for $25.00 each and CBD has them for $21.99 each. I got both for less than the cost of one!

I will have to buy the student workbooks, if I choose to use them, but this was definitely a great deal.

The Carnival of Homeschooling #29 is up now at “Nerd Family.”

The Carnival of Homeschooling gives you a great opportunity to introduce yourself to a variety of homeschooling blogs, learn tips, make friends, and see that you are not so weird after all.

The archive can be found at “Why Homeschool” here.

I am in the process of trying to get together my final curriculum for homeschooling this coming year.

Earlier in the year, I made a wishlist at christianbook.com - the cheapest place to buy all your books (Christian or non) in one spot. My total was just over $500 for all subjects including art and phys. ed. for Painter and Jokey and some pre-school stuff for Baby Smurf. Not bad.

Only there is one problem. I spent the money I had saved for homeschooling books and haven’t replaced it yet.

Then the other day I was reading a post on another blog about homeschooling for free using web resources. The more I thought about it, the more doable it seemed.

I went back and forth several times, then decided on this: I will purchase, as planned, SOS math for each of the two boys at CBD and I’ll buy Learning Language Arts Through Literature on e-Bay. (I already got the Orange Teacher’s book for $10.73 inc. shipping!) But the rest I will do using the library and online resources.

The thing that terrified me most was science. I kept thinking, “What if they don’t learn enough?” I have always wanted to keep them at or above grade level in three things: math, science, and reading. I don’t really worry about the other things because they can learn whatever else they need or want to as long as they can read.

If I have that level of confidence for everything else, why am I afraid about the science? I had 24 credits of university lab sciences - not the easy classes either - so I can’t figure out why I am so unconfident in this area.

I think it is that popular concept that only professional teachers can teach. At least with a packaged curriculum, I know that I am doing it “right,” but this unguided foray into science leaves me with no metrics by which to gauge my success or theirs. That scares me.

It shouldn’t though. After all, the elementary science teaching is just an introduction to get their feet wet. It is not until the high-school level that they need to tackle a full year of physics, chemistry, and biology and hopefully retain some of it.

My focus at this age should be fostering a love of exploration of the natural world. Who needs a curriculum to do that?