Life as an unschooling mama

I often wonder, what life may have been like if my boys went to school. Sure, I’d get more time to myself, my house would be cleaner, and I probably wouldn’t be questioning so much if I’m doing enough to help them grow. I may have had more space to figure myself out. So many times I thought I knew what I wanted to do with my life; at one point I was a hairstylist, at another point I had my own office as a wellness coach. I really thought I knew.

But what I see, and what I realize right now is that I love how things are here. No, my boys are not early readers, nor are they early anything else educationally, and I’m totally ok with that! Somehow my 8 year old figured it out all on his own and is reading at a grade 2 level right now. And somehow my 5 year old knows the alphabet. I could tell you I have no idea how that happened, but I do. I’ve been witnessing it all, and sometimes I don’t realize it! My son came over to read me something from a new video game he was playing recently- there’s a lot of chat in the game- and he was telling me someone asked him a question. My youngest son pointed out the letters in the stop sign recently- the reason he‘s beginning to memorize letters is because he wants to join an online Minecraft club that his brother is a part of (they want to code some things for Minecraft).

It’s all very fascinating to watch. And also, I’m letting myself slow down. I’ve been pushing for years “what is my purpose, what is my purpose” over and over like a broken record. I actually love being home with them. I love giving them the freedom they have to explore life in their own ways.

If we weren’t homeschooling, I couldn’t have snuggled my boys for almost an hour this morning. There were no phones, no distractions from life. And because 2020 kind of just rolled over us, I’d become run down, as I’m sure a lot of us had become. But honestly, 2020 showed me something. We’re all ok. It’s actually been really nice not having my husband travel for work, and it’s been a really nice slow down year for us all (it didn’t always feel that way). Maybe now, on the other side I see how ok it is to not be constantly filling our lives. The sweet little moments of just being together is really quite nice.