Home Is Where The School Is

I rest my case.

“How was homeschooling, today?” I asked my son.

“Good.” he said.

Good was one of his first words. Good means good.

After much humming and hawing, thinking, visiting two different kinds of schools and attempting to place my toddler in one for a total of six days, my son’s little box of brand new school supplies, glue sticks, crayons and scissors, are sitting in a sleeping classroom with the lights turned off as I write.

I am writing late. My husband and I have come up with a strategy that differs from the formative years of “unschooling”, which still involved books, stories, language, arithmetic, music and education in our daily lives— to “homeschooling”.

Our son is still enrolled in the school of life, and always will be. But we have added in a little dedicated structure: school of home. And this means that the first half of the day, I am on active mom duty, which includes some periods of focused education for our son.

Being two parents who work in the home on our own businesses, born out of the necessity of losing my husband’s golden career during the covid era, we are fortunate to have options. We are extremely lucky to be blessed with our son’s constant presence, and to be able to choose how we organize our time.

We are here, at home. But especially for me, the mom, am I really here?

Many moms who work from home struggle with balancing it all: domestic duties, creative endeavours, business and babies. I have felt pulled in a million directions at once so frequently that I often feel like I am partly failing at them all.

Mom guilt comes in to say, look at your child! They want and need your attention right now! while you are working, or attempting to work.

It’s definitely not an easy balance. The main reason I have hired cleaning ladies for the past few years when I can afford it is because keeping a clean house on top of everything else, is a lot. When you have to work and housekeep while you’re raising your toddlers, a good weekly scrubbing of the bathroom is the task I would rather delegate to someone else. Moms need help.

Making a conscious decision to homeschool has actually helped relieve some of the tension. Rather than being pulled in all directions at once, I will no longer make solid attempts to work while my son is occupied in his own activity. What happens is, as soon as he notices me working, he loses interest in his own thing, and wants me to get involved. I end up feeling resentful that I can’t complete my task, secretly frustrated with my innocent son for wanting my attention, and then justifiably guilty at my misplaced frustration.

From now on, mornings and early afternoons are dedicated to me not working. Not trying to sneak it in. If it does happen, eventually, when my son and I find the rhythm in our new routine, that’s cool. If not, I will not feel guilty for being “unproductive” while doing the most important work of all: nurturing and raising our boy.

Dad will be on afternoon shift. This gives him tons of dedicated time to work during the day, and then resurface to play with our son and chill together. It will give me, a night owl by nature, time to work guilt-free and focused, in the late afternoon and evenings.

And sometimes, when everyone has gone to bed, and my mind is running full of ideas, I can write. Like tonight.

My little boy

I have decided to focus on the three R’s: Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic. Add in language and music. Two hours a day maximum, total time of “school”. No TV shows until 4pm, no laptops or scrolling for me either.

Today I set up a little desk for our son with some books and crayons. I wanted to keep it light and fun for him, but let him know we would do some focused learning. I set a timer for 20 minutes and let him know. When it rang, we still went on for another seven minutes until he wanted a snack.

We went downstairs, grabbed some food, put on some Led Zeppelin, and baked some banana bread together. He played on his own with his toy cars while I was washing the dishes.

We talked about music. As the playlist spun on, he asked me what “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” meant. We talked, and talked some more.

Then, I said, let’s do some musical homeschooling, and then we are done for the day.

We did some do-re-mis, then I accompanied him for one of his favourite songs while he strummed his little guitar and sang:

I'm only living for the hour
That I see your face
When that happens, I don't
Want to be no other place
Till the end of time
You'll be on my mind

The hours flew by. What I experienced is something novel. I am not the type of person who naturally leans towards routines, but having a loose routine around my son’s homeschooling experience has given me a sense of calm, peace, and presence. It has eliminated the distraction of my intrusive thoughts telling me I need to be working at the same time I am already working, with my son. By breaking down my time in larger chunks and fully dedicating myself to one thing at a time, my anxiety dissipated.

And most importantly, I felt a deep sense of connection with my son, knowing he was all I was supposed to focus on.

It was a great day. And I am looking forward to doing it again tomorrow.

Homeschooling doesn’t have to be a forever thing. But right now, it is supported by a very simple philosophy: I love my son, I know how he learns, and I want to be there to do it with him.

<3

As I wrote here in Should Your Kids Go To School, weeks back when I was pondering my decision:

In a traditional school, in order to minimize the chaos, you need order. People have a designated time to eat, to play, to learn, to socialize, take music class or sports. You have to sacrifice your autonomy for the good of the group. Traditional schools foster interdependence, compliance and conformity. By design, they have to. And in this way, they train you to become a ‘good’ citizen. They are breeding grounds for collectivism. Volksgemeinschaft.

Homeschooling, or even unschooling, can present some challenges. But my philosophy and my heart will not allow me to ship my boy off to a place where he does not want to go, rationalizing it as a way to carve out dedicated work time or giving him time to “socialize” in Spanish.

I have revolted against the idea, I have come full circle, back to my instincts. As if I needed more confirmation bias, I read this fantastic article which sums up perfectly what I truly think about school for my son.

How School Damaged Your Mental Health [Part 1]

This all adds up for me, it all feels right. My son, after being gently interrogated about whether he wanted to return to school or not following a bout of illness (divine intervention?) that kept him home while I had some space to make a formal decision, said he did not want to go back. He wanted to homeschool, he said.

Many parents would brush it off as an expected resistance. But why would children resist? Maybe some of them really don’t want to go to school, for good reason.

“True education should come from freely choosing to be educated in something. Education needs to be voluntary, so that it fosters a sense of self-ownership, initiative, and self-confidence on one’s own judgment.” -

Sotiris Rex

Home is where the heart is, and home is where the school is.

If you were nearing four, would you rather be sitting in a classroom with teachers at a chalkboard, or doing this at home with your mom?

I rest my case.

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