disrupted dreams
Somehow, I still find myself saying to people who ask about future education for my children, “I think I might homeschool.”
My son is nearly five. Kindergarten approaches. We’ve joined a local co-op. I’ve ordered curriculum. I’ve read a few books on homeschooling and have several more waiting on the shelf. I’m not thinking about homeschooling; I’m deep in the midst of planning for it, and yet I struggle to say the words out loud.
I never dreamed of becoming a mother. I knew I’d want a family, but the path to motherhood—pregnancy, infancy, toddlerhood—never filtered through my thoughts for the future. It isn’t that my children weren’t wanted; it’s that I didn’t picture my life with them, or consider how they might impact my hopes and dreams. Children, I’ve since discovered, disrupt everything. It’s a good disruption. In my life, a necessary one. But I’ve resisted that disruption without realizing it.
I am a planner, and I like to think ahead, and I map most things out well in advance. My husband and I share a Google calendar, keep a weekly paper calendar sketching out the details of our seven-day rhythms, and a yearly calendar tacked to the laundry room wall that we use to see, from a distance, travel and important events. So I’m not against preparing. When it comes to my family, I just prepared for the wrong things.
I am both mother and housewife, and as I’ve let housework slip in order to nurture my children, I’ve thought (very quietly, in a corner of my mind) that it will all be okay later. I can make it a few years with sticky tables and heaps of laundry. I am holding out for the days when my children go to school, and I’m left a few blessed hours to clean and organize or, maybe, to meet a friend for coffee and it not be a playdate stuttered with constant interruptions, but a time uncluttered with little needs and noises.
I was holding out for the wrong things.
My son is in preschool now. He’s painfully shy, and the transition from hanging out with me all day to going to class a few times a week has been hard. Even now, in February, I wonder if we’ve made the right decision to send him, to keep sending him. He listens well and follows instructions, but he hasn’t made friends. He thrives in much smaller environments, with kids he’s comfortable with, but learning in a class of twenty (twenty!) has challenged him.
I’ve decided to homeschool for many reasons: my son isn’t ready for kindergarten, I don’t want him to experience unhelpful stress, and, as a stay-at-home mom, I do have the capacity to tackle his education myself. When I first toyed with the idea, I could see how my son, my sweet, creative, shy boy, would flourish in an unconventional school setting. But I wasn’t excited about it. I just felt it might be the right thing.
In 1 Kings 19:19-21, the prophet Elijah cuts across farmer Elisha’s field and flings his cloak on Elisha. He’s calling him. It’s an abrupt call; Elisha has no reason to expect Elijah to materialize and alter his destiny. And he does have a life to abandon: parents to kiss goodbye and an army of oxen, which probably hint at a wealthy and comfortable lifestyle, to tend. But he severs ties with his old life and leaves.
I know Elisha’s call isn’t the same as mine. No prophet has emerged from the mists to order me to lay down my expectations and keep my kids out of a traditional school. But I hope that I do respond to the calling of motherhood with the same devotion. I don’t have cows to slaughter to show I’m putting to death my former identity, but I do have small and selfish dreams to put to rest.
I’m closer now to telling the truth when someone asks: “I’m going to homeschool.” And instead of that carrying a disappointment, a loss of time I decided I’d grant myself, I’m finding myself looking forward to the fall with joyful anticipation. These aren’t the dreams I had; this isn’t the calling I imagined. But this is the life I’ve been given, and it has been given in abundance.
