"Before and After"

Do you love "Before and After" posts as much as me? Makeovers, whether for the home or the person, are always so amazing. Not only is it exciting to see the side by side pictures of the impressive transformations, it's always a delight to hear from the transformee how the makeover impacted them personally. The surface work of remodelling a kitchen or a whole new hairstyle and wardrobe brings about interior change as well.

My own "before and after" isn't nearly so dramatic because there's hardly anything to see as different from the outside.

BEFORE:

I wouldn't say I was unhappy before we enrolled the boys in school. There were, and still are, many things I value about homeschooling in general and our own homeschooling journey in particular. This post was sincere; I really did enjoy it. It's worth noting, though, that I much preferred it when they were younger. I actually like making play-doh creations and finger-painting and reading endless picture books to littles.

I was well-suited to offering a good kindergarten program at home.

Also, when they were all really little, both Isaiah and Anna took naps. It's easy to homeschool one kid when the other two are sleeping.

As they grew, however, the napping became less predictable, the noise level increased as each child's vocabulary grew, and the messes increased exponentially. It devolved into days of breaking up fights between the boys, cleaning up messes and feeling constantly stressed. There were still lots of read-alouds happening but fewer art projects, fewer visits with friends, and a more tense household in general.

We kept chugging on, though.

I had several "a-ha" moments as we came to the decision to enrol them in school but one that sticks out especially was when I was getting myself ready for the day one morning and I was feeling complete anxiousness over all the responsibilities that I had (and that's even with a very actively involved homeschooling dad, too). I started to cry as I thought about all these women I know who are actually busy -- they work full-time, they keep their households running smoothly, they make time for social events and hobbies. I don't do any of those things. I asked the Lord in my heart, "why do I feel so busy when I'm not doing any of my responsibilities properly?" Immediately the answer I heard was "you're not busy, you're burdened."

That sums it up so well. The weight of the responsibility of being the children's sole teacher, as well as cook, laundress, chauffeur, judge and jury, and coordinator of their social activities, was too much for me to handle mentally. I handle excess of stress by getting insomnia, which makes me feel unstable, which makes me hard to be around. Not exactly the ideal person to be with three kids all day, every day.

The pressure of wearing that many hats, and knowing I wasn't doing a great job of any of them, made me feel weighed down.

As I said, it didn't start out this way. I truly did love being with them when they were very young. But as it began to unravel, it became clearer and clearer we needed to change things.

AFTER:

I didn't know just how stressed I was until the main source of that was taken away. I now have the freedom to visit with friends (hurray! A social life!), get on top of the housework, enjoy blissful moments of silence with only one kid under foot, and not be so maxed out by the end of the day that I can't bare to be spoken to. Within the first week of the boys being at school, I noticed how much more peaceful dinner time was. We had actual things to talk about, because we had been doing different things during the day. Moreover, the time they were gone was long enough to make me miss them and really want to engage with them. 

It's so freeing to be just a mom, and not a homeschooling mom.

On that note, some women really thrive on going against the current. A number of my lovely hippie-ish friends seem to have fully embraced being homeschooling moms because being unconventional is part of their genetic make-up. 

That's so not me. I hated being spotted in public with school-aged children and having to explain why they weren't at school. I immediately felt like a stereotype come to life, and not one I like and especially not one I wish to identify with. (Ahem, the Duggars, ahem.) We already do enough 'radical' things -- having four kids in less than eight years of marriage, working full-time for the pro-life movement -- I can't relish adding "the way I raise and educate my children" as another, and especially dramatic, statement. 

I'm too much of an average mom. I like making dinner using various processed foods (spaghetti sauce from a can, on gluten-y pasta, no less!), Wal-mart and Costco help me save money, cloth diapers were like, sooo cool and fun, until the babies in diapers kept coming, and the sleepers kept getting leaked through. (I haven't had a break from diapers in 7 years and I won't at least until our baby yet to be born toilet trains.)

And yet, packing lunches in the morning, going through homework folders in the afternoon, even saying to Anna while out doing an errand "and after this, we need to go pick up the boys from school" makes me immeasurably happy. It's where I am thriving. I love being a school mom.

(Please understand, that's not to lambast those who do homeschool. Simcha Fisher made a beautiful analogy that applies to how I felt. Homeschooling, or really any lifestyle choice, is like a beautiful garment of clothing. It looks gorgeous on the mannequin but for some, will never feel comfortable on them. No matter how much I admire it, it doesn't work or make sense for me.)

One funny thing I've noticed since I've enrolled the kids is how many people tell me how happy they are that I have so much free time now. While it's certainly true that there are way fewer competing demands on my time, it strikes me as one of those funny things that only in my sweet but odd world of Catholic mommy life would someone say that. I still have a toddler at home, I am hugely pregnant, and well, I am still a mom to those boys, they just aren't with me twenty-four hours a day anymore. To give an example of what I mean, my mom went to the dentist recently, the same dentist I saw my whole childhood, and he asked about me. When she told him I'm having my fourth child soon, he said "wow, four kids! That's pretty heroic!" 

Now I don't want to rest on my laurel wreaths and act like having four kids is actually heroic, in the true sense of the word. But it did give me some helpful perspective, and affirmation, that what I'm doing is unusual and demanding. Note, as well, that he didn't go on to say, "but at least she isn't homeschooling, so she has plenty of free time!" No, he wouldn't have said this because nobody outside of a very specific niche world would assume that the absence of homeschooling was a shortcut to an easy life. It's like, what people do; they have kids and eventually those kids go to school. Raising them well, without being their sole teacher, is still plenty of work.

Having said all that, I do feel like have more leisure time now, perfectly timed as I stumble towards the finish line of gestation. And really, that leisure time is a welcome change for my whole family. My happiness has made my children better off, my marriage more peaceful, and the laundry less strewn about too.

I'm so grateful for this Holy Spirit makeover.