Give Yourself a Break: A Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Loving Your Kids and Lowering Your Expectations

It should be noted, before we dive in, that there are truly unlimited ways to “homeschool” or “unschool” or “free-school”, unlimited ways to follow curiosity and to experience passion-driven, joyful education. This is just one mom’s path, in the midst of a world-altering crisis and in no way speaks to the path of any other homeschool family or system. I am posting this not to say: give up, do nothing. But rather, to say: give in, keep loving. I hope this perspective helps you to give yourself a tiny break and encourages you to find your way through, in any way that works for you and your family. You are doing a good job. You’ve got this.

In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, rapidly intensifying shelter-in-place orders and now-mandated home-based education for many, my friends keep asking me:

“How do you homeschool ALL the time?! I am going crazy!! What’s your secret?!”

To which I keep responding:

“You do realize that ‘homeschooling’ is much harder in the midst of a global pandemic when we are all panicked and locked indoors, right? Have you considered just doing a completely mediocre job??”

This, I realize now, is not what the good parents of the world want to hear. They want the real shit. The ins-and-outs of our day. They want to know how we know that our kids are learning and well-adjusted and challenged and engaged. We do not nervously laugh-cry when we are asked this. We deliver. 

So, here is everything I did today (which may be yesterday to you, or multiple days ago at this point..but does anyone even know what day of the week it is anymore? Let’s assume the construct of time will be dismantled soon.)

Ok…here we go.

It’s after 9am, but likely before 10. (Ok, it may also be after 10. I am not sure. These are trivial details now.)

We eat breakfast, pausing to be thankful that we have food and access to supermarkets (and that coffee is still allowed).

We flip through State Capital cards which happen to be strewn across the table and decide we could all really use a road trip around the continental US. (I feel like I’ve maybe never even heard of Frankfort, Kentucky before, but this must not be true?)

We make juice (convinced that ginger will save us). Kids cut fruits and veggies and craft and press their own concoctions. (This is probably science? Is “potions” a class?)

We eat chocolate because it’s delicious and this is self-care. (Also science.)

Stop everything! A package has arrived with massive blankets that look like tortillas. A photo shoot is necessitated!!

Now we’re dragging the blankets everywhere we go. (“No you can’t take it in the bathroom.” “Fine don’t let it fall in the toilet!” “No I don’t want to drag you around the house in it!” “Ok, last time! Wheeee!”)

The magic of the moment is waning. 

The 11-year-old and I escape to watch Watch Harry Potter 5 (younger child reads Captain Underpants with homebound-husband then watches the movie...I’m assuming they watch other things after this as their movie is shorter but I am enraptured and intermittently sobbing so really cannot be sure.)

There are cuddles for all.

Movies are done and a “we should really do something productive” feeling surfaces. (I try to quell it but cannot.)

We Watch a 6 minute math tutorial on Khan Academy before deciding...“meh.”

We Read Harry Potter 7. It is the last book in the series and we are 81% of the way through. (I know this because my Kindle app is actively torturing me. #crucio) I’m doling out pages slowly, a seasoned addict, fully aware of the withdrawals we are all about to experience. I am sob-reading now and it’s time for a change of pace. 

Still in HP-mode, we decide to watch Voldemort Make-Up Tutorials.

We do our own special effects make up. (Warning: hide your “good” make up.) (Pro tip: GO OUTSIDE)

Stop everything! Our large dog is licking our small dog and it is ADORABLE. He looks embarrassed by our laughter and we decide that he is a dog who holds himself to People Standards which is a very very complicated space to occupy. We feel for him but continue laughing. (The human experience is highly nuanced.) I think we are teaching empathy and humility but maybe we are just teaching that dogs are funny?

It’s feeling tired-y as it nears the “you’re either going to get ready for the day or you’re destined to eat an entire sleeve of Oreos at some point” threshold. (Getting ready still feels a bit too hard.)

We play charades. The kids choose things like “washing machine” and “pants”. (They are not good actors...but we do not let them in on this secret because there is still ample time to hone-in on their theatrical skills.)

We move on to play a game where you get to throw burritos at each other. (They are very good burrito throwers.)

It is lunch time. We eat at a table that some people would use for learning but that we mostly just use for eating (and burrito-related games). It used to be a nice table but is currently covered in paint...so I guess it is art now? (In a 900sf house with two dogs and two children it is very important to have functional pieces like this.)

While we’re at the table, we draw pictures of each other with our eyes closed. The 6-year-old cheats (but results suggest otherwise). The 11-year-old might be a prodigy.

We tour The Museum of Modern Art online and tell him we’ll love him even if he spends all of our (now) imaginary money on Art School. He assures us that YouTube tutorials will suffice. 

We celebrate the news with a Lizzo dance party - the regular, unedited version because the Kidz Bop version is garbage (and we will not settle for anything less than “100% that bitch”.) We answer follow-up questions about “DMs” and the lure of spending time with professional football players. This is probably social studies? Maybe health, too?

Stop everything! Our snake has shed! The aftermath must be examined!! Muffin looks like a brand new man and we are all here to encourage him to be his shiniest, most noodle-y self.

It is now time for second lunch. In these strange times I’ve decided that I should not be eating food without utilizing the large bottle of buffalo wing sauce that I panic-bought at Target three weeks ago. Second Lunch is spicy and reminiscent of something you might find at an Applebees. This is self-care, now. (Unprecedented times, indeed.)

Kids disappear with boxes and scissors and tape. I am asked to cut yarn but I DO NOT ASK why because I don’t want to impede on this newfound independence. Also, I do not want to help and asking questions makes me complicit in the outcome of this project. (Plus, I need to stare at my phone.)

One child emerges from the bedroom as a dancing cardboard robot. He has painted on abs and a butt made of aluminum foil. We laugh hysterically because these are “buns of steel” and their execution is magnificent.

Child two has designed a remote control car and is operating as, I don’t know what (?) I wasn’t totally listening but something like the engine, or some sort artificial intelligence system??? Either way, she hands us the remote and it is, quite literally, the only time we’ve been in control of anything all day. Her override system is powerful, though, and she ends up going rogue. It’s ok because she is almost instantly back in the bedroom with the boxes and the scissors and her brother and all is silent for 10 glorious minutes.

Stop everything. The creativity has run out in all of us.

Everyone is lobbying for more TV (but we’re saving that for later when we’ll need to fully ignore them and get some work done.) 

We lay around and listen to the Poetry Unbound podcast. (It’s possible that I am the only one listening but I mumble something about “osmosis” to myself and carry on.)

We pull out first grade spelling flash cards (despite the fact that no one here is in the first grade). We agree that English is nonsense and tentatively plan to learn Latin. The six-year-old assures us all that Spanish makes more sense and walks us through her app where she expertly clicks through pictures of corn and horses and airplanes as words the rest of us don’t understand come tumbling out of the phone.

It’s 5 now (maybe?) and we have determined that if we do not leave the house that we will literally suffocate. 

We’ve heard about a project where kids go around town leaving delightful little chalk rainbows in their wake, a sign of hope and connection in otherwise unstable, disconnected times. Our neighbors are elderly so the kids make the rainbows big and extra-bright outside of their homes. We tell them that other kids may have left rainbows behind, too, and to see if they can count them on their journey around the block. They find “zero” but draw “probably 55”. The adventure is a success.

On the way home the kids find an empty basketball court and design giant chalk homes complete with rooftop decks and “more than 2 bedrooms” (an obvious slight to us, but we let it go).

Back at our tiny home, it is time for a bath.

I need to do some work, which feels pressing, but will have to wait until we’re back on dry land. For now a half-hearted mermaid impression is all I can be expected to produce.

Ok, out of the water. Kids are hungry because they didn’t eat second lunch. (Feels like their problem...but, fine, we will feed them.)

We eat dinner. It is pasta again, because we don’t understand how to save our food stores (and pasta is delicious).

We queue ANOTHER movie.

I, mostly-unapologetically, ignore them for two hours so that I can write hard hitting pieces like this. Except for the nine times I pop in to say “Sorry guys, almost done! Are you having fun? (Am I a good enough mom?) Anyway, cool cool cool, back to business! I love you!” I wish the head of the journalism program I dropped out of in college could see me now. (Except, no, not really see me as I’m still in yesterday’s PJs…which are actually PJs from TWO yesterdays ago, but who’s counting?)

We throw burritos again.

It is feeling dark enough to sleep now. We implore the children to brush their teeth (a process that spans multiple lifetimes but somehow we do not visibly age), then there are the meltdowns (whoops we missed our window), then hugs, mini-dance party, cuddles, everyone in our bed, circle back to Harry Potter and accidentally read for two hours which means we all wake up late again tomorrow.

Finally, I look around and let my eyes fall upon their little faces…faces with remnant make-up and rosy cheeks, faces that have hurled forth insults and uttered accidental poetry. Maybe it’s some mixture of gratitude that they are healthy (and silent) and the coziness of our too-small bed, or maybe it’s the realization that, holy shit, this all goes by so quickly, but, somehow, amidst the pressure to do it all right (and the fear that I’m doing it all wrong) there is really no where else I’d rather be.

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