Kids grow up.  It’s just the way things are and the way they should be.  They start out completely dependent on you for every little thing and for most parents that responsibility is both invigorating and scary as hell.  Thankfully kids don’t just suddenly wake up twenty-seven years old- even if they do think they’ve grown up overnight.  It’s a gradual process that allows parents a chance to settle into each new phase of growth before another sets in.

But kids aren’t the only ones who grow up.  When I got pregnant with BB, I was sure I had all the answers for everything life could throw at us.  I knew how I would parent, I knew how I’d feed him, I knew what life was going to be like.  I imagine I wasn’t the only pregnant woman to ever feel so damed certain, and I’m sure I wasn’t the last.  I think it must be a natural phase of the continued growth of women. I grew a lot after he was born, but I was still pretty sure I had all the answers…or at least most of them.  And the answers I didn’t have could be plucked from good books or websites.

I think I pretty much rocked being the mother to a baby and toddler.  My nanny experience, my Montessori experience, my natural patience all had me feeling well prepared.

Then one day when BB was about four–the age where I start remembering my childhood abuse–I had a complete panic attack in public.

Hubby had to go out of town and we opted to go with him.  I dropped him off at his conference and, since it was too windy and dusty to go to a playground, we headed to McDonald’s playland so he could burn off a little steam.  I’ve always hated places like that.  They stink, they’re full of germs (and I am not a germophobe), and since they’re colored tubes, you can’t see what’s going on inside.  Maybe it was the wind.  Maybe it was being in a strange town’s even stranger Playland.  Or maybe I was trying to work through some issues without being aware of working them out.  For no reason in particular I became totally, 100%, absolutely positive that there was a pedophile at the top of the structure, safe from the prying eyes of mothers, just waiting for my boy.  My mouth went dry, my lips went numb, I got dizzy, I couldn’t feel my feet or hands, and the room started spinning.  I stumbled to the slide and called up to BB.  He didn’t answer.  I could feel sweat trickling down my back, hear my heart pounding in my ears.  I called again, in the calmest voice I could muster: “Come on BB.  It’s time to go now.”  No answer.  Shit.  It wasn’t paranoia after all.  It was my instinct kicking in.  My boy was in trouble and somehow I could feel it.  I stepped back and surveyed the structure, looking for a big shadow, looking for an easy way up.  I went back to the slide, determined to climb up the damned thing.

More sternly now, “BB.  Let’s go. Now, please”.  I heard thumping and moments later my sweaty, curly haired little boy slid down to me, all smiles and perfectly unharmed.  I gathered him in my arms, breathed in his little boy smell and started sobbing right there in front of the slide.  He was safe and he was with me.  But I realized that anything could happen to him any time and any where.  I felt so powerless.

For a long time I was guilty of surrounding him in what I believed was a wall of safety.  I refused to leave him at a friend’s house for a playdate, if he climbed a tree, I stood right under him the whole time, every time I showered I’d lock every door and window in the house and then leave the bathroom door open.  I could get through a shower in about 2.5 minutes.

Of course this level of fear and paranoia is not sustainable and most certainly not healthy.  I slowly pulled myself out of it, allowing BB more freedom even though it hurt me to do so.  The first time he rode his bike up the block (not even around the block, just up it) I thought I was going to throw up from fear.

I still have a lot of growing up to do in the parenting department, but I’ve learned to let go quite a bit and letting go has been one of the best things I could have ever done for both of us.  He has playdates and sleepovers without me all the time, and while I sleep with the phone next to the bed in case he calls, I feel fine about it.  I have worked hard to create a network of people that I love and trust with my son and I know that they will keep him safe in my stead.  It’s nice to know that he can have a break from me and that he’s fine.  It’s nice not to worry about the imaginary predator in the play structure or behind the bushes.

This isn’t a perfect world, and I’m painfully aware of that, but I know the odds of bad stuff  actually happening to BB are statistically low.  I guess I’ve finally grown up enough to focus on the good things that do happen rather than freak out about the bad stuff that could happen.

Who knew regular sleepovers could be so cathartic?

Last night BB pointed out that we were in the 12 days of Christmas.  Now I’ll profess ignorance here and say that I don’t  know or care what the significance of the 12 days is; I just loved watching BB make a connection and get excited.  Nothing beats a kid doing the happy dance!

We have been doing a lot to get ready for Christmas this year.  It’s been kind of difficult and emotional for me at times, but hey it’s not about me is it?

We used to buy those obnoxious Christmas window clings, but I’ve never really liked them.  They get dusty, the fall off, they look cheesy.  This year we took our windows out of the box store’s pre-fabbed, ticky-tacky, all the same hands and decorated them ourselves.  It was so much fun, and I love knowing that there aren’t any other windows in the world that look like ours.

Living room window

Kitchen Window

Front door

Painting

I just think this is a neat picture

BB also had a really nice visit with Santa.  He took his letter, a list and some blue prints for a couple of robots he invented.  He hoped Santa would have his elves work on the robots “so they will be available to buy by next year!”

BB is explaining his blue prints

Santa promised him he’d send the plans to the elves straight away so they can get to it.  I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to have two fewer toys to design.

Checking the list

Merry Christmas, Santa! You rock!

Later in the evening, we went to the local botanical gardens to see their Christmas light display.  It’s pretty hard to get good shots of Christmas lights, but I think we got a couple.

Yellow Submarine!

Two cute guys having a cocoa break

Sunflower

When what to my wondering eyes did appear but a friggin' big T-Rex!

Wednesday night is a Mom’s Night In Christmas party, Thursday is our homeschool co-op Christmas party and Sunday is another party.  I have tons of baking to do, a Christmas Dinner to plan and maybe even some EGGNOG to make.

Mmmm...spiked eggnog...

We love Christmas.  We’re like a bunch of Anti-Grinches over here: “They loved Christmas- The whole Christmas season”. We love gingerbread houses, giving cookies to our neighbors, making reindeer food, and writing letters to Santa.

We’re also atheists.

Yep.  We don’t go to church, don’t believe in immaculate conception or intelligent design.  I think the bible is a book of stories…some terrible, some beautiful, some based on actual events and some not, but all in all a work of fiction.  We have bibles in our house and BB knows he’s free to read them anytime he wants.  As a free-thinking adult, I believe familiarity with the bible is important to cultural and literary understanding.   BB has expressed that he doesn’t necessarily believe there’s nothing out there, and we allow him to have his own theories and thoughts on the matter.  I ask him insightful questions and let him know that whether he believes in a god, gods, God or no god is not going to upset or disappoint us in anyway.  We are okay with him having a different belief system, we just want him to have the skills to think for himself, ask questions and come to his decisions intelligently rather than just blindly following along with a group-whether the group is his parents or his fiancée’s family.

So how do I reconcile letting my kid be a firm believer in Santa with being an atheist?  I’ve been asked this before, and I have all sorts of answers for it.  It’s fun.  It’s good to believe in magic for a little while.  It’s a safe way for BB to practice asking logical questions and thinking critically. Until recently, I felt like I was pretty much alone in being Santa embracing atheist.  But this morning I read a BLOG POST that expressed my thoughts on the matter completely, and after reading it I felt so much less alone.  There is someone else out there who believes that fostering and allowing a childhood belief in Santa isn’t confusing and damaging, and that it’s a wonderful opportunity to show our kids that we can trust them to come to us with big questions.

One day, BB will no longer believe in Santa Claus, and when that day comes he will know that his parents are not disappointed or angry, we will not try and dissuade him from his thoughts or attack his newfound lack of belief any more than we prohibited his belief.  When he’s a man, thinking back on his childhood, I hope he remembers a feeling of security and safety, no matter what he brought to the table.

So, regardless of your belief system, I wish you all a very merry Christmas!

Sometimes I wish that I had a private blog;  one that nobody in my real life knows is there.  It would be nice to have the safety of complete anonymity so I could say the things that I’m too intimidated or afraid to talk about with the people who know and love me.  Or even those who just know me…regardless of whether or not they love me.

BB is a big one of those things.  That child is the one of the most amazing, wonderful and interesting people I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet.  And I used to be Montessori teacher, so I’ve know tons of amazing little people!  But he’s also my biggest challenge.

When people ask me why we choose to homeschool our son, I have a few stock answers: The schools in the state are among the worst of the nation.  When I was faced with the reality of sending my baby to preschool, I wasn’t ready.  When I was faced with the reality of sending him to kindergarten, he seemed too young.  My husband used to teach in public schools and he felt very strongly that it was not the right choice for our kidlet.  We were too broke to send him to private school.  We wanted to have  influence over what he was exposed to…  It is a pretty long list, and everything on it is true, but I don’t talk about one very real reason we are homeschooling.

BB is freaking smart.  Hella smart.  He said his first word at nine months old.  I’m not kidding or delusional.  By the time his first birthday came around he was speaking in 5 word sentences and “reading” his little board books all day long.  He could spend an hour looking at two books.  By 15 months he had entire Janis Joplin songs memorized and sung them all the time.  By the time he was 2 1/2 he knew all the alphabet, what sounds the letters made, what a consonant and vowel was.  By 3/12 he could count to 50.  By four he could count past 100.  By the time kindergarten came around, he would have been bored to tears by having to learn “Triangle” “Blue” and “1, 2, 3, 4, 5″.  I didn’t sit him down and force him to learn this stuff.  He did it all on his own, because he was ready and interested. I provided him with lots of conversation and books and answered his questions, but mostly I just followed him along for the ride.

And now he’s halfway through the 3rd grade and my hope that he’d even out with his peers seems ill-founded.  Of course there are tons of things he can’t do, there are tons of things he’s not great at, but that doesn’t change the fact that he may be “gifted”.  Ugh.  I hate that word.  It’s not exactly a gift to him or to me.  It’s hard.  Because the flip side of it for him is that he’s also a perfectionist.  Another word I hate, by the way.  You wouldn’t know it to look at his handwriting, but he takes everything he does so seriously.  Sometimes getting him to sit down and write a sentence is the hardest thing in the world because he feels that if he can’t have perfect handwriting and perfect spelling then there’s no point in trying.  But he insists he should be able to do *everything* perfectly the first time and without practice.   So he doesn’t practice things like his penmanship and then he dissolves into an emotional mass of boogers and tears because he can’t read his writing.  He hits himself in the head, calls himself a dummy and stupid, says that he can’t do anything right.  He gets angry at me for insisting he try.  He sometimes throws things at me or spirals what I say until it’s not at all what I said.  If I say “Look, sit right here with me and we’ll work together to figure this out” he shouts back “So what you’re saying is (he starts all his spiraling sentences with that phrase) you think I’m stupid and can’t do it myself and that I have to do this all day long and you don’t love me!”  No, BB.  That’s not at all what I said…Sigh.  It’s enough to drive a mother to tears.  I’m learning, little by little, how to keep my composure when he loses his.  I am learning not to take it as a sign of my parental ineptitude when he melts down.  I’m learning to control my voice and to remind him to walk away, take a drink of water, or get a breath of fresh air, but sometimes I worry that I’m not doing enough for him.

I daydream about sending him to school sometimes.  I’d have all the time I need to write or prepare gourmet meals, and best of all, someone else could deal with both his “gift” and his perfection.  But I will never allow it.  I know in my bones that school would not help him.  If he thew that kind of fit in a classroom, he get laughed at by the kids, the teacher would punish him, and there would be no sympathy or opportunities for him to clear his head.  He’d  likely be sent to some doctor who would diagnose him with some disorder or another and suggest he go on medications.  Maybe *I’m* the one spiraling now, but it seems pretty likely.  And, complaints and fears aside, I believe I’m doing the right thing for him.  I don’t really want to send him to school any more than he wants to go.

Sometimes, too often, I admit, I don’t feel equal to the task of being his mother and teacher. Sometimes he stumps me, makes me feel about as capable as a gnat, or makes me feel so scared that I want to run, screaming and pulling my hair, from the house.  He’s so much smarter than I am, and homeschooling him can be as psychologically frightening as any movie Alfred Hitchcock could have ever dreamed.

But I know we’ll be fine when we learn to love the ride.

I got a call from my grandmother today.  She told me that my mother was in the hospital because “she’s depressed and had a nervous breakdown”.  She asked me if I can forgive my mother and get back in touch with her, to have a real mother-daughter relationship.  I can’t even express how much this pisses me off.  My mother has had 35 years to build a mother-daughter relationship with me and she always chose the drugs and men over a relationship.  Why should I suddenly feel all warm and fuzzy about her now that she’s been hospitalized?    Actually, she’s not even in the hospital anymore; she was released yesterday.  Oh, and apparently I should allow that woman back into my life because she’s being punished enough by her own guilt.  What am I supposed to say “Oh, gee…I didn’t realize she’s depressed and feels guilty for the way she’s always treated me.    That makes the black eyes and beatings a-okay now”.

I’m glad if she feels guilt.  She should feel terrible, soul-crushing remorse for her actions as a parent.  But I don’t think she really, genuinely feels badly.  She’s always been prone to depression around the holidays;  they make her feel alone and empty.  My dad’s birthday is Dec. 6th and the anniversary of his death is in January, and I’m sure that adds to her depression.  But if this is the same “depression” she had when I was a kid, it’s just another excuse to drink and drug her way to oblivion until it all passes.  I’m certain that by February she’ll forget all about this crushing guilt she’s whining to my grandmother about.  If I open the door *again* to a relationship with her, I’m also opening the door to more pain and disappointment.  I don’t know that I can do it.

My grandmother did a lot of crying.  She told me  how much it hurts her that I’m not speaking to my mother and how it’s just better to forgive her.  Forgive.  Forgive.  Forgive.  Why does everyone use that fucking word all the time?  What does that word mean?  Does it mean that I tell her I’m not bothered or upset about the shit hole that was my childhood?  Does it mean that I don’t mention any of it to her?  That I can’t ask her questions to make sense of things?  Does it mean that she’s absolved and can have a clear conscience?  To forgive her gives me power that I don’t want.  I don’t want her to need forgiveness or anything else from me.  Her demons are hers to exorcise.  By saying “I forgive you” I take possession of her pain so she doesn’t have to deal with it anymore. What I took away from that conversation is that my mother is being punished enough by her own guilt, therefore I need to forgive her and make her life a little easier.  What I didn’t hear was that she was being accountable for her actions then and now.

What they, my mother and grandmother, don’t understand is that I’m not choosing to hold a grudge or dwell in the negative.  More than anything I want to forget the pain and abuse and replace those memories with positive ones.  But we are only raised one time.  Parents only have one shot at raising their children and like it or not, kids don’t always turn out fine.  The lessons we learned in our childhoods will always be with us, whether they are positive or negative.  The way I was raised will always live inside me.  It doesn’t matter how hard I try to be and do better, I will always be an child abuse survivor.  And as sickening as it is, I can feel my mother’s reactions welling inside me when BB is being difficult.  I try so hard not to repeat the patterns of my childhood.  I don’t hit him, I try not to yell at him, I try to understand where he’s coming from and to meet his needs appropriately, but my mother is always there and sometime I fail miserably at being the mom I want to be.  Just a little while ago I got so mad at him that I threw an orange against the wall.  He’s never seen me lose it quite like that before so he freaked out and started crying and said he’d never feels safe around me again.  I went and apologized to him, but he wants nothing to do with me.  I have to believe he knows that I’d never hurt him, but I have to live with the knowledge that he’ll most likely always remember the time his mother went ape-shit and threw an orange against a wall.  I could ask him to forgive me but even if he did it wouldn’t change that, for a moment, he was terrified of his mother.  I could tell my mother that all is forgiven, but that won’t change anything but the way she feels.

I told my grandmother that I didn’t want her in the middle so if my mother had anything to say to me she could write me a letter and tell me herself.   It would be wonderful if this is what I have been waiting for my whole life; if she’s realized the enormity of her loss and she has decided to clean herself up and be a mother to me and a grandmother to my boy.  But as she always said “You can’t trust no one”.    I’m not even convinced she’ll take the time to write me the letter, but I guess time will tell.

What do you do when your husband is out of town with your only car, your kid has a cold, and there is leftover Halloween candy coming out of your ears?  Why you do science experiments, of course!

One of my friends pointed out THIS SITE and I thought this just might be up BB’s alley.  He’s fairly picky about his candy and I knew there were a lot of things in his loot bag that he’d be glad to part with…in the name of science.

Our first step was to dump all 3.5lbs of his Halloween candy–Yes, he weighed it.  What do you expect from a jr. scientist?– plus the candy that Hubby is supposed to take to the office on the kitchen table.  Then we sorted.  And sorted.  And sorted some more.  We ended up with two bowls.  One full of the stuff that can be sacrificed for higher learning (or given to the office) and the other full of chocolaty deliciousness.

Next we gathered up pitchers of hot and cold water, a bunch of bowls, some baking powder, salt and our specimens and we (well, mostly he) went to town!

Who knew M&M's and Skittles could be so pretty?

He wanted to know what would happen if he put Skittles and M&M’s in hot and cold water.

BB carefully records the results of his first candy experiment

After observing, he carefully records his data.

It wasn’t long before he was on to bigger and better things; much to my surprise, he was also starting to experiment with he good candy!   I learned a couple of very valuable lessons:  never turn your back on a young mad scientist, and 2) chocolate covered, eyeball shaped marshmallows reach molten-like temperatures.

NEVER leave an eight year old unsupervised with a chocolate covered marshmallow and a plastic bowl.

That’s okay, BB.  I didn’t like that bowl anyway.  BB wanted to do more melting, but I was loathe to sacrifice any more plastic bowls.  Our compromise?

Muffin tins!

A rusted out muffin tin that I was have been hesitant to toss.  Now I’m glad I never did; it has become a permanent part of our science kit.

Testing the texture of the melted candy

I learned another important lesson during this foray into edible experimentation;  No matter how hard you try, you can’t melt Twizzlers.   There is something supremely disturbing about a candy that just won’t melt.  It makes me wonder what happens to it after it’s eaten.  (you can see a peek of un-melted Twizzlers in the muffin tin picture above this one.  you can also see melted candy corn, sweet tarts, chocolate and a butterscotch candy).

I missed Hubby while he was out of town.  I mean, I married the man because I love to be with him, but I don’t know that I would have taken the time out of my life to spend two fun days experimenting if he had been home or if we had a second car.  I guess that’s another lesson:  When you slow down and enjoy the moment, the world opens up to you.  My whole universe was that beautiful little boy and the pungent smell of singed chocolate, and that was one of the most enjoyable times I’ve ever experienced.  I felt humbled and honored to be BB’s mother and supremely grateful to be a homeschooler.  The choices and sacrifices we have made so I wouldn’t have to go to work have been the right ones for our family, and I’m glad for every opportunity I have that helps me not lose sight of that fact.

There is nothing I’d rather do with my life right now than homeschool BB.  I think he’s the coolest little person I’ve ever met and spending my days with him makes me feel humbled and honored beyond belief.  I get to watch him develop into the person he’s becoming, I get to help him figure things out, and I get to witness him make breakthroughs and leaps in his education.

I adore the laid back flow of our days.  I love that he plays with his Legos while I make a pot of coffee.  I love that I can check my email while he’s eating breakfast.  And I firmly believe that there is no better way to learn world history that for me to read to him as he lies or sits next to me on the couch while I sip my second cup of coffee.

Our days are full of music and books, friends and cooking.  We go shopping together, we hang out in the backyard and dig for insects, and we  chase our dog around the yard.  Homeschooling gives me the opportunity to really know my son and I enjoy doing it.

Except when I don’t.

I’ve been told “I wish I could homeschool, but I don’t think I could stand to be around my kids that much”.  Those people must think we’re a one child Partridge Family, or that I have some super-human power of patience.  While it is true that I have a lot of patience, it’s is not the case that we are happy-go-lucky all the time.  Some days are hard.  Some days are really, really hard.  And some days I seriously consider dropping BB off at the elementary school down the street.

Want to hear a secret?  About an hour ago I put him in the car, drove him to the school and had him watch the kids on the playground.  We had been having a horrible afternoon (considering our lovely morning, I was blind-sided by the sudden transformation of my sweetie-boy into a raving monster) and I had reached my wit’s end .  We sat in the car and I explained to him that homeschooling is not a right, it’s a privileged that is earned by doing the things that need to get done.  If he can’t, then he’ll have to go to school.  In the schoolyard kids started lining up outside of the brown brick main building and the aluminum “temporary” classrooms.  We watched as a boy about BB’s age ran to his line and a little girl pushed him away.  The boy wouldn’t move so the girl grabbed his hand and twisted it back.  There was no teacher in sight, the girls around the girl were laughing and the boy was crying.  Finally the girl let go and a teacher came out of her room.  She put her hands on her hips and was talking.  The kids had been in line for over five minutes before she came out, but she kept them out in the heat (86 today) for several more minutes while she paced back and forth with her hands on her hips.

We talked about the freedom he has as a homeschooler, about how little work he actually has to do in order to be actively learning, and about how much free time he has to chat on the phone with his friends or read whatever he wants.  I pointed out that if he were in school all day, he’d come home with homework and that he wouldn’t be able to have mid-week sleepovers anymore.  He asked about weekend sleepovers and I told him I’d miss him too much during the week to allow weekend sleepovers.  Weekends would be family time, not friend time.  At least not till he’s older.   Sitting in the car, watching the kids stand in line, trying to hold back my tears and looking at BB’s beautiful face made me sad.  I was sad that I allowed myself to get upset with him, sad that I had actually considered taking him into that depressing building, and sad that, in the moment, I was intolerant of the person I’ve encouraged him to be.  I asked him if he wanted to be a homeschooler or a “school schooler”.  He blinked back his tears and said he wanted to homeschool.

We drove home and he said he wished he could rewind time and make different choices.  I agreed that would be nice, but since we can’t all we can do is start fresh from right now.

Not every day is beautiful.  Not every day is idyllic and amazing.  Some days really suck, and all you can do is choose to do better from this moment on.  I’m grateful that we could have our spat and then work through it.  I’m glad he didn’t get in trouble and then have to carry his emotions like a rock in his stomach all day.  Even when there are tears, I know in the pit of my stomach that this life of mine is more perfect than anything I could have ever dreamed of.

I’m no Pioneer Woman, but I do enjoy cooking. It just so happens that my family has some minor dietary issues that I try to work around, and as much as I can, I cook without dairy. I also try not to rely too heavily on soy. Coconut oil has become my butter replacement for most recipes (eggs, pancakes, muffins, bread…), and I’ve recently started using coconut milk in place of both soy and dairy milk in my cooking. It gives me the creaminess that I crave, and it keeps BB and Hubby’s bellies happy.

Since it’s Thursday, it was breakfast for dinner night (I know, I forgot to post my menu this week), and BB wanted crepes. Here are a few pictures and a recipe for my dairy/soy free crepes.

1/2 cup all purpose flour
Pinch salt
1 1/2 tbs. sugar
2 tbs melted coconut oil
2 eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk beverage
1/4 cup lukewarm water

The oil...

The milk

The chef

The batter

Put all ingredients into food processor work bowl with blade attachment and take it for a spin. About 30 seconds should do it. If it doesn’t look like all the flour has combined, scrape the bowl and whir again. Pour into a spouted measuring cup (I use a 4 cup measuring cup), cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, but up to overnight.

A crepe pan is not necessary; I use a 6 in non-stick omelet pan. Put your pan over medium low heat and rub just a teeny bit of coconut oil into the pan to discourage sticking.

And the pan

Mix the batter by hand and pour about 2 tbs into the center of the pan. Spin the pan to coat the bottom evenly and cook for about a minute. Yep, that’s BB pouring the batter and spinning the pan. Crepes are so easy an eight year old can make them.

Pour

And spin

Flip the crepe and cook another 15-20 seconds. I’ve heard that they make special crepe flippers, but I just use my fingers. Gently grab the edge and turn the crepe over. Don’t fear the heat. Your fingers will get used to it, if they aren’t already. If you are too afraid to use your bare hands, you can use a rubber spatula to help you lift the crepe up and flip it. I have found that they almost always tear this way, though.

Flip the cooked crepe onto a plate and repeat the process.

Flip!

If you are feeling ambitious you can fill each crepe with jam (and cream cheese if bellies will allow), put into a baking dish, sprinkle with sugar and cook at 400 for a few minutes. Me? I don’t do that. I put toppings on the table and let everyone fill their own crepes. BB likes a little homemade jam and sometimes a wee-bit of cream cheese. Hubby likes to wrap a piece of bacon in his crepe…a French breakfast burrito!

Fill

Enjoy!

Yum!

If you are a homeschooler, you have doubtless fielded many, many questions that begin with “But what about…”  I guess it’s only natural that well-meaning family, friends and strangers should feel comfortable enough to ask you if you’ve gone bonkers.  After all, They have always inserted their opinions into your life.  When you were pregnant, everyone had an answer for your morning sickness. When you had a baby, everyone had a loud opinion on things like feeding and sleep scheduling.  When your wee babe turned into a toddler, people started asking you what preschools you were considering.  By the time your kid was kindergarten age, the opinions about the minutiae of  day-to-day life started to die down…That is, until you announced you were going to be homeschooling your kid.

Once you make your intentions to homeschool public, suddenly the experts come out ten-fold, and boy howdy, do they have questions for you!  Questions, that by the end of your first year, you can answer without even thinking about them.  We’ve all heard them, we’ve all tried the different tones in our voices when answering,  we’ve all gotten sucked into a debate with a well meaning parent or in-law, and I hope that more people than just me has fallen asleep at night obsessing about what I could have said or done differently.  In the end, we all have different reasons for homeschooling, and that’s part of what makes getting drawn into a discussion so easy and answering so difficult.

One of the most worrisome issues  for my non-homeschooling friends and family is the S-Word socialization. “What about socialization?” they ask.  ”Isn’t BB lonely without friends?”  No.  He is not lonely and he is most positively not without friends.  At the merry age of eight, he has more true friends than I’ve ever had in my life, and as far as I can see, he’s not an anomaly. Homeschooled kids in general are more socialized than their traditionally-schooled friends.  After all,  in school kids are sorted into age groups and encouraged to interact with only that age group.  There is pressure for boys to only play with boys and girls to only play with girls. Tell me, when in your adult life, have you had to interact only with people of your same age and same sex?  Go ahead and think about that one.  I’m going to go get a drink of water and you can let me know when I get back… *insert Air Supply hold muzak here…* Did you find a time– A time when you were only surrounded by peers of your same sex and age?  What?  School? Yeah, that’s what I thought.  If someone were to ask my son or some other random homeschooler that question, they’d have a quick answer for you…  ”Never”.  Yep.  Never.  In any given week, BB orders his own food at restaurants, asks the librarian for help, pays for the groceries and accepts the change, helps the elderly lady across the street with the yard work, plays cowboys with three year olds, climbs trees with eight year old girls, builds Legos with other kids of both sexes, plays in the mud, and has sleepovers in middle of the week.  His time to talk and play isn’t confined to Saturdays and lunch periods.  His playmates aren’t restricted to boys his age, and his interactions with adults don’t revolve around a power trip.  The adults in BB’s world are not disciplinarians who are to be feared or ignored, but resources.  He learns so much from talking to adults other than me; he is not afraid of getting in trouble for asking questions and as a result, he’s not in the least bit afraid to walk up to someone at Boarders or Target and ask for help.

If you are worried about the socialization of a homeschooled child, all you really need to do to allay those fears is to spend a little time with that kid.  And if there is still some nagging, tugging, pulling feeling in the pit of your stomach that homeschooling is not in the best interest of the child in question, please let it go.  The decision to homeschool is not one that is lightly made, and odds are the parents have thought about every single pro and con.  If you point out a parent who homeschools her (or his-there are homeschooling dads out there) child, I can show you a parent who has stayed up all night, worrying whether or not she made the right choice.  When a parent makes the decision to send her kid to public school, friends and family don’t bombard her with questions about whether she has her kid’s best interest at heart.  They don’t try to drag her into a debate and harangue her until she admits the folly of her ways. Nope.  When a kid is sent to public school, the adults in the child’s life smile, nod, and congratulate the parents on little Sarah starting kindergarten and riding the school bus by herself.  All we homeschoolers are asking is that you give us the same respect.  Smile, nod, and congratulate us on making the best choice for our family-even if you don’t agree.