My imaginary homeschool life
and why hobbles save us
Is there anyone more starry eyed than the mother of a newly minted five year old, researching homeschool curriculum?
I suppose my idealism was tempered somewhat by the presence of a baby who, at that exact moment in time, didn’t believe in sleeping and frequently required me to wear all 20 lbs of his darling, chunky self in order to nap. But still, I was ready. We were going to start “real” school. I went to the practicum, I filled my head with classical education ideals, I became slightly overwhelmed by how exactly I was supposed to implement memory work, but it was going to be great.
And then that fall we decided to sell our house, we moved in with family, my husband quit his job, we moved to Wyoming, Covid hit, and while the school year wasn’t a wash — we did math and phonics and I had a fluent reader1 by the end of the year — it didn’t look how I thought it should. I was failing.
Little did I know that in our next four years of homeschooling, we would move several more times, live …