The Rigors of Routine

TODAY'S ACTIVITIES:

• Cleaning Surfaces
• Using Tongs
• Transferring
• Sweeping
• Dusting
• Hardware Busy Board
• Using Tongs

It's pretty crazy how the bar just rises and rises and rises when it comes to parenting. I don't know if I'm alone in doing this, but I tend to conduct a mental tally at the end of each day; a sort of "How was my mothering?" reckoning. When my son was an infant, I gave myself a hearty pat on the back at night if he'd nursed, napped and pooped, and a bonus pat if there'd been minimal crying involved. Pretty soon, though, that wasn't enough; I was supposed to give him bouts of tummy time during the day, too. Then, my baby was supposed to be rolling over on a daily basis, then grabbing toys, then sitting up, then crawling, then starting to talk, then walking, then feeding himself... And was I reading books to him everyday, and was I helping him learn his colors and shapes everyday? Was he counting yet? What about socialization? Had I been giving him the opportunity to interact with other children on a daily basis? And making sure he got some exercise on a daily basis? And was he out of diapers yet? And of course I must remember that I'm supposed to be teaching him to mind his manners, to play nice, to not scream and to definitely not throw tantrums, too! Everyday! Was I keeping up? Am I keeping up? PHEW! And my son is only three. Group sports and household chores and after-school jobs and college applications and all that sort of stuff haven't been thrown into the mix. Yet.

I bring this up because my son and I didn't do any school yesterday, and I found myself wracked with guilt about it. It doesn't matter that we had a pretty good, full day otherwise--three square meals mostly consumed, errands run around town, adequate afternoon nap, evening trip to the playground, bath taken, teeth brushed, books read, general happiness, no tantrums. And we accomplished all that despite both of us being pretty sleep-deprived! (Not only had the cat's nocturnal escapades been particularly noisy, but apparently the drunken tourists staying in the vacation rental next door are under the impression that in the Caribbean it's OK to be raucously loud all night long.) But none of it mattered because, in my mind, we skipped school for no good reason (and by "good" I mean tangible, like having a playdate to attend). Three weeks ago, before I started on this homeschooling adventure, I would have considered a day like yesterday a smashing success. Instead, I ended up berating myself because I hadn't forced school to happen. (I did try, but Parker kept saying he was tired, and I was tired, too. So we went to the market and shopped for groceries and took turns pushing the cart and weighed various items on the produce scale.)

The thing is, though, that one of the great benefits of (and arguments for) homeschooling--especially with regard to young children--is that you and your kid(s) don't have to be slaves to routine. Looking back on my own childhood, I can recall plenty of rough mornings with my parents and sisters, struggling to get to work/school on time on the heels of a restless night. Some mornings you're sick, or your kid is, or neither of you slept well, or you both woke up on the wrong side of the bed, or whatever. The point is, some mornings can be rougher than others. Rushing small children in the aim to get them ready and out the door on time poses enough of a challenge as it is. Add in illness and/or grumpiness and your day is almost definitely off to a sorrowfully stressful start. Is sticking to the schedule worth it when it ends up engendering stress and unhappiness (and sometimes even anger and upset)? Obviously, kids need to learn about responsibility, about reliability. We can't just take "personal health" days whenever we want to, and our children should come to understand that. But my son is three. Should I really have disregarded our mutual feelings of fatigue just to do some school, just because "that's what we do?" Parker observes his dad go to work almost everyday, he's with me everyday as I do chores and run errands, there are already nonnegotiable parts of the day, everyday (napping, picking up, bathing, brushing teeth); he's undoubtedly learning about responsibility. The choice--nay, privilege--to homeschool offers the opportunity to make sure my son also learns about prioritizing, about sometimes placing health and happiness above the rigors of routine.