Homeschooling With a Meek and Quiet Spirit: Free Time? What Free Time?

Today, homeschooling mom Teri Maxwell lets us in on a rarely spoken of secret in homeschooling: moms who want to home school well have to trade off ever having free time for themselves again.

Personally, I couldn't never figure out how moms managed to do it all - keep a semi-clean house, prepare three meals a day,  teach 3-5 subjects for multiple children and run their own home-based business.

Well, we've found some answers to that so far: Have your kids do more chores than schooling, count those chores as schooling, and be ready to blame your mom for not teaching you how to keep a house.

Now, Mrs. Maxwell begins the process of shaming young moms for needing any time alone.

I remember speaking to a lovely young mother after giving a workshop at a homeschooling conference. She had four children, ages 6 and under. She came up wondering how she could get more time in her day to herself. I suggested she rise early enough in the morning that she would have time alone with the Lord before the children were awake. I also encouraged her to have an hour or more each afternoon when all the children napped or did quiet activities. That would be another hour of quiet time for her to use as the Lord directed. This mom assured me that she already had those times worked into her schedule, but she needed more time to herself. (pg. 86)

Mrs. Maxwell's implication that the overworked mother already had plenty of free time is disingenuous.

Mandatory prayer time before the kids wake up is NOT free time for Mom. (Honestly, it's a dumb idea.  She's already leading Bible time plus prayer time with her kids during the day and getting more time in with the Lord than most people.)

Mom is already going to be very busy during that afternoon nap period.  If she has an infant or is pregnant, Mom needs a nap during that time herself - if she has time between trying to get dinner prep started or any of the myriad of chores needed to keep four young kids safe and clean that are hard to do with a mob under her feet.

Mrs. Maxwell ignores another issue; CP/QF stay-at-home mothers have no separation between home and work.  If they are at home, they are working and on-call during those periods of "free" time where the kids are asleep.  Never having time off of a job leads to burn-out.  That's probably another reason why so many CP/QF home school bloggers mention they move through academic materials at a glacial pace - the teacher is so run-down that she can't push the pace of learning any faster.

The responsibilities of being a mother and of homeschooling do not allow us to have great quantities of time to ourselves. Little children require our constant supervision. I have been very happy to have early morning and afternoon nap time reprieves from the activity level of my young children. As a matter of fact, the Lord has had to work with me because having a child interrupts one of these times, which I consider "my time" each day, was likely to claim my meek and quiet spirit rather quickly. (pg. 86-87)

This section directly contradicts what she said in a previous chapter.  Earlier in the book, Mrs. Maxwell mentioned that she suffered anxiety when she went for her daily walk without kids.  This means she did have a full hour of time to herself every day when she had several small kids.

Mrs. Maxwell's response masks another major difference between her life and this young mother.  Mrs. Maxwell began homeschooling with a smaller family that had a large, sensible gap in births so that she never had four young children at home without any support from older kids.    There is a 7 year gap between Sarah and Joseph when the Maxwell Family chose to limit their family size in response to Mrs. Maxwell's severe postpartum depression.  (I view that as an admirable choice.)  This also means that Mrs. Maxwell started home schooling with a manageable sized group of kids:

This infographic was created by subtracting 16 years from the ages of Steve Maxwell's kids listed in his book "Preparing Sons to Provide for a Single Income Family" published in 2001 to estimate ages in 1985 when they began home school.

She was managing two school-aged kids (who had attended a traditional school which means they learned the expectations of school time ) and a single preschooler.  She had no toddlers, infants or pregnancies to manage at the same time.  

Joseph wasn't born until Sarah was seven so by the time Joseph was old enough to start preschool, Mrs. Maxwell had taught kindergarten through high school.  This was extremely helpful because teaching a grade for the first time is the hardest.  Plus, Nathan was scheduled to graduate home schooling since the Maxwell family substitutes career readiness for sons instead of the last two years of high school. 

Mrs. Maxwell's last five children have two years between each birth.  Once her youngest was ready for preschool at age four, she would have finally had five children homeschooling at once at ages 12, 10, 8, 6 and 4 - but she also had Sarah who was 19 to help out in schooling and in keeping the house.

Mrs. Maxwell hardly had an easy time; postpartum depression is horrible and homeschooling is very challenging - but she had an easier family structure than many women reading this book do in terms of instituting homeschooling.

Next, she segues into why women shouldn't expect to have downtime on evenings or weekends:

There was a time in my homeschooling career when this was my goal - to have those evenings and weekends free. That goal came with a high price tag. There was no time for preschool with my littlest children, reading out loud to the children, having individual time with a child, or sewing matching outfits for the girls. My free time centered on what I thought my needs were.

How much happier my heart was and how much more content I was in my role as a homeschooling mother when I gave up trying to have evenings and weekends free. Putting those special times with my children into my day was so much better than being free in the evenings. You probably won't be surprised to know that I do still have some free time. I enjoy it when it's there, but it isn't a "demand " in my life anymore. (pg. 92-93)

Let's look at each claim separately. 

Is having evenings and weekends free good for moms and families?  Yes, it allows far more spontaneous interactions that are not school-based for parents and kids alike.  It also gives the mother a break from the grind of chores and kids.

Do the youngest kids need preschool - or is it more beneficial than a well-rested mother?  Honestly, Mrs. Maxwell's children may enjoy preschool - but preschool is most beneficial for students who come from educationally impoverished homes, from situations of generational poverty or who have or are at risk for disabilities.  IOW, the vast majority of home schooling families can skip straight to kindergarten at 5-6 years without harming their kid.

Does having evenings and weekends free preclude reading to kids?  I can't see how that would get in the way.  I enjoy reading aloud - I did that to amuse myself when Jack was in the NICU - so skipping read-a-loud during the day and doing it at night wouldn't feel like an issue to me. 

I assumed that having evenings and weekends free would increase individual time with a child.  After all, it's decreasing the amount of time that the mother is a teacher and increasing the time she's a mom. 

Making matching outfits for your daughters IS a free-time activity if you are not a member of a high-demand religious group.  Unless you are in ATI, Vision Forum, or FLDS, no one expects all the girls in a family to wear a home-made outfit handcrafted by Mom.

Honestly, I have much more free time as the mother of an nearly one-year old little boy than I thought I would.  There are three interconnected reasons for this.  First, my husband and I worked in decently paying careers for years before marrying and before having children.  We were well set financially in terms of earning power, assets, and money-management before having our son.  Second, we have had one son by the time we are in our mid-thirties  We have more life experience and much more time management experience than the average CP/QF first-time mom of 21 - plus only a single kid to manage.  Third - and I think this is key - my husband helps out around the house and with our son. 

As we will see in the next post, expecting a husband to help out with the house and kids is a worldly, feminist, anti-Christian idea.....