Saturday, March 1, 2008
Small Moments
Early on in my unschooling journey, I came across various accounts of other unschooler's lives that left me feeling like a failure, not only as an unschooler, but as a parent. Our lives looked NOTHING like what I was reading about, and it scared me. I started doubting myself and asking, "Should I be making the kids get more involved, do more things, have more concise and presentable passions that could be shown off as worthy endeavors? Are my kids not motivated enough to be good unschoolers? What can I do to make sure we have these big show-offy things as proof that unschooling works?" Over the years I have learned to just not read those things that feel like a report card, with gold stars and hints of outdoing one another, being bigger or better. I learned to trust we were living our life the only way that was authentic and meaningful to us. As a result, I don't want my portrayal of our life to be a list of achievements that would appear to earn us gold stars. I don't want anyone reading about our life to think the requisite list of fabulous activities, projects, etc. is what the majority of our life is truly about. It is not these accountable tasks that make this life, our life, so incredible. For the most part, our life is filled with small moments of living with each other, sharing a household amongst 6 people, asking questions, getting answers, having conversations, watching tv, playing video games, hanging out, cooking food, cleaning up, celebrating events, going shopping, getting haircuts, saying "I love you", asking forgiveness, giving apologies, driving to fun stuff, making plans, budgeting money, traveling, raising pets, discussing issues, talking about sex, talking about love, talking about our passions, dreaming of the future, work, reading, decorating, playing, trying to find ways to have everyone honored and getting what they want as much as humanly possible. These small moments are not as easy to write about. These small moments don't prove that unschooling will lead to fabulous endeavors the way big projects prove it. These small moments don't look like proof that ultimately unschoolers will get to all which is deemed worthy. These small moments will not earn us any gold stars, but they are what our life looks like. They are what make us so incredibly happy. The projects and big stuff are fun too, but they are a just a small token of the big picture.
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8 comments:
Yes! So well put, Mindy. All those authentic moments of relationship in your family have made for six people that we love to be with and admire greatly. I wish we lived next door.
You are so nice Madeline! Yes, our brief interlude the other day was just that....too brief. Can't wait for the next time!
I must ditto what Madeline said. There are books I've read that gave me low unschooler self-esteem. But, like you, I had to remember that those stories would never fit my family. I'm glad to see others feel the same way.
Wendy! Hi!!! I'm so glad you're blogging. Now we can keep in touch!
Just beautiful Mindy.
you know.. "There are no ordinary moments" from Peaceful Warrior.
And that's what I got from your post :)
I am discovering that the small moments are worth more than anything. Thanks for helping to open my eyes. I have a whole file cabinet full of worksheets that the boys have done and they mean nothing to any of us. Walks in the woods, cuddles on the couch, REAL talks, REAL listening, smiles and giggles - all that and so much more....That's what it's all about.
What a FABULOUS post. Not that you needed my kudos. :)
You're so right. I am guilty of sometimes not blogging if I don't feel that I have anything "blogworthy" to report, and of often feeling like our life just cannot compare when I read other people's posts about their very industrious days. But it's true, these wonderful lives of ours are filled with so many small, seemingly less noteworthy moments, the ones that fill in all the time between the bigger ones. Somehow those moments are difficult to capture in writing, but I would like to make an effort to capture more of them. Thanks so much for this post.
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