Don't Say This to Homeschool Moms

One of my favorite bloggers is Kris Bales over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

She shared a list of 7 Things You Should Never Say to a Homeschool Mom and I think it's very well done (and super funny)!  So go read that and then come back here for my commentary.

What about socialization?

Making sure our children have opportunities to interact with other children and build friendships is important.  Duh.  But why the heck is this still people's go-to criticism?  It's getting old and not as big a deal as many think.  I think most moms are capable and intuitive enough to look at their kids and notice if they need more friends or social skills.  Moms are smart.  Trust us.  If our kids need something, we'll take care of it.

What do you do all day?

I've never been asked this question. I must be lucky to be surrounded by unusually wonderfully supportive friends and acquaintances.    More often than not, the people in my life are the ones that are reminding me how busy I am when I try to volunteer to put one more thing on my plate.

Just think, if you didn’t homeschool, you’d have more time to clean house.

 Yep, my house is often pretty messy and I'm never fully "caught up" on dishes or laundry.  But that's ok.  And hypothetically just because I send my oldest kids to school, doesn't mean I'll clean all day while they're gone.  I would easily find more important things to fill my day with (errands, volunteering in classrooms, taking the littles to activities.)   I also really like that the kids are home to see what it takes to keep a household running, and learn to pitch in.  Life skills!   

You must have so much patience.

I wish I had more.  

Do you own anything besides yoga pants?

I actually don't own yoga pants, though I wish I did.  But if you drop by my house unexpectedly during the day, it would not be unusual to see me still in pajamas.  So what?  And I do put on "real" clothes before leaving the house.  Unless I'm going to Walmart.  In that case, what's the point?

Since you’re home, would you mind babysitting for me?

I usually have no problem babysitting for friends during the day on occasion.  I can be flexible.  And sometimes giving my kids an opportunity to play with/help take care of younger children and teaching them the importance of giving service takes priority over grammar lessons.  The problem would be if it turned into a regular thing and it really started to cut into our school time.  Hopefully friend would have the courtesy to at least offer to compensate me, and hopefully I would have the courtesy to make my concerns known.

2015 Goals

I have a few goals (I don't like calling them "resolutions") for this year.  Please pray for me that I can keep them!

1. Be better about RSVPs.  
I'm the worst at RSVPs.  If I'm supposed to RSVP by phone, it just doesn't happen.  If it's a Facebook invite, I'll usually click Maybe right away but then I probably won't go back and update it.  I've hosted enough events to know that it sucks to have an inaccurate head-count.  It's disrespectful and I don't want to be a hypocritical jerk anymore.


2. Recognize family birthdays. 
Until this year, if you didn't come forth from my womb, then you couldn't expect to receive any recognition on your birthday.  I just think birthdays are for kids.  But I've realized that just because I don't care about receiving birthday cards for myself doesn't mean others don't appreciate it.  I need to see birthdays as an excuse to remember to tell someone that I love them.

So this year I plan to send birthday cards (likely just drawings from the kids) to all parents, brothers and sisters, and nieces and nephews.  My brother has a birthday tomorrow.  Oops!  I'm already behind!


3. Eat like the kids.
At our house we eat more processed and pre-packaged stuff then I think we should.  But at least I work pretty hard to make sure the kids have a good balance of fruits and veggies during the day!   But when I sit the kids down for their 9:30 snack of fresh fruit, do I munch on the apple slices with them?  Usually not!  When I instruct them to put a big handful of veggies on their lunch plates, do I sit with them and do the same?  Nope!

I really need to eat healthier in general, and I think eating what I feed the kids will be a good first step!


4. Family Home Evening plan.
We were good about doing Family Home Evening every week for a while.  But then Hubby started a Monday night class.  And we just never settled on a regular day to do it.  But even after the semester ended, we didn't get back in the groove.  But now we're going to!

And to make lesson planning easier, our lessons are going to consist of grabbing a scripture story picture from our Gospel Art Picture Kit and talking about the story.  Then the picture will be taped to a wall.  If we have time to come up with a fun activity or craft to go along with it, then awesome.  But if not, then we will still at least be filling our heads and home with wonderful art and scripture stories.  When the wall is full and the Kit box is empty, then we'll have to figure out something else.


5. No Facebook during school hours.
I may be a little addicted to facebook.  If I turn on the computer for any reason, I can't help but log on to facebook and then it's too easy to waste too much time just clicking around.  Any communicating that I need to do with my friends on there can wait until after school hours.  Teaching these kids is my job and I think workplaces are perfectly justified in firing people for indulging in social media on company time.  So I think it's inappropriate for me to use fb to distract me from my important work.