It makes my stomach hurt to think about returning to unhomeschooling tomorrow. P said something today about the girls going back to school tomorrow, and I said something like “well, two of them at least”. To which he replied that D would be returning to school-like activities, too, right? Right? School-like activities. I’m immediately defensive. This whole internal dialogue begins on how I’ve abandoned the practice if not the philosophy of unschooling but how I’ve failed to pick up any real curriculum with D. I’m mad at P because he agreed to give unschooling a try and yet here he is demanding “school like activities”. How dare he! And yet I’m the one who has abandoned unschooling. I’m the one I’m mad at, because I can not shake the feeling that I am screwing this year up royally.
People frequently ask me how homeschooling is going and I smile and say “Great! We’re doing great.” But I don’t really believe that, or at least I don’t believe that tonight. The feeling of failure comes and goes. Somedays I do believe that the self-confidence D has gained this year is worth any amount of academic backtracking she will have to do, and how much back-tracking will it really be, anyway? How much information does the typical 5th grader actually absorb in a year of school? I have no idea, really. I know I didn’t really absorb squat until the 9th grade, and then suddenly everything started to make sense, and I was motivated and I caught up and ran ahead in every single subject. Will it happen that way for D? That’s in part why unschooling made so much sense to me. And yet, I can not take the leap of faith and just go for it.
I know I’m tired and this doesn’t make much sense but I have to post it anyway. oh, and the last thing I want to hear right now is how I’m really doing a great job, because all I can think when people say that to me is “Bullshit.” I’m totally fucking lazy, and I suck at this, and I just want the problem to magically disappear. Won’t somebody make this issue just magically disappear? Like a scholarship to the Robert Meuller Center for Living Ethics or a magic wand, perhaps, that will make D suddenly self-motivated and less of a martyr when it comes to work? Because really, that’s what I envisioned for this year. ugh. What are we going to do?
