Deschool Yourself: Homeschooling As A Single Mom

Part 1. Written by single mom, owner of the website The Single Crunch. A website about attachment and single-parent parenting. Photo below is not the author. The original post can be found here.

This is Part I of a two-part post about homeschooling as a single parent. This post details my experience as a homeschooling mom. Part II will offer advice for single parents who are or want to homeschool, and tips on what we’ve found does and doesn’t work. I know a lot about what doesn’t work.

I’d wanted to homeschool my children since before I had children. Honestly. I never bought into the idea of working for ten months to grow a healthy baby inside me, spending the first years of that baby’s life bonding with her, and then sending her out into the world just as we’re getting to the good stuff. Just like I wouldn’t slave over a hot stove and send my food out when it’s done, unless someone was paying me. And since no one offered me money in exchange for me to publicly school my child, I didn’t get it. I know stuff. I teach stuff every day. My children ask me questions, and I answer them.

And after watching my daughter’s talents and individuality slowly being stifled in horrible public schools, I decided to open a school right in my living room. I interviewed myself for the principal, teacher, school nurse and lunch lady positions, and even though my references didn’t quite check out, I gave myself a chance. Go figure, it worked.

To clarify: I am not anti-public school. I know there are great schools out there, but because of where I lived when my daughter entered kindergarten, she didn’t get to go to one of them. To keep it short, the parents didn’t care, so the teachers only cared as much as they had to. They were used to dealing with underprivileged children and when one came along who shone, they dimmed her light to keep from discouraging the others, or because it was too bright for them to accommodate. I know not all schools are this way (I was public schooled and credit many of my teachers for some of the characteristics I like most about myself). I’m sure in a different setting those same teachers would have helped Ryleigh to reach her full potential, but in the given situation they had neither the time nor the resources. That was their problem, and the city’s problem, and a problem of the United States government. It was NOT, however, going to be my child’s problem.

I respected the fact that I live in a capitalist country, and if I really wanted to send Ry to a better school I could continue moving up at work, buy a house in the suburbs, and stand at the bus stop in the morning in my polka-dot robe, telling Amy how Susan’s husband came home at like friggin 3:15 last night, what do we think is going on there? But, alas. I’d just had a new baby and an epiphany. I wanted to be a full-time parent. Dollars are cool but they just sit there all flat and green and spendy. Children are way,way cooler. I moved to the Southern US, and am fortunate to be able to scrape by while still having time to parent the way I want to. One of the first changes I made was to take my eldest from public school (it was really dramatic, I wore a mask and swung in on a rope and shouted “FREEDOM!” at the top of my lungs. No I didn’t. But it felt like that.).

I made a plan, typed up a curriculum, scoured the internet for books under $10 (pretty sure I almost popped a retina), made worksheets, bought supplies, and registered my “school” with the state of North Carolina. Within the first month we figured out that wasn’t the type of school for us, and my toddler colored over all my beautiful planning. No biggie. We adjusted. I found homeschoooling pages on Facebook, and forums on the internet, and I learned that it’s a good idea to give yourself and your child a period of “deschooling” when transitioning from public school. So for a few months that’s what we did.

We reveled in the fact that we no longer had to wake up at the buttcrack of dawn to have Ry at school in time for breakfast by 7:30 am (which is so weird, because I didn’t even have to be at work by 7:30 am…but you know, children can handle more than – wait, never mind). For me as a single parent that was especially a struggle, because I was breastfeeding an 18-month old baby, and no matter how much duct tape I put over our mouths in the morning, she’d wake up and want to nurse. After rushing around to make up time, by the time we reached school we were both pretty white-sand-beach-crabby. =( No good.

Eventually we developed a rhythm and got off to school with love and hugs, but it was still a struggle. And it always hurt my heart to send her off to learn things I could be teaching her, and certain things I didn’t want her to know. At least not yet. And there was so much she just had no interest in. My monkey is very bright, and very inquisitive, but she has the attention span of a bagel. Her teachers were constantly telling me they knew she could do better. And I was constantly thinking “Yeah if she wasn’t so Bob-awful bored.” Then there were subjects she isn’t so great at, and I didn’t like that she was forced to move along at the pace of everyone in the class, because they all had to make marks for the Big Special Test That The State Uses To See Who’s Dumb-ish.

I just didn’t like public school, not for my family. So. Fast forward to now. Now, we’ve discovered that we just might be unschoolers. I know, it scares me, too. “What if she doesn’t learn enough?” “Is she keeping up with her peers?” “What if she ever wanted to go back to public school, would she fit in?” Readers, I frankly do not know. I do however, know that I don’t have a college degree but have been able to teach myself most of the things I need to know to “fit in” with my formally educated peers. We as adults learn in an unschooling fashion; if we can expect our small children to be able to wake up with the roosters to get off to school, I trust that she can learn in a similar fashion as I do. We still use books, because there’s so much I don’t remember, it’s not even a little bit funny. But that does makes me smile because I obviously haven’t used it since grammar school. I teach classes that Ry will always be able to use in everyday life, such as How To Wash The Sink After You Do The Dishes Because It’s Annoying When You Don’t, and How To Hold A Conversation About A Subject You’re Not So Familiar With, and my favorite, How To Enjoy Your Life And Learn The Way That’s Best For Ryleigh.

Our classroom is our town, our state, the train, the park, the Goodwill, the kitchen. We do math at the market, social studies at a coffee shop, language arts in bed, snuggled up reading about how annoying Peter Hatcher finds his brother, Fudge, and all other subjects anywhere we happen to be. We do have periods of traditional education as well and when I see that she’s not quite grasping an idea, we head to the library or do a project using my close companion, the Internet (love you, brother, thank you for everything).

Ryleigh has friends of all ages and capabilities and colors, everywhere we go. They all know the tall little girl who rides the blue bike and wears the blue helmet. She loves the freedom homeschooling offers. I love the time I get to enjoy watching her grow. This, for me, is the good life. It gets frustrating, and some days I’m really a lazy lady, but even then, we are learning (“Today we will study how we don’t want to be on a daily basis. Grab some waffles and sit down on the couch.”). Having this much flexibility also enables me to practice patience more, because we aren’t on anyone’s schedule but our own. It’s one of the decisions I’ve made in life that I don’t feel I’ll reflect on later and wonder, “Whaaa-?” Unlike when I panicked and told Ryleigh that a prostitute is someone who tries to influence you to do bad things. Not good. (“Mom, I knew SO MANY prostitutes when I was in school! Wow.”) :/

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