David Leventhal

I saw that my lovely wife posted something on Facebook today in response to a friend’s comment about how we home school our five kids.  The timing was interesting because I’d just read a blog post today that I felt resonated with our life.

The blog post was from a site called The Better Mom & no, they are clearly not marketing to me.  However, a friend recommended the post so I took two minutes to read it and was really encouraged by the post.  The gal writing the post is a stay at home mom who home schools their six kids (crazy, huh?).  The one comment that stands out from her post is:

“Many people assume I am super patient and highly organized and that’s the only reason I can do this, but I’m not any more patient than anyone else.  I do this by God’s grace.  I couldn’t do it any other way.”

Now…let me be the first to admit that I really think my wife is a rock star.  I think she is amazingly creative & fun.  I love that she’s got the opportunity to home school our kids.  I love that she’s the primary voice in their ears during the day. I believe she is doing a wonderful job home teaching the kids – a really, really awesome job.  And to be honest – most of what gets reported on Facebook are the cool things she’s doing….the fun things…the good days.

And if I could just jump off on a rabbit trail for a moment, I believe this is one of the great downfalls of Facebook/Twitter – we get such a small sliver into people’s lives…and most of the time it’s the best of a person’s day or week – their vacations in Colorado or California, their date nights at fancy restaurants, their kids being sweet to each other, their new car, their happy spouse, etc…  And from these tiny tidbits of information we construct a story of how amazing such and such a person’s life is and gosh, my life isn’t that much fun.  And it’s just not reality – it’s not their reality and it’s not my reality.

Okay – off the rabbit trail & back to my wife.  Yes…I really do believe she’s doing a fantastic job at home schooling, but I also have exposure to the bad days. The days when she’s frustrated with the kids. The days when she’s frustrated with herself. The days she’s tired – really, really tired from the late night lesson planning. The days when the kids are at each other’s throats and acting more like ravenous wolves than loving siblings. The days when the house is a wreck – papers all over the place, glitter everywhere, dried glue on the table, eraser bits strewn about the desk.

And so with that backdrop I was encouraged by the words on her Facebook page:

If you were a fly on the wall you’d discover the truth! It is definitely a FULL TIME JOB…plus overtime! I feel like my “philosophy” of what’s really important is constantly changing, but so are the moods of my children, so I am having to adjust constantly. I raise my voice more often than I should. I miss teachable moments just so we can move on. I often skip the fun so I can feel like we’re accomplishing something of value. Some days I feel it’s a perfect fit. Other days I just wish I had a break from them all…for a week…month…semester! But really I do love it. We’re learning along the way…some days a little…some days a lot. But that’s life.