Over the last five weeks, I have fielded countless queries about whether or not we’ve started back into homeschooling. The answer is, simply put, no. Sometimes I try to cushion the abrupt “no” with an explanation (we’re in the thick of preserving and canning!) but I don’t think it works. Not “doing school” in September puts me out of the realm of comprehension and smack into The Galaxy of the Weird and Wacko. Besides, now the food preserving is over and I’m not any closer to digging the workbooks out of the attic.

I have my reasons. It’s too nice to be inside, and we have other stuff going on. There’s choir (for my older son, not my daughter) and youth group, a money management class, drama class, fence building, nitpicking, playing, reading, projects, volunteering, housework, etc. My parents are days (days!!!) away from moving into their new house. My older daughter works three full days a week, and my older son sometimes works upwards of two. There are birthday celebrations, routine doctor appointments, and daily rest times. In other words, life.

Maybe my contentedness with living-in-the-moment is shortsighted. Certainly, the educational experts would have me believe I am ruining my children. Children must be coached, directed, and taught so they will be knowledgeable, skilled, and competent. They must be exposed to as much variety as possible early on so they can be informed and adept at whatever they might choose to do with their life.

Let’s apply this logic to an adult, shall we? Say, um, myself. I don’t worry about my future self, career-wise. My present self, yes. I exercise and cultivate my relationships and try new things and pursue interesting topics and feed people and, and, and, etc. What I don’t do is spend the better part of my days randomly bettering myself so that in ten years from now I can get a job that I haven’t yet decided on. That’d be nuts.

See, there’s a difference between planning for potential, as-yet-unknown careers and acquiring practical living skills. Most children (and their well-intentioned parents) don’t have any idea what the kiddos will want to do when they grow up, but we all know they will have to relate to people, manage money, eat food, and sleep somewhere.

I was listening to a conversation between Ben Hewitt and some radio guy when one of the two said, “Don’t think about their future. Think about their present.” Those two sentences were like a splash of cold water in the face. They resonated, especially in light of what I’d just gone through with my daughter. When I give myself permission to stop worrying about my children’s future and instead focus on how they are doing now, everything opens up. Instead of fretting about what might be, I can look at What Is.

*There’s a wedding to attend, the gift registry to figure out, and a gift to purchase.
*The dog has a weird lump on her foot—what should we do?
*How much money was made on puppy sales?
*This book was so good, it must be shared with a friend immediately!
*Sibs are fighting! Time to work it out, together, over stacks of dirty dishes.
*Mom has to run an errand and the juice needs to be canned so here’s how to hot pack.
*If money is invested in a closed savings account at 2.75 percent interest, how much will be there when the money comes available in 2017?
*There’s a snake on the porch! Quick! Is it poisonous?

Now that my kids are getting older, I’m worrying less about their future than I did when they were young. This surprises me. I always thought it would be the other way around. But here’s why I think I’m more relaxed: as the children increasingly interact with the world beyond our home, all while not knowing much (most?) of the information that their peers have squirreled away in their brains, I am observing that their lack of specific facts is not a deficit. It’s simply a difference.

I have read that, in the long run, the information discrepancy is not an issue. I have hoped that this is true. But I couldn’t know. My relaxed, and relaxing, attitude is in direct proportion to my relief.

Education is less about information acquisition and more about cultivating curiosity and the quest for self-understanding. So instead of focusing on stuffing rote facts into noggins, I’m attempting a different angle:

What are my children curious about?
Are they being stimulated and challenged?
Are they contributing and receiving?
Is there a balance between alone-time and together-time, work and play, inside and out?
Is there laughter, a balanced diet, enough sleep?

So back to that have-you-started-homeschooling question. As the weather gets colder, I’m sure we’ll start up with the studies in some form or another. After all, winter is meant for toasty fires, steaming drinks, and books. I can certainly guarantee the books.

But the boxes of workbooks stashed in the attic? About those, I make no promises.

This same time, years previous: dumping: a list.

This same time, years previous: pointless and chatty, 37, the skirt, chocolate birthday cake, a jiggle on the wild side, ciabatta, stream of consciousness: a list, butterscotch cookies, ballerina daredevils, and peposo.      

Ever since the end of last year’s choir season, my daughter has stated, in no uncertain terms, that this year she did not want to be in choir.

At first I thought she was just worn out from the previous semester. The choir is rigorous. There are weekly two-hour rehearsals followed by daily homework. Expectations are high. But I figured that after she had some time to recuperate, she’d be on board again. So I made the executive decision that choir was a requirement. For one more year we’d stick it out. My reasons, I felt, were good:

*she loves music and she loves to sing
*she’d only been in choir for one semester and needed to give it a fair shot
*choir involvement would broaden her musical repertoire beyond pop music (ew)
*she’s extroverted and choir would provide a social outlet
*she would gain poise and confidence
*as well as learning about music, she’d improve her math and reading

But weeks passed and she remained adamantly opposed. As the first rehearsal approached, she became increasingly oppositional. This is the polite way of saying “she conducted some major hissy fits lasting upwards of two hours.” Surely, I told myself, Once she goes to the first few rehearsals, she’ll make friends, realize the beauty of making music, and be fully on board, right? RIGHT??

This did not happen. She made friends, yes. She even had fun while she was there (or so reported my spies), but she remained firm: she hated choir and didn’t want anything to do with it.

What in the world were we to do? We had paid the steep, and non-refundable, fees. I hate quitting; I didn’t want her to think that a wishy-washy approach to commitment was acceptable. Besides, I knew choir was good for her. I knew she was capable of doing the work. I knew she would like it if she stopped being so crazy stubborn.

And then one evening as I ranted to my husband about our impossible child extraordinaire—she’s lazy! she’s irrational! she’s directionless!—I began to see the situation from a different perspective.

My daughter had been honest with me from the very beginning: never had she said she wanted to be in choir this year. Sure, I require my children to do lots of things that they don’t want to do, but I never require them to do out-of-the-home activities unless that’s their wish. So why was I pushing my daughter?

And then it hit me: I had unvoiced motivations for forcing my daughter into choir. I feel inferior about my musical ability. I didn’t have the opportunity to sing in a good choir when I was a child. I want my child to have what I didn’t.

Oh good grief. I WAS TRYING TO LIVE MY LIFE THROUGH MY CHILD. (This was the first mistake. The second was that I picked the most non-compliant child of the litter.) This is the classic parenting fail—the one that is so blatantly wrong, wrong, wrong, and the one that I scoff at other parents for—and here I was committing it with aplomb. The realization stopped me cold.

Actually, no. It kept me up till midnight. I felt so rottenly horrible that I couldn’t even sleep.

I don’t normally feel bad about my parenting mistakes. It’s not that I don’t make mistakes or that I don’t care. It’s just that I’m not a guilt-ridden, have-to-do-everything-perfectly parent. I’m kind of a hardass. But this. This wasn’t your run-of-the-mill too-tough punishment or forgetting that tooth under the pillow for three days in a row. This was different. I wasn’t listening. I was making my child be someone she didn’t want to be. I was causing my sweet child (who was acting anything but sweet) undue pain.

The very next day I told my daughter that she could drop choir if she wanted. I was clear about the reasons: she had been honest with me but I hadn’t respected her preferences which was a mistake and I was sorry.

I kinda hoped that once presented with an option, she’d decide she loved choir after all. No luck there. She was over-the-moon happy. And then she spent the rest of the morning singing scales, looking at her old sheet music, and watching the entire DVD of last year’s concert. What the—?

When I told my girlfriend about my daughter’s renewed zest for choir in the face of quitting, Girlfriend pointed out that my daughter clearly didn’t hate choir. In fact, she obviously felt good about it. Immersing herself in all-things-choir was evidence of healthy closure.

So where are things now? Well, I wrote a letter to the choir director in which I took full responsibility for my daughter’s withdrawal and confessed that I’m chalking the lost “homeschool education” money (ouch) to my education because education isn’t just for children, sigh.

My daughter, bless her opinionated and stubborn heart, is happier and more relaxed than she’s been in what feels like forever. She now has hard proof that her opinions and interests matter, and she stands taller for it. I certainly don’t condone tantrums (far from it!), but I’m actually kind of glad she didn’t let me get my way this time. I was wrong. I needed to see that.

As for me, I’m in the process of de-pigeonholing my girl as “the musical one.” As I am slowly extricating myself from my narrow-mindedness, I’m seeing my daughter less for who I think she should be and more for who she is.

It is shockingly freeing.

This same time, years previous: the run around, minute by minute, she outdid herself, painting my belly, roasted butternut squash salad, and my beginnings.