The Autodidact

I've been thinking about the "sending my busy kids to pre-K so I can spend time with another child" issue. Some moms just had a baby and want to get the older kid out of the house because she feels she just can't do enough for him. Some moms have younger kids that just get in the way when she is doing school work with the older ones, and she feels she just can't provide enough attention. It is a common lament among homeschoolers that homeschooling is hard to do with little ones underfoot, because they are all inconveniently of differing ages. The bottom line for all of us who have been there, or who are there is: it's plain hard. And sending a child away regularly to let someone else take care of him, and so he can spend hours with other kids his own age, seems such an easy solution. But it occurred to me that motherhood is supposed to be hard, and throwing homeschooling on top of it can be more challenging. We chose this life, this homeschooling/motherhood