Mothering: Teacher, Protector. (On Steroids)

This post is predominantly about my big kid. My sweet Oliver.

With the school year starting for all the kids around our area, I've really been thinking deeply about my calling to be a mother. In being called to mother my sons, I've also been pondering the great calling I have on my life to teach as well. Mothering and teaching go hand-in-hand, but I feel very enriched by teaching fundamental lessons and instilling sound behavioral roots. At one point in my life, I felt very drawn to the idea of teaching as a profession. High school English, to be exact. During my soul-searching of my high school days, trying to decide which path was right for me, I toyed with different paths: journalism, teaching, design, and illustration. I guess the path that I was supposed to take simply pieced together some fragments from each of my 'could-be' paths to form this perfectly imperfect role that I play as a mother to my two boys. It's kindof neat how God takes our strong points and uses them so profoundly in our lives, but also brings to light our weak points on which we are to work.

Which brings me to the original point I was gearing toward: I (along with Andrew) feel profoundly called to homeschool our boys. To be the fully-aware, fully-immersed, fully-annoying parents.

Back to the weak points: organization, a fear of insufficiency, and perhaps a small amount of knowing how tightly to hold onto my children the older they get. As I begin to sit down and try to get a clear direction of how I would like to address homeschooling and try to formulate a 'lesson plan' of sorts for at least a few months worth of schooling, I'm met with a few crippling details: I seriously suck at planning, organizing, and feeling confident in the thought that I can and will be able to do this. 'This' being raise my boys up to be well-rounded, intelligent, free-thinking, creative, passionate, kind, polite, and loving souls. Parenting is scary, folks!

Along with planning out Oliver's preschool agenda, I'm met with other obstacles that prove to be even larger hurdles than teaching him his 'ABCs' and '123s' (so to speak): other children, outside influence, and this world in general.

I will be the first to admit that I have cursed in front of my children (and if you say that you haven't, I'm virtually-calling you out), listened to music in the car that is less than ideal for little ears once or twice, paused a movie or TV show a little too slowly and allowed my son to hear a word or two he really shouldn't have, opted to take a day to literally let my four-year-old watch TV for hours on end, and have just generally lacked in the good-mom department and have probably thrown my chances of being nominated as 'Mom of the year'. So, let me first stress that...I do not, nor will I ever, claim to be perfect. I am so far from it. It is only through the grace of Jesus that I am able to get through some days without drinking half a bottle of wine and pawning my children off on the nearest decent-looking adult passing by.

However, as my big little grows and spends more time with other kids, whether it be outside on the playground at our apartment complex, at soccer practice, or what have you, I notice changes in his behavior that make me cringe and feel like a failure as his valiant protector and guardian. In these moments, I feel such a huge weight come over me: I need to be on my A-game at all times; he needs to hear and see the best from us as parents because he sees the worst out there in the world when my mama-bear arms aren't wrapped around him. Nothing is worse than seeing your soft-hearted children being bullied, treated poorly, or left out by other kids. Or...beginning to do those same things to other children as retaliation. I've let the world's idea that "kids should be around other kids or they will be socially awkward" rot my internal momma-compass at times.

Living in an apartment, especially on ground-level, makes monitoring which kids your child interacts with less like a menial task and more like a great, looming, strenuous ordeal. I mean, who wants to tell your kids 'Yes, I know Billy, Joey, and Martha are outside playing, but you need to stay in here and do a puzzle with your old school, protective mom instead because their behaviors are behaviors I don't wish for you to mimic...'? I'll tell you: no one. So, I give in. A lot. But when I do, my sweet boy comes inside transformed into this mouthy, tattling, black-mailing turd-of-a-kid that I don't recognize. So, I reach this impasse.

One day, I know that the hard stuff of being a stay-at-home/homeschooling/hawk-eyed/protective mama-bear will pay off and my sons will be all that God wants them to be, but until then, I will be the mom that gets on her boys' nerves by not always letting them do and get away with whatever they want. I will be the mom that listens and watches what the kids around them say or do, the mom that would rather keep her boys home to teach them, guide them, and 'train them up', and the mom that imperfectly perfects her own route on this path of motherhood.

It's hard work, but the pay off will be golden.

Wish us luck with our first real year of homeschooling, guys. Pray that I don't lose my mind. (Hardy har har...). Pray that we can find a good balance of letting our boy figure out who he is and continue to be the goofy, creative free-bird that he is, and training him up in the way he should go.