One of the phrases I have been thinking about a lot lately is – “Everyone can home-educate but not everyone should” – meaning it is perfectly legal in the UK to home educate and you don’t need to do a course in order to do it but not everyone has the right personality to do it.  hmmmmmm.  Here is the thing after 5.5 years of home educating I am beginning to think that maybe I fall into that shouldn’t group.

In all honesty there are just times when I am exhausted and grumpy mom seems to be ever-present and fun-mom disappears, my patience is not the best, I don’t always have the energy for all the activities and sometimes my blanket on my couch is far more inviting than the train into London and another museum trip.  My house never seems to be in order (serious what does that look like ?) there are always half-finished art works or half-finished projects scattered all over and we never seem to get through our reading list, it just keeps growing and growing (like the pile of washing).

I have been known to put a documentary on the TV so I can have a quick break – but really this does not work because I always watch the documentary with the kids and then they have questions and we normally look for extra reading about what they have seen, possibly a few more books, maybe some follow-up documentaries and an outing to expand on all that and really how is putting a documentary on the TV a break ?

I don’t have all the answers I am far from the perfect mom so why should I be home educating my kids ?

But here is the thing as far as my kids are concerned I am their mom and that is all there is too that, they don’t care about perfection, they care about their mom.  They really don’t need me to be anything other than their mom.  So maybe just maybe I can apply the same logic to the home-education ?  Maybe they don’t need a perfect home-educating mom, maybe they don’t mind that I don’t have everything figured out, that I am learning along the way and that sometimes we try a new book or activity only to realize it is not the right one for us. Watching all those documentaries are expanding on my son’s engineering interest and a science experiment that does not work can also teach them as much as one that works. The ever-growing book list is probably going to be there forever because as soon as we finish one book we normally find two more we want to read. Maybe they just need their own home-educating mom, imperfections and all, the mom who knows them and loves them and tries her best.

And hey if every once in a while the couch beats the train trip into London, well I guess that just means we might get to cross a book for our reading list.