I have a huge respect for single parents who choose homeschooling. Here's a guest post from one of my readers.
Homeschoolers are a force to be reckoned with. So are
dedicated, single parents. Though each is becoming increasingly more popular,
both these groups are not the norm, and both are quite challenging lifestyles.
Put the two together, and you’re entered into a world where
outsiders looking in could swear that you’ve downright lost your mind.
But we don’t care what the outsiders think. We don’t have time to care what others think.
There are times, however, while we are working and being the
ultimate representatives in the practices of time-management and frugality,
that we find that sometimes we just can’t carry it all.
Some are fortunate enough to have supportive family within
reach, and perhaps even a supportive other parent of their children. Many are
not. So, in our seemingly composed way of balancing our worlds on the tips of
our fingers, we learn that there is one quality that can slip us, but it is one
that we must welcome and embrace:
The ability to ask for help.
We’ve convinced ourselves that we can handle it all—that
while we are scrubbing toilets at home, teaching division to our
grade-schoolers, and holding down some kind of a job that allows us to continue
our pursuits, we can do it alone.
We even embark on our journey convinced of this, and continue
on it with the same convictions. But life teaches us differently. We learn that
no one gets there alone. The single-parent homeschooler holds dear to her those
very friends that keep an eye on her child while the responsibility of paying
the bills beckons.
She has a loyalty to her fellow homeschooling group for all
the times they have talked her off a ledge when frustration was beginning to
get the best of her. He calls on his family to fulfill a role that he simply
cannot when it comes time to ready his daughter for a dance recital.
People often ask, “How do you do it?” There is really no
simple response other than, “Carefully.”
There is no safety net.
Single-parent homeschoolers are breadwinners and educators,
while simultaneously fulfilling the age-old role of attentive parent. How do we
do it? By seeing that for us, there is no other option. By our own accord or
not, we are carrying our world on our shoulders, and we will never let it be
too heavy.
How do we do it?
Carefully.
Very, very carefully.
Crystal
is a single-parent homeschooler, and enjoys that this combination seems to defy
any kind of common logic. She also travels with her daughter. You can read
about their adventures at www.gateleftopen.com and "Like" her at www.facebook.com/gateleftopen.
