My wife and I have always emphasized independence in our children’s learning styles. From the beginning, it was their responsibility to own their own education. By allowing them to determine their own schedule, giving them the choice type of projects they would present, and keeping  a “hands off” approach unless it was clear our kids needed direct assistance, our children became aware of the fact that our role as parents was to facilitate, not to dictate their learning.  Over the last 8 years, this strategy seems to have fostered the correct attitude in them. They study, they research, and they write for themselves, not for us.  This independence has given them a sense of confidence when approaching challenges, one I would not trade for any amount of personal satisfaction in solving their problems for them. 

However, at times I’ve used this independent streak as a crutch to excuse my own lackadaisical approach in keeping my kids accountable. It becomes very easy to allow their self-directed mentalities to cloud my judgement about when I should, in fact, step in and make adjustments. Examples include when assignments mysteriously have not been completed for a month, or a test unexpectedly is barely passed. The “why didn’t you ask for help” response rings hollow when I know for a fact that I was not pro-active in checking on their studies. I realize this may seem a good problem to have for parents that have less than motivated learners, but it has become a systematic issue in our learning journey, and one I can only attribute to my ‘big picture’ view of education becoming too big. 

I call this “blimp” schooling as opposed to the oft-mentioned “helicopter parenting”, the latter phrase referring to parents that hover too close to the child, not allowing them freedom to fail or to express their own abilities without interference. My problem is that I tend to look at the big picture (“they all learn at their own pace”…) to the point that I lose sight of the day-to-day quandaries that they may face educationally.  My blimp soars too high when all I can see are specks of activity on the educational roads my kids travel, when in fact there may be a pile-up on the expressway that needs an immediate infusion of intense interaction. It doesn’t help that they are, in fact, fiercely independent and resist when I bring the blimp closer in to observe their work in a more detailed fashion. Whether they resist or not, I know my role has to encompass both a long range and a short range view so they can reach their goals.

I’m sure there is a happy medium between the helicopter and the blimp mindset. I want to be able to keep a view from the long range of my children’s development, while having the ability to look close at any time and zoom in on the particular problem or skill that they need to develop.  Whatever that ‘aircraft’ looks like, I am making a new effort to become an expert pilot as I guide my children to their destination as learners and leaders. 

• That my marriage is stronger than it was at the start of the year, despite challenges and obstacles, and that my wife and I have now been celebrating our love for 15 years. 
• That our leap into the Classical model of education has been successful, and that my kids are continuing to grow and mature in their faith and self-awareness. 
• That our long battle with selling the house came to an end, and we found a new place to call home. 
• That my church family continued to provide real relationships, inspire new levels of faith, and challenge me to live up to the potential I was imbued with from my Father. 
• That despite all that could have gone wrong, we are more inspired, more prepared, and more empowered to handle the challenges of 2012 because of the lessons of 2011.

I pray that you can look back on the past year and see more blessings than burdens, and look ahead to 2012 and see more possibilities than problems. 2011 was a tough year for many of us, and yet, we are still here, and He is still able. 

Happy New Year! 

“He had an excellent constitution of body, was of middle stature, but well set, and very strong; he was ingenious, could draw prettily, was skilled a little in music, and had a clear pleasing voice, so that when he played psalm tunes on his violin and sung withal, as he sometimes did in an evening after the business of the day was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear. He had a mechanical genius too, and, on occasion, was very handy in the use of other tradesmen’s tools; but his great excellence lay in a sound understanding and solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private and publick affairs.” 

 

Later Franklin describes how his father would bring guests of the community over for dinner and engage them in deep conversations to “improve the minds of his children.” It is apparent that much of Franklin’s interest in ideas and his desire to improve the society around him began at the dinner table, listening to the conversations between his father and their guests.

Upon reading these words, my memory returned me to my childhood and the dinner table. Perhaps my father didn’t invite the local thinkers of my hometown over to dinner, but there was certainly an exchange of ideas at every meal. Like Franklin, I remember much more of the conversations than of the meals themselves. Science, philosophy, humour, and morality were all fair game. And I realize that much of what I try to instill in my children doesn’t take place at the homework desk, nor in the sunday school class, or even on the couch. It’s what they catch from our sharing at the table that seems to stick the longest. Even now they can recount conversations and laugh-a-thons we had at the table even more readily than they can remember some vacations or big trips. It’s an inducement for me to continue pouring in knowledge at the table, as I pour the gravy over the mashed potatoes, or pour the Sprite in the glasses as we share a Friday night pizza.

Franklin takes the time to write down the inscription on his parents’ gravesite, they each having lived to their late 80′s. I’d find this a fitting tribute to my life if my kids can say this about their parents one day (minus the amount of children).

Without an estate, or any gainful employment, By constant labor and industry, with God’s blessing, They maintained a large family comfortably, and brought up thirteen children and seven grandchildren reputably. From this instance, reader, Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, And distrust not Providence. He was a pious and prudent man; She, a discreet and virtuous woman.

Though he lived long enough to see many of his son’s achievements, Ben Franklin’s father probably never imagined what an impact those conversations and his leading a life of learning would have on the history of our country. Neither can I predict what great things my kids may do one day as a result of some wisdom I may, by God’s grace, pass on. But I plan to continue giving my children every chance to see a man working hard to become a better man, as Franklin’s father did. I hope every father reading this feels, and then does, the same. Our country will be the better for it.

Quotes from Franklin, Benjamin (1994). The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Kindle Locations 133-153). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

For the last year, I was a tutor in a Classical Conversations community here in Miami. (For the uninitiated, Classical Conversations is a classical Christian curriculum that supports homeschool families by connecting them with tutors that model the classical method) My kids were already excited about their curriculum choices, which I allowed them to help choose, so I was hesitant to switch them into the new curriculum. So instead, I let them accompany me to my classes, get to know the kids, and help out with my preparation for classes. Now, after having checked out the program from the inside out, I’ve decided to put my two younger children in the program next year. It is a bit scary. After all, our entire homeschool journey started with the outright rejection of any single curriculum. I’ve called myself an unschooler, a unit studies homeschooler, an electic homeschooler, a family learning homeschooler…I have attempted to place so many labels on my educational philosophy that if I were to put them on name tags, my whole upper torso would be covered in “Hello, My Name Is…” stickers.

As we complete our 6th year of “family learning” (That fact is sooo hard to believe), we have come full circle. My eldest, public schooled son has completed his first year of college and my younger two homeschooled children are now nearing the high school grades. It brought me to a point of contemplating our efforts so far. Had they been adequate to prepare them for a treacherous economy and job market? Was my hands-off approach to education helping or hurting them? In all my deliberation,  I had to remind myself that no matter what label I wanted to maintain for myself, the priority was that my kids have a complete and strong push through high school to prepare them for anything the educational world and the workforce would demand of them.

So did I run to the Classical method immediately? Absolutely not.

What made me sure that this was a good fit for my high school age kids was not necessarily the accountability or high expectations of the Classical Conversations program, although those were highly important features. No, what drew me was the realization that the paradigm of the Classical method fit my particular view of how I wanted my kids to develop as thinkers. I certainly can’t say I’ve been a diehard adherent of any one philosophy, but I can say that I agree with any educational program whose goal is to end the supposed divorce between real life and knowledge. This particular program allows me the greatest chance to continue to remind my high-school age children that you can’t separate what you learn from how you learn. If they get the former without that latter, they will have no chance in their future endeavors to know how to better themselves on their own. But homeschoolers in general understand this principle no matter what method they choose. Keeping our children’s individual needs in the forefront, and ensuring that they have the proper view of why education matters, virtually ensures that our curriculum choices will eventually prove effective.

Learning, in the truest sense, can’t be limited to a label. Although there will always be differing methods and strategies for each person, the end goal is not to define a philosophy of education, but to refine a mind. That’s something I’ll have to keep in mind even as the requirements of my kids’ education become more and more specialized. They may not remember everything I teach them, but my only desire is that they remember how to learn. If that happens, which I believe it will, our family learning experience will be a resounding success.

But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere

It is pretty predictable now.

The feeling always follows a great moment. Perhaps a successful client meeting where a sale was closed. A home project that had bedeviled me for months, finally completed. A big church event, planned for months, concluded with a rousing applause and smiles on the faces of the congregants. Then follows the high fives, the hand shakes, the smiles and pats on the back from passerby or well-wishers. The tired but grateful walk to the car or the falling into the bed with exhaustion partnering with gravity.

This is when the question floods my mind when I should be enjoying the moment.

“Now what?”

Perhaps some dads out there can relate to the all too fleeting moment of accomplishment and completion, only to hear a voice telling you that you really haven’t accomplished anything. That whatever project, duty, or goal you have achieved is destined to be followed by another one, promising to be harder and more frustrating than the last.

I single out dads because I believe many of us feel the struggle of setting high standards for ourselves and our families. Even in this post-modern era of modified family roles and gender equality, there is still a social and internal pressure placed on the fathers to ‘make things happen’ in the home. We are the thermostats of the family, and if the home is cold or uncomfortable, we bear the responsibility of changing the atmosphere. The danger of this truism is that we feel the job is never done. We can work for years to reach a goal, and when the moment is reached, there is no release or reward. We don’t stop to smell the roses, or even realize there was a rose on the side of the road at all.

It occurred to me today, when I was in the midst of one of these doldrums, that this sense of accomplishment is probably the most fleeting of all senses for me. We all use our five senses constantly to keep track of where we are, what is around us, and how we should proceed and act. Our senses make us aware of our surroundings. Some call the mystical ESP the ‘sixth sense’. Wikipedia tells me that the sixth sense is the sense of equilibrium. But I think the sixth sense for dads is the sense of accomplishment. It tells us that we are on the right track, that we’re worthy of a moment of satisfaction in who we are and what we are working toward. It may be that we have to force ourselves to stop in the midst of all the family, work and school activities and simply wait for a different voice, one that sometimes doesn’t come from another person. It has to come from a different place, one that resides on the inside. A voice that says, “Good job.”

So I’ll try to tap into that voice even when I hear those other voices telling me that I didn’t do well enough, or accomplish enough, or that someone else was better for the job anyway. There’s only one dad God selected to do the job I’m doing, and I’ll take his selection as a sign that I’m able to finish the task of raising great kids, being a great husband, and finding contentment in being the best man I can be.

Those words, written on my first teaching evaluation, were probably well-intentioned, and likely a valid statement, but they remain, for better or worse, anchored in my consciousness to this day. For what I heard in my head when I read those words sounded more like this:

“Tolerance will not be tolerated.”

I was an intern music teacher in my first assignment in an elementary school, having just been manhandled by a group of twitchy 4th graders that read my fresh-faced demeanor as an excuse to tune out of my fun lesson on quarter notes. After all, I’m sure they were aware that for once, they were not the ones being graded – the teacher was. How much fun that must have been to know this collegiate wanna-be teacher was at their mercy, like a laboratory where the mice are in charge, and gleefully drop the scientist in the maze. I’m not sure whether the problem was that I didn’t recognize the rambunctious nature of the children, or that I tried to soldier on through the lesson without using the “Classroom Management Techniques” drilled into me by my teaching textbooks – names on the board, positive reinforcement, eye contact, redirection – all given for the express purpose that I should exert my will over the classroom. Whatever my reasoning or judgement, my supervisor was clear in her assessment. I had let the kids get away with too much.  I had not, in her view, provided the proper amount of consequence for the perceived offenses of the group.

To which charge, if carried over the 14 years since, I must plead guilty in more than one case of educational anarchy. Most of my life, I’ve been either blessed or cursed, depending on ones view, with a propensity for giving people a second, or third, or fourth chance. My children, of course, would beg to differ with this assessment. They see a dad that makes decisions and judgments long before they have finished their appeals, and I’m sure they chalk that up to a lack of patience on my part. If only they knew (and now obviously know if they are reading this confessional themed section) that I agonized over each and every decision and always felt a sense that a punishment or decree could warrant another look. I’m very aware that this sometimes has been a negative factor in my adult life. No matter how many books and websites I’ve researched on assertiveness and leadership, it hasn’t made it any easier for me to draw a line in the sand.

Therein lies my dilemma. I know that tolerance can, in the extreme, be a cowardly decision to avoid confrontation and excuse wrong behavior. However, on the opposite side, I’ve seen where a long-suffering and patient attitude toward people has been a beneficial asset. I feel many of the relationships I’ve forged with friends have stood through difficult seasons because I simply refused to take the final offense. Although it hurt deeply at times, I chose to believe that the good in the person would always shine through the bad choices, and except in some extreme circumstances, I made an effort to provide a place of reconciliation. I’m sure I was not always correct in my judgment of when that was the proper course to take, but that’s where the real crucible of friendship and relationship is – in the choice whether to use the torch of compromise to lead the way to a bridge between two seemingly incompatible views, or to use the torch of decision to burn the bridge.

Of course, not all issues of patience have to do with putting up with people. However, in this essay I’m deliberately not speaking about the patience needed to see a goal through, or to endure a trial or season of testing. I’ll refer to that type in a future post. (Thus the Part I addendum to the post title.)  To be patient with people is more difficult, because I believe we view relationships more as commodities than companionships. We hear regularly about the need to cut ties with those that disappoint us, as if a person is a faulty piece of equipment to be discarded when it malfunctions. Because of this perception, I feel the price of being ‘too patient’ with people has been the appearance of weakness –  of a sense that I’m unwilling to call out and hold people accountable. However, while I readily accept the fact that sometimes boundaries must be set and standards upheld, I look to another example for comfort when I feel I’m doomed by my tolerant disposition.

Picture God watching mankind, His most precious and greatest creation, utterly forsaking Him for alternative gods and denying that He ever had anything to do with bringing them into existence.  Imagine the disappointment. Now, we acknowledge readily that God reaches a point of finality where judgment is enacted – the Flood for example – and no one is accusing God of not enforcing the standards He demands. However, the patience of God ends up having a high price – the price that people begin to think that He isn’t serious. Those people alive at the time of the Flood might have been more prone to believe Noah’s warnings had God allowed a river to burst forth somewhere. Even now, in this post – modern world, a common view from skeptics about God is that if He were real, He wouldn’t put up with people not recognizing Him. Still,  He exhibits patience and seems to allow things to get worse even as time seems to be growing short. So is God too tolerant? Should He put up with as much as He did, and continues to put up with? I doubt anyone, no matter how desirous of seeing the complete vindication of good over evil, would accuse God of being too patient. In truth, the full price of His patience was exemplified in the sacrifice of His Son, because a patient God decided losing a Son was better than losing any sinner that had a chance of repentance.

So is it dangerous to be patient with people? Yes. Is it worth the price of the appearance of weakness and excessive tolerance? In my theological example, I would have to say yes. However, it is harder for me to accept that answer as a father and man who deals with the dilemmas that patience brings. There is no easy answer, no one magic bullet that solves the patience problem. Patience has its perfect work, James claims in his epistle. I don’t think for a moment that means we perfectly understand why certain people require more patience, but I do believe that when we look back from the other side of heaven, we’ll see a complete picture of how God has been patient with us, and how that patience has been transmitted through us to others.

I’ll continue wrestling with this perception for the rest of my life. What I don’t have to wrestle with, however, is the fact that I know while I may give too many chances at times to students, children, or colleagues, God has never felt like He gave me one too many chances. I appreciate that, and I’ll pass it on as best I can. And to that student in the 2nd row in Ms. Buddy’s 4th grade music class that talked out of turn and wouldn’t keep your hands to yourself – I saw you. And you’re welcome.

I saw my daughter’s plant starting to wilt this morning.

When we bought the little plant, it was in a peat pot, and that peat pot was in a plastic container. Gardeners know that we normally would have taken the plant out of the plastic pot, dug a hole, and then placed the plant in a garden or something similar outside. However, having bought the plant just for a short science experiment with soil, we never moved the plant outside. My daughter was content to water the plant and stick it close to the window sill, where the sun would shine on it every morning, and she looked forward to lovingly caring for it every day.

The plant grew pretty well for a while. It had lovely little purple blooms, and soon was overflowing the pot. However, we still never took the time to replant it or prepare the outside ground for it. So it remained on the window sill.

Now despite the leaves growing over the side, I can see the yellow streaks on the leaves, the drooping of the blooms, and the lack of firmness in the stems. It seems even with the best of care, the plant has lost its desire to be all it was capable of being.

It is obvious that without intervention, the plant will die. Not because she’s not watering it, or because it’s not receiving adequate sunlight. It’s because its purpose is beyond the pot. No amount of loving tender care will change the fact that it was never designed to stay in the little container it started in. And by trying to force it to stay in the pot, we are only dooming the plant to a short flourish, followed by a long, desperate and dreary decline into death.

I won’t insult your intelligence by insinuating that you, the reader, are the plant. Suffice it to say, that some pots are self made. We make our own plastic pots, take great care of the plant, place the plant where we think it will be secure and safe, and think the plant will be happy. But nothing that is designed to be free can last under the boundaries of the pot. The plan for the plant must come to pass, if the plant is to ever make any progress.

I would love to say we are preparing a place outside for the plant. That is not the case. This particular plant has to deal with my daughter. But in my own life, I’ve learned the secret. The smell of rain is drawing me. I’m digging up places that once seemed like they should remain untouched, and I’m preparing to move from the pot to the garden. No longer will I be safe, but wilting and wasting away on the window sill, being cared for but not being consumed with my true purpose. While there may be weeds, storms, and other prettier plants in the garden, at least I’ll be where I’m purposed to be. And that is all I could ever ask for.

Photo By Luis Argerich

So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12 (NKJV)

Four thousand nine hundred sixty-five.

Of course, you just read that numeric expression with no reaction whatsoever. Without knowing what it represents, any number – from one to a billion – is simply that – a number. Many attempt to assign significance to certain numbers, whether in Christianity, where numbers like three and twelve are often pointed to as divine quantities, or in terms of celebratory moments like the sweet sixteen, the big  4-0, or the 50th anniversary.  But the majority of numbers live  in obscurity, having no reason for being celebrated, held in  high esteem, or remembered for anything else than being  passed by in an accounting of some unnoticed pile of objects, or  maybe a passing mention on a stock sheet or a store receipt.

So why is my number significant today? Perhaps some  background from a song I’ve heard would help explain. I  believe it’s from the musical “Rent” – a piece called “Seasons of  Love”.  The lyricist obviously did his homework, having  calculated that every year contains five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes. He then wraps that number in  the query of how we measure a year, whether in the quantity of  time, or in the opportunities we have to share love with our  friends and family. A great question, for sure.  And one that I  found myself asking last night as my upper eyelids began to  hover just above my lower ones in a vain attempt to stave off their magnetic attraction.

It had been a restless evening, one in which I was unable to focus on any particular problem at hand, – a new job offer, our impending house sale, my son’s entrance into college in two weeks – all standing in front of me like bowling pins in an impossible split configuration, daring me to take the correct mental approach and roll my problem solving ball in a way that would knock them all down in one improbable swoop. Lacking the skill or the understanding to do so, I tried to turn my thoughts to the things I should be grateful for.

Now math is not the normal path I would take for a mental exercise in thankfulness. But having my wife at my side inspired an equation, a simple one I know, but one that the mind that got a C- in Algebra could handle. I thought about our 13 years of marriage, and tried to calculate how many nights I have had the privilege of laying down with this beautiful lady at my side, in the hope that by God’s mercy that I would not wake up the next morning alone. So the easy answer was multiply the 13 years by 365 days.

No, I couldn’t do the mental math on that one. But the thought was sobering as I estimated the number was in the thousands. Thousands of nights spent, and what could I show for it in terms of love shown? Of problems that could have been overlooked in favor of sharing a hug, a kiss, a contented sigh and glance at the love of my life? Just how many of those thousands of evenings and mornings did I really make count? The number fades in significance in comparison to the emotional bond and depth of connection that could have been attained if I just stopped thinking of what’s missing, and remembered what was there all along.

So today the formulation was done, the leap years accounted for, and the current year added (I’d love to turn it into an algebraic equation to prove my mathematical mettle, but I digress), and the solution to the equation is the number at the  beginning of this entry. Yet, already it has passed into the recesses of my mind, again insignificant, again lost to the heap of inconsequential facts. For the most important thing is not the number of days and nights I’ve had opportunity to touch and show love to my wife and family. It’s what I do with the current one. #4,965  is today, and I intend to make the best of it. My wife and kids may not know the number of the day, but they’ll know who was there in the midst of it.

Unto the hills,

HsD

This is just like our dinner table...ok...it's nothing like our dinner table.

“Let’s eat at the table tonight,”  I said.

An audible groan escaped from my 11 year old daughter, who was already getting comfortable in the corner of the couch.  One of those tween-age Nickelodeon sitcoms was coming on, and her displeasure at the prospect of having to share a meal around the dinner table was evident. She got up and approached the table with the fervor of a death row inmate approaching her last meal. My boys were more amenable to our first family meal around the table in months, but it still felt a little awkward having to clear the table of my computer and piano studio games in order to place the plates and cups where they belonged.

The dinner around the table tradition has slowly melted away in the last few years. When the kids were younger, we tried to make it a point to always eat as a family.  However, as the nights of coming home late from church activities, homework, and other distractions grew, our time around the table shrank to once a week, to once every few weeks, to the point that I noticed us over and over sitting around the couch watching Wheel of Fortune while stuffing our faces with spaghetti. Something had to change. I was glad that we still were together, true, but I never thought we’d become a family where the voices from the TV were more prevalent than our voices interacting and sharing during our rare moments together. Thus was my declaration inspired.

We finally got everyone seated around the table and looked around to see who would begin the grace. Our family grace has been passed down from my parents, which I believe is a Lutheran table prayer…”Come Lord Jesus, be our guest. Let these, thy gifts to us, be blessed.”  Much of the tradition of our current family dinners come from my childhood. My dad was the expert at turning anything into a teachable moment – I still remember the 30 minute dissertation he gave on why the ice cracks when you pour a hot beverage on it — and I admit I take the same kind of stewardship of the dinner conversation. This includes asking everyone what they are thankful for, which can elicit a variety of responses: from my younger son reciting a 5 minute list of everything he did that day, to a random grunt that sounds vaguely like “being alive” from my oldest son. The second conversation starter is the “highlight of your day”, which often leads to long discussions about random topics that have nothing to do with the day’s activities. Needless to say, as the kids have gotten older, it’s become much less about guiding the family’s conversation and more about trying not to get sucked into arguments.

Yesterday’s conversation was no exception. How we got on the topic of Adam, Eve, and gender equality escapes me. Suffice it to say that my 18 year old, who is almost always in a defensive conversational posture, was doggedly stating that men were superior to women because Eve was silly enough to talk to a snake. My wife and daughter, predictably, formed a united front against him.  Here’s an example of the exchange.

“Eve shouldn’t have been talking to a snake.”

“Well, Adam was right there. He should have stopped her.”

“Because he knew she would talk to a snake?”

“No, Adam should have been more interesting. He was wasting time talking to animals and naming them. She was bored.”

“God told him to do that!”

“Besides, Adam lied. He told God it was the woman’s fault. That’s why He was mad.”

“Yeah, and it was Adam’s idea to use those leaves to cover them. He probably used poison ivy.”

“Yeah. The world’s first rash.”

At this point, any attempt of mine to correct the theological missteps of my children is confounded by my stifled laughter. A child’s greatest weapon is the ability to make their parents laugh, and my children have the mental equivalent of Iraqi Scud missiles – witty rejoinders fired randomly and often haphazardly, but very effective when they hit.  Another example from last night illustrates this point. I remarked how I might take my children with me to the preschool music class where I teach this week. They used to accompany me every time I went, but when they got old enough to stay home I let them remain behind. Both objected vehemently to the prospect of being re-introduced to the little ones.

“Ewww, Dad, no. Those little kids creep me out,” whined my daughter.  ”The little boys always stare at me.”

I probably shouldn’t have said this, but I did. “So you’re trying to date little boys, huh?”

Never one to be outdone, my younger son chimed in. “They do the same thing to me.”

To which my daughter pounced, “Oh, so you’re like Michael Jackson. Only smaller.”

Score: Kids 1, parents (who were trying again not to laugh, and failing miserably), zero.

The comebacks, laughing and attempts at a semblance of parental control continued throughout the evening.  The main point is this — when we got up from the table, there were several stories and moments we would laugh over and share for the next week or month, if not longer. In this day where money is tight and sometimes our attention spans too short for real interaction, there’s still no substitute for a table and a group of people sitting around it and forced, if need be, to engage each other. Even if the consequences include a rewriting of Genesis to include skin irritations.

For those watching this space in vain for some change of scenery, I must again begin with the obligatory apology. My bookshelf at this time on Kindle is open to the book“Linchpin” by Seth Godin, and it has several great points on why we do not complete, or in his term “ship”, our work or express our passions to the masses. I must admit several of his reasons explain my inconsistent blogging practices. The constant worry over whether I have anything to say; procrastinating when I have a moment to write; the mulling of ideas to the point of paralysis, when I should push my ideas out into the world rather than let them languish and die in the dark, unseen, but safe corners of my mind.  All these tactics of the ‘resistance’, as he terms it, and several others, serve to keep my pen silent and my world closed to you.

As a homeschool dad, these same resistance factors have infiltrated into my thinking as a leader of my family’s educational journey. As my oldest nears graduation at the end of this month, I’m finding myself more and more concerned that I haven’t prepared him well enough for life on his own. I repeat the safe and secure mantras of “you’ll have to be responsible for yourself”, “Think about the future”, and other trite expressions of parental wisdom. As if any high school senior is NOT thinking about those things, even if they lack the understanding of the choices ahead.  My phrases will not teach him the gravity of the real world – the real world will.  What I can continue to do as he reaches this threshold is to model and convey the trust I have that he has the inherent power to handle and be in control of his upcoming circumstances, even if he has shown precious little evidence of being able to do so. I only need look back on my own moments of total bewilderment on my first weekend of college, which was spent in a dorm hallway slick with water, 150 mile per hour winds whistling outside our windows as some scared and nervous RA tried to maintain our calm as Hurricane Andrew became our welcoming committee to the city of Miami. What in the world could my parents had said to prepare me for that? Nothing I can think of, and yet, I don’t remember losing my head. I can only pray my son’s first days of school will not involve any natural disasters, but I can be sure that something at that moment will kick in and take him to a place of maturity that has not been needed before.  You don’t know the power that is within you until it is needed, and there’s no way to sense it until that moment. All I’ve done up to this moment in his life is give him access to the strength and knowledge that he has, and therefore, I must then allow life to bring it back out of him.

The same is true of my younger, still homeschooled middle grade kids. Both have done well this year, in their independent computer courses and in their co-op classes. The resistance in this case has told me that I’m not monitoring their progress closely enough, that they’re getting too connected to the internet as their source of knowledge (which may have some truth to it), and that I haven’t correctly guided them through a basic study course that will ensure a successful transition to public school. The voices say I should be more regimented, do more of the 3 R’s and make sure they can follow a more ‘traditional’ type of class. After all, they’re on the cusp of high school and I wouldn’t want them laughed at for not knowing some basic fact or learning strategy, right?

But that’s not why I signed up for this. When I left the school system, it was because I didn’t fit the mold. Because I wanted my children and I to change the way we saw education, not because we wanted to recreate a system of control and de-individualized practices at home. I don’t want my kids to absorb and regurgitate the culture, I want them to change it and challenge it. And in order for them to do that, I must make sure I don’t allow those same limiting forces and voices to begin to dominate my thinking. So when my son continues to use a conversational tone in his research writing, I have to quell the urge to tell him to be more staid and matter-of-fact. Who would want to read another Wiki-pedia style paper?  When my daughter is working through math problems with confidence, even though she may be at a lower level than her peers in her grade, why am I perturbed? She lacked that same confidence just a year ago, now she looks forward to her math. I should be happy every time she nails a mental addition problem, knowing that most adults would have just picked up a calculator anyway.

The key to their being able to function in our society successfully will be their ability to recognize their unique role in shaping the world around them rather than accepting it as it is.  In order to change their world, they must first not be willing to change themselves to fit into it.  Which means their daddy must be willing to fight the urge just as strongly as I want them to fight it. When I want to put myself down for staying home, when I want to compare myself to the ‘traditional’ husband working a 9 to 5, when I judge myself on my income percentage and not on the percentage of time I devote to my kids, I’m giving in to the culture. The title of this blog is a challenge to that notion that my highest priority is to be the primary breadwinner. My highest priority is that my family knows I am there —  that I wouldn’t sacrifice their needs for my need to feel more important or useful in a workplace or a ministerial position that would eat away at my time with them.  By losing my life (the life I feel I’m supposed to lead to validate myself), I find it. This applies both to my faith in Christ, and to my family walk.  What I lose in ego driven self centered analysis and comparison, I gain in true power over my circumstances and the will of the yapping chihuahuas of doubt in my head.  (No offense to chihuahua owners.)

Perhaps we won’t make a worldwide impact on the government, or politics, or education. But each time we stay on the course of what we truly stand for and not make a convenient bow to the masses, we help to free anyone else in our circle that is in that same position. So the next time I have to ‘name’ our homeschool program, which is sometimes asked for on forms for testing or other things we register for, I think I’m going to write in “Culture Changers” to remind me of our stand. And perhaps, as a side benefit of my determination to not be pushed around by my predisposition to compromise, I’ll push a couple more blog posts your way in the interim. That would definitely be a change. One I hope you’ll look forward to.

Unto the hills,

ap