I Hate Homeschooling

I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.

Seriously.  How could I not have known that I was going to hate it?  When we were deciding whether or not to do this, we read a book about how to decide if you should homeschool.  There was a list of questions to help you think through the issues.  One of the questions was something like, “Do your children resist learning from you?”

Yes.  The answer is clearly yes.  And I knew it was yes.  But I kept thinking that when I really devoted myself to them, things would change.  When they could no longer sense that I would rather be somewhere else, they would love to learn from me.  That may still prove to be true.  But as of Day 1, I would rather be somewhere else.  Anywhere else.

When Zach found out that he would not be writing in his bible notebook, but would instead be narrating to us, telling us what he heard in the bible lesson for the day, he threw the book across the table, spilling coffee all over it.  Ezra wouldn’t sit up for more then 2 minutes at any point during the morning without a lot of “encouragement” by me.

I had chosen Hudson Taylor’s favorite hymm, I am resting, resting, as our first hymn because we are doing a unit on China.  The words seemed nice and I can’t read music.  So I had no idea that it’s a horrible, horrible song.  Not fun to sing.  Since the boys worship Jeff, I hoped he might inspire us to give it a try.  I asked him if he sang this as a child and if he liked it as a boy.  His reply: I liked it – a little bit. Which I’m sure was a lie.

Some cheery comments made by the boys this morning:

• “These choices are boring.”
• “When are we going to WRITE something?”
• “Zach, quit answering for me!”
• “Why can’t dad just play his guitar?”
• “I don’t like this.”
• “You’re about to lose your temper, right?”

While this may capture their lack of respect and our poor parenting in having raised such snotty kids, it doesn’t get at just how awful the entire morning was.  I was seething inside that they were ruining my perfect day, the one I stayed up until midnight to plan.  Not one activity was something I would consider successful.

The only real highlight of the day happened before we started.  When I came downstairs at eight, I greeted the boys with, “Good Morning!  Happy first day of homeschool!”

Zach: Thanks, Mom.

Ezra: And we don’t even need a tour!

Choice time is almost over and I am heading back into the fray.  Praying, praying for patience.

Tara

Image Credit: By kelly taylor from USA (Flickr) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons