Parenting by Proxy

People keep asking me how the school situation is going with #3.  It’s such a difficult question.  I’m never really sure how to answer it honestly.  He likes it, but comes home from the school day completely exhausted.  He’s ready to head back in the mornings, but complains about the length of the school day.  I agree with him.  It’s too long.

He now spends more waking hours with strangers than he does with his own family.  We miss him, and he misses us.  In his eyes, the perfect solution would be for his teacher and classmates to come to our house for school.  I would, but I’m not sure where we would put everyone.

I’m finding it difficult to be a part-time parent.  The few hours I get with him every night after homework is done and the neighborhood children are played with, is just not enough.  This is the major drawback I have seen to traditional schooling.  The Computer Guy and I have to share parenting with people we don’t know.  They spend much more time with him than do we.  It’s just a numbers game.  Most of the time he’s under our roof he’s sleeping.

I don’t know how other parents do this every day without the angst.  How can I say that I am parenting him when I get to spend only an hour or two a night with him before bedtime routines begin?  How do I shoehorn in all that he needs to know in such a short amount of time?  How do other parents reconcile themselves to this?  Is it just what we do, so it must be the right thing to do?

I am watching my little boy assume the shape that other people are molding him into being.  So far, it is one I can live with, but the power over him that this implies is a bit frightening.  How can I protect a child I do not see?  I know that eventually we have to let them go, but everything in me says that this is too much way too soon. 

How do we balance his need for an education with his need for parents?  This is the answer to how is his schooling going?  It is a lopsided, backwards tightrope walk and I can’t help but feel as if we’re missing something….and that the something might be him.