Homeschool Monday on a Tuesday – Finding Subs

I was sick yesterday. Ugly food poisoning sick. I may never eat Mexican food again. It was that ugly. That’s why we’re Homeschool Monday-ing on a Tuesday.

Yesterday morning, as I curled up on the couch under my snuggly blankie (You know you have one too), I started making my calls.

“I’m sick,” I told one of my homeschooling friends. “I need a sub today. #2 has a paper due later this week and needs his rough draft proofed.”

“Have him send it to me,” she replied.

I contacted another mom by email and asked for their help fielding math questions and called the only one who lives near me for help with the littlest kids, before I let myself begin to doze off.

There were a lot of years in homeschooling that I would have let my own sick day be an excuse for the kids to take a day off. As they’ve gotten to higher grades and more work, it’s not always feasible for them to take a break. Add to that the battle to get back on track once we’re off our schedules, and having subs begins to make a lot of sense.

We set up this network about a year and half ago. There are five homeschooling moms in our network plus one homeschooling friend nearby for the kindergartener. The close friend and I swap children for sickness, doctor’s appointments, or lunch dates with our husbands. We get together for art and science projects and take turns letting the messiness run free in our kitchens. The network is a group of homeschooling moms I met on an internet message board years ago. Back then our eldest children were just learning to read and we were the moral support each other needed. Now that our big kids are in Jr. High and High School, we act as sounding boards and substitute teachers.

It all began 18 months ago when one of my fellow moms was hit with nasty morning sickness for four months straight. She was hooked up to a Zofran pump and unable to function, and the rest of us stepped in. Her children sent writing assignments to me for grading. They sent history to another mom, while a third graded math, and the last one took over everything else. Did I mention that we’ve never met and aren’t even in the same country?

The internet is awesome.

I no longer panic when I get sick, and I know that if it’s really bad… I can sleep. It’s the missing piece of the homeschooling puzzle – what happens when mom gets sick?

Most of us have other homeschool moms we “know” online. We read their blogs and they read ours, we chat with them in message boards or on Facebook, or we belong to the same Yahoo! groups. We like these women and wish that we lived close enough to hang out and maybe have a mini-co-op. We read of each other’s hard days and sicknesses and wish that we could lend a hand…if only we lived near each other.

I’ve learned over the last year and a half that distance doesn’t matter. We can still be the help they need and the support when it gets ugly without even being on the same continent. I’ve often noted how homeschooling has turned complete strangers into a community, and with our sub network you can see that community in action.

If you have bigger kids, try reaching out to the moms in your area and those you know online. It could be that they’d be willing to pinch-hit for you in exchange for your willingness to return the favor. Homeschooling moms often say how they wish there were a sub to step in for them on sick days. For some of us, that’s Dad or an older sibling. For the rest of us, why not build a support network for yourself? There’s great peace of mind in knowing that they’re there.