Learning at Home: Part 5 of 9

It became startlingly clear to me only after I thought and felt and prayed my way through my list of hopes/objectives/dreams for my children that there is something missing from every single one of my lists that I surely would have expected.

Schooling.  Education.

None of my lists say anything about how much schooling I would like for my children to have; none of them speak to how or when they will acquire academic knowledge and skills; and none of them refer to the success I hope my children experience..at least not in the way the world defines it.

Nothing like these things on any of my lists.  I've checked.

I surely do hope that my children love to learn, and I surely hope that they will pursue whatever education enables them to love the work that they do someday, and I surely hope that they are able to earn enough money to provide for themselves and for the families they may have.

But what's so surprising to me is that I mostly don't aspire any longer for their success in a way that most around me would define it.  Sometimes I still get a little swamped, again, by aspirations for their successes in a more materialistic or academic sense - after all, this is the world we live in and I feel surrounded by it and pressured by it.  But more and more, I see how empty those pursuits are in and of themselves, and how much more I want for my children.

Education is a huge part of who I am.  I am a highly educated woman by the world's standards...by any standards, really.  I have enjoyed success in a worldly sense in the years before h/schooling and adoption took over our family life and before we chose that I would spend my daytime hours working in our home.  I am married to someone who is also highly educated and who, like me, believes in the value of education.  My children, I hope, will have access to post secondary education.

But I'm truly coming to the point of believing that schooling is merely a means to attaining the other, more important things in life.  And it's the more important things in life that I particularly crave for my children.

The other thing that's becoming very clear to me over the past few months is that my conclusions are leading me into uncomfortable territory...territory that I wish could remain unexplored...territory that had me experiencing my first ever full scale panic attack just weeks ago.

(to be continued)