Alternative Parenting – Page 31 – a hippie with a minivan

Wasn't ready for that…

I have always known I was going to homeschool… way before I had kids… even when I was a kid myself…

I was ready for people questioning me, asking about homeschool, wondering about the legalities and the logistics and the myths.

But… I wasn’t ready for the reactions that I have been getting…

Because Xavier is now “school age” everyone asks about school. When I say that we homeschool some ask the questions that I was ready for… but many others surprise me…

they have no idea what homeschooling is… they have never heard of it.

I wasn’t ready for that. How can someone have never heard of homeschooling?

I know that it isn’t popular in french-canadian circles but I thought the concept was at least known. I remember talking to one of the moms in my area that homeschools and she too had never heard of it until she started searching for information on school alternatives for her son who has leaning problems.

It really surprises me each time… I won’t even think about talking about unschooling with them…

Is this common?

unfamily friendly…

One thing I hate about where we live is the lack of things to do with kids.

There are almost no SAHM’s in my area and if there are they stay away from the outside world.. when I go to the park if there are other kids there they are with a daycare worker, or another babysitter, grandparent etc… no parents… not unless it is the weekend…

but there is also almost nothing to do here as a family…

I wanted to see if there was a free swim at the local pool (the only pool in the region) and yes, there are… there are 2 hours in the morning for adults only, 2 hours in the late afternoon for adults only, an hour at 8pm for all and then an hour after that for adults only… So the only time you can go swimming with kids is when most kids are going to bed… who goes swimming with kids at 8pm?! I called and talked to the pool director and she said that she tried to do a free swim for kids a few years ago in the daytime but there were only about 4-5 kids that came… but that we could rent out the pool if there was enough people that wanted it (130$ an hour)… I talked to her about it a bit more and she said that she would think about it… we’ll see what she decides..

There is a family centre here… but again… though it is for families and for kids the activities that are planned always have the kids and the parents separated… because they really believe that parents need to do activities without the kids and the kids have to learn how to be in daycare. When you ask if you can stay with your kids you get looked like as if you have three nostrils… don’t get me wrong… there are some activities that you are with your kids… but you are only allowed to have one child with you and you need to put the others in the daycare… not even a nursling is allowed to stay with you if you are with an older child. The activities are also really rigid and planned and they even give you homework if you don’t finish it during the allotted time… It is just so unfriendly and what I have heard from many others is that the kids don’t enjoy it…

There is not much else here besides that… there is stroller group that does a lot of walking but you can only have a child in a stroller, no other kids are welcome.

There are “extra-curricular” activities… but only Xavier would be able to go and really he is just not that interested by them at the moment and honestly… I don’t blame him… he wants to be with his family and do things as a family…

it is sad that this city is so anti-family.

the "rules" of the park….

Yesterday I brought the boys to the park… There was a mom there that I have never met before with her almost 5 year old that was a head taller than Xavier and a 8 month old babe…

The boys ran around like they always do… going up and down and all around…

At one point the mom struck up a conversation and upon knowing that Xavier was 5 she assumed he was in school… when I told her that we homeschooled she had no idea what it was… she had never heard of homeschooling.

As the boys played, they went down the slide as they often do… it is a double slide and they sit on the middle part and go down that way… or sometimes they go head first or sometimes they sit normally… they also *gasp* climb up the slide…

Well…. yesterday, they were going down the middle and running up the slide and having fun… no one else was on the slide, no one else was near it… the other little boy was playing on the other module and was not even paying attention to them… I got the “look”… my kids were not playing by the “rules”…

what are these rules anyway?

Not let kids explore? not let kids have fun? Why Micromanage every aspect of their life and play?

When the little boy came to the module where the boys were playing they stopped going up the slide by their own accord and started using the stairs.. they did keep on going down the middle though and waited their turn…

The other little boy pushed by Colin at one point and the mom said nothing but she was very quick to react when her son was about to go down the middle of the slide… he did it anyway and she glared at me as my boys went down… then they went and played on the other module… her son continued and she talked to her son quite loudly when he did it and then kept on glaring at me… (there was no one else there… he wasn’t hurting anyone… he was having fun…why not let him?) then she said really loudly something like “some other parents let their kids do anything… but you have to slide on one side of the other!”

ARGHHH!!!!

When Xavier came back to slide I told him that the little boy was getting in trouble because he was doing the same thing as him… so maybe slide on one side or the other for now… he went down one time normally and then went and played on something else…

I don’t get it at all… why do parents not let their kids play and explore? Who is going to get hurt by the kids going down the middle of the slide? Who is going to get hurt when a kid runs up the slide when there are not other kids around? Why do parent follow their kid up onto the modules and not let them explore by themselves?

I really don’t get the unspoken “rules”…

Breastmilk vs Formula

“People need to understand that when they’re deciding between breastmilk and formula, they’re not deciding between Coke and Pepsi…They’re choosing between a live, pure substance and a dead substance made with the cheapest oils available.”

– lactation consultant Chele Marmet.

Support…part 2…

Well, as I said in my last post… we are starting a homeschooling support group in our area. We are at the moment 5 families that homeschool…

However, I am the only unschooler.

The first meeting was last week… we went to the house of the seasoned homeschooler so that the “newbies” could ask questions and see her material. She is not only a homeschooler, but she loves collecting homeschool curriculum, books etc and is even starting a library in which people will be able to borrow material from her to compare different curriculums before buying. So, in her house downstairs she has a classroom set up (a large table for her kids surrounded by bookcases, posters a teachers desk etc…) and she has so much stuff… too much…

The other mom’s were loving looking at everything, asking questions, comparing stuff…. though my friend Isabelle was a bit overwhelmed by it all…

As for me… I was dissapointed by the meeting. I don’t want to talk about curriculum and what kids “need” to know by what age… I don’t want to talk about the logistics of how to school at home. Half the time I was there I could not relate at all to what the concerns were… the rest of the time the colourful workbooks had me wishing that Xavier was interested in that stuff…

I am going to tough it out a bit but I am a bit worried that it will not only be what I don’t want in a support group, but that it will make me doubt my choices and beliefs.