A Year of Homeschooling, or Unschooling, or Existing or Whatever
I have forgotten how to parent
The dreaded winter lockdown is here, schools are closed, and I am not OK.
I was OK before. From September until December of last year, schools were open, and I was OK.
I ran. I did yoga. I wrote some articles and some poetry. I watched The Crown and, for shame, I rewatched Gossip Girl (it reminded me of simpler times). I earned a small amount of money. After years of intense early motherhood, I had a few precious hours of my own each week in which to hoover the fragments of playdough and biscuit crumbs up off the living room carpet, and then sit quietly, alone, in the peace of my nice clean house.
Time to restore, recalibrate, re-hoover and breathe through all the madness.
That time is gone. I will not be decluttering my house this January, or doing 30 days of Yoga with Adriene. I will not ‘start my book’. There will be no more Gossip Girl - although that’s almost certainly a good thing. Home alone with two kids, my days will be spent drifting in a sea of never-ending mess, noise, demands, snacks, arguments and rabbit holes of youtube weirdness.
There are giggles and snuggles and joy and wonder, too. But children are not meant to be raised in isolation. This…
