Don’t Let Your Husband Get Lost in Your Homeschool

Homeschooling can be an all-encompassing, completely engrossing activity. Since you homeschool as well, I am sure you agree with me. Honestly, weren’t those first months of homeschooling the hardest of all?

When I first began homeschooling my children, I was at it from before dawn until nearly midnight. Dinner suffered, the vacuum cleaner languished in the closet, and I think my husband thought I had completely forgotten that he even existed.

Of course, I remembered him! But between general kid-feeding and raising, and the added overwhelming responsibility of directing their education, I had no extra bandwidth.

If you homeschool, I think you understand what I am talking about. Those first days and weeks are frankly scary! I was so worried that I would forget to teach my kids some critical subject, or that I wouldn’t document their progress the right way.

So I overdid it. I over-scheduled and over-planned. I documented every blessed detail of my children’s learning, from moment to moment. It was close to obsessive. But I thought that it was the only way to be sure they were actually learning. (You know, that sounds really ridiculous in hind sight!)

I thought I had everything under control, but after about a month as I was shuffling through a very messy house, past a kitchen sink full of dirty dishes, I saw my husband sitting at the kitchen table. He was lost in thought and did not see me watching him. He looked so alone.

It was like God tapped me on the shoulder at that moment and said, “Hey! Remember him? Didn’t you promise to love and care for him first?”

Well, I started to balance my life better after that but still from time to time I realize that I am forgetting my husband again. It never gets as extreme as those first homeschooling months. But it still happens.

I think that as homeschooling moms, we spend so much time focused on that identity that we forget the one person who makes it all possible for us—our husband.

Maybe we ought to redefine ourselves as wives-who-homeschool instead and that way our husbands will always come first. What do you think?

Kirsten West – I am a homeschooling mom with twin teenagers. We have homeschooled them since they were young and now that I have more time, I blog, write math books and children’s stories, crochet a lot in the evenings, and work as an independent consultant for The Old Schoolhouse as the SchoolhouseTeachers.com Affiliate Manager.