Q&A: Homeschooling and the Single Mom

photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography

This seems to be the question everyone wants to know first. Two comments and two emails asked me how I work homeschooling into being a single parent.

Short answer: I don’t.

Being the single parent and homeschooling honestly is not that hard. I guess because even when Michael and I were together, that was solely on my shoulders. He had his own baggage, fears of not being smart enough, of failing, of messing up. So that task was left to me, entirely. He didn’t think he could do the little day to day tasks, and I thought they were too big not to do.

No, what hurts is being the single bread earner and homeschooling. My days are no longer secure in that all I really have to do is teach the kids. There is no husband coming home with a paycheck to help. It’s me. So I have to find a balance between writing and teaching, between what I need to do for them and with them.

It ain’t easy.

Some days I have to get online as soon as I feed them to email clients and get things written. Other days we have time to read a book or do a few pages in the morning. Homeschooling comes in starts and stops, sporadic bits during the day where I try to fit in everything. And, sadly, some things have had to go. We no longer have time or energy for the big Spanish pages he used to love, or the art study lapbook I planned, or many of the crafts we want to do.

But we still have books to read, and stolen minutes after dinner or on long car rides. Homeschooling looks a bit more chaotic than it used to, but we make it work. Because we have to.

And because we love it.

Tags: homeschooling

Summer is a freelance writer and mother of 3, searching for herself amongst the Legos and blocks. After moving a couple hundred miles away from home, and fighting a few dragons, she's figuring out that she needs to be her own biggest fan to get through the world.


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