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This 2-part series is a story I was asked to write for a book about our unschooling life.
Part 1
Every morning, sometime between 3 and 5am, I wake up and begin my day. I meditate, stretch, dance and then find myself in my favorite giant recliner and in front of my new life and career on the computer. I immediately read my emails, connect with those wishing to hear from me, and then my life as a writer begins. I write books, blogs, inspirational daily newsletters, articles, and feedback for my coaching clients.
At about 7 or 8 in the morning my children wake up. They come to me, sleepy-eyed and messy-haired, and snuggle up in a blanket with me. With my favorite chair, there is room for one child on each side. I turn off my computer and enjoy the amazing moment of morning. Sometimes they fall back to sleep, and sometimes we have conversations about dreams and events of yesterday. I love these moments with them, for it is a ritual of connection, just mother and children and it is usually the most intimate moment of our day.
At about 8 or 9 my husband wakes up, and my time with my children is over. He is up and making coffee, breakfast and plans for the day. He gives me a kiss and a hug and then I disappear. Even though my main workspace is right in the middle of the living room, my mind goes to work and I no longer hear the children ask for help, questions about the day or jump into a conversation. Everyone disappears around me and I continue to write, coach, connect, market and research everything I need to know about my three businesses. Three hours seem to fly by and as if by magic lunches have been made, eaten and the house is quiet. My husband usually has something planned whether it’s lessons, playdates, fishing or to explore the world together. Honestly, it seems strange most days I really don’t know what they are doing. I used to be the self-appointment secretary of all planned events, though I have no time for that now.
I finish most of my coaching clients by the time of their return and the early evening is upon us. Dinner is decided upon and if I am free, I absolutely love to cook. I didn’t always feel that way, though I miss it now that I don’t do it every day, three times a day. Many nights, my husband cooks the dinner and it is my signal to stop working. I do my best to put the computer away and enjoy the evening with my family, playing games, talking about their experiences and connecting into their world. Sometimes, if everyone is happily busy, I just keep on working. If I took out all my breaks, I would say I can work a solid 8 to 12 hour day, four days a week.
Who knew this would be my life, only just a year ago? I didn’t. As most things in my life, it came on subtly, slowly and without warning. If I thought back to identify the first step, I would say it was when I decided to pull my oldest son out of public school, in the middle of his 2nd grade year. That decision was the beginning of our new lives. We didn’t know it then, yet everything in our life changed from that point, quite dramatically.
I was the stay at home mom, and had been so, since my first son appeared on a very warm and beautiful September evening back in 1998. I thought about going back to work a couple of times, but knew I could never leave that beautiful sweet baby boy in anyone else’s arms. We had no money for me to stay home and slowly month after month, even with my clever, frugal techniques, we slipped deeper and deeper into debt. I thought I was supposed to work, and I had always enjoyed working, yet everytime I brought my baby to a daycare center, I would cry the whole way home, with the baby still with me in the back seat. I screamed at the universe, “NO! I won’t do it!” The universe replied 3 months later with my husband receiving a life changing promotion that finally covered our bills and we were able to get out of debt.
So for the next 9 years, I stayed at home, had another sweet baby and had become a mom and wife extraordinaire. I was the loving primary care provider, high nutrition trained chef of kid friendly meals, storybook teller, housecleaner, small injury nurse expert, family events schedule secretary, booster seat taxi driver, sibling rivalry mediator, personal life coach for kids, and parenting book scholar. However, I also took care of everything at home, too. I was the frugal accountant and tax expert, home nest decorator and artist, real estate market expert and investor, remodeling designer and feng shui expert, head contractor, legal advisor, and husband’s career coach and cheerleader. Finally, I was never one to sit around, so in my spare time I also had some kind of side business going. I was a gift basket maker, part time florist, wedding coordinator, art class teacher for children, American cooking teacher for international visitors, and a Mary Kay consultant.
My husband was the bread winner of the family, and doing a wonderful job of it. He was a computer programmer and every 6 months to a year, he was getting promoted with pay raises. After 10 years, he was the boss and our life was really, really comfortable. However, we paid the heavy price for the monetary comfort. He was gone 10 hours per day and sometimes more. When he wasn’t at work, he was thinking about it and he was stressed most of the time. Something was not right. We had spent so much time worrying about money, since our first 6 months of going into debt as a family, we didn’t notice when we had plenty of it. We just continued working for it, even though the rest of our lives stopped making sense. We had many long talks about how to create a better life for ourselves, but we didn’t know how to make it a reality.
I could say the same thing about keeping our children in school. We just continued having them go to school, even though it stopped making sense. When we made the decision to homeschool, it was a step into the world of thinking differently, which changed everything else. It took awhile to convince my husband to try it, yet once we were all on board, something magical happened. Our perception of reality shifted, and we loved it! We loved this new way of living and learning. I quickly went from homeschooler to unschooler, although my husband was not sure about the idea. It seemed once I opened one door to a new perspective, a hundred new doors appeared to me giving me new options. Options I couldn’t see before. I was hooked on our new way of living. I took to unschooling as though I had created the idea myself. I loved the freedom, the philosophy, and the people who were doing it. Mostly, I loved the new relationship I was building with my children. I wanted that same relationship with my husband.
So one morning, I took another bold step. I put our home up for sale on the internet and found a buyer in five minutes. When my husband woke up, I told him what happened. He looked at me with his morning dazed and confused look, though somehow strangely calm, and said, “Now what are we going to do?” Taking the biggest risk of our lives, we decided to sell our 3000 square foot house and just about everything else we owned in it. We bought a Eurovan and it became our new 200 square foot home. My husband quit his high paying and spirit-draining job of almost 10 years, and soon we were on the road.
If you really want to get to know someone, trust me, spending all day together in a small van will do it. Our time together created an intimate connection for all of us. We finally were getting to know what it meant to be a family who lives closely together. Very close. My boys were so excited about getting to really know their dad. I saw how much they needed him. I saw how much I needed all of them, and I knew in my heart, I never wanted this connection to end. I started my first blog to record my thoughts and our travels during this catalystic period.
After our trip, we were back in a home, but we didn’t want to go back into the same life we had before. My husband loved his new life where he could spend day after day with the boys and he finally understood, through experience, our new unschooling-style life. Learning to live intimately with us became his passion. I started to see the importance of having the boys spend most of their time with their father, instead of me. They were 6 and 9 at that time and they wanted to explore life as a male and it was obvious I wasn’t the best candidate for the job. On top of that, every time my husband got back onto the computer to update his computer skills, the same unhappy man from a year ago showed his face. Something told me, my career as a stay at home mom was coming to an end. Something had to shift and by some grace of the Universe, it did.
Stay tuned for part 2...
by Rain Fordyce
Copyright 2009 by Rain Fordyce