If I Home School My Kid... How Do I Get Time Off??!!!

I was asked what the right amount of time to spend with our kids is, and I can't answer that question. Every person and every relationship is different. But what I can say is that to build a life together requires time and purpose. For sure we need a little play time with our kids, but most of the time working with our children is the ideal. How to do this well depends entirely on the work you do.

Figuring out how to fit children into our work is literally The Challenge of parenting. When Anders was a baby I mostly cooked, cleaned, did yard work, and errands. He fit perfectly into this work. When he got older I spent time writing, and he fit perfectly into this work. There was a period of adjustment while we learned to do our work together, but we always figured it out.

Children learn the work they are exposed to. Children of shoe-makers can make shoes at a very young age. Children of hunters can hunt at a very young age. Though they are exploration oriented rather than goal oriented, children constantly surprise me with their competence at things no one thinks a child their age can do (see this videos of Anders cooking breakfast when he was barely two-years-old https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNRroZ1gcMo).

That being said, I have not yet figured out how to fit Anders in to Tom's work life at his office, but then, I have never tried. I imagine that if that was our goal, Anders and I would need a month and then we would figure out how to be helpful at Tom's office. Or maybe it wouldn't work out, and we would decide to start Anders on office work when he was seven or so as people have in the past. This is why having two parents is a lot easier than having one. Though having twenty, as the hunter-gatherer groups or the extended family arrangements of the past had, would be even better.

But onto what I know that may possibly be helpful to other parents today.

Infants are awake ten to twelve hours a day. That means a minimum 70-hour work week for the stay-at-home parent or 35-hours a week for each parent. Having a baby is not one, but TWO full time jobs.

In less than a year, the infant sleeps less and becomes an even bigger time commitment–84 hours a week. That only lasts a year or two, and then the energetic preschooler is awake for 98 to 112 hours a week depending on sleep habits. That is THREE full time jobs.

No parent is "working" with the child every minute it is awake. The child will get involved in Doing Something and that leaves the parent time to care for the child in other ways–cooking and cleaning.

Either way, a stay-at-home parent cannot be expected to work 112 hours a week and not become extremely unhappy or insane. Neither can two parents split the work equally while also maintaining a 40-hour week outside the home without the same consequences.

A century ago history was not studied gratuitously. No one memorized dates and facts. We looked to other times (and other places) to see how our fellow human beings solved the problems we were up against. So–

In the average hunter-gatherer group, infants were in the care of others for four hours each day, which means Mom got four hours "off" each day. She slept with her baby at night, so they spent on average 20 hours each day together, 6-8 of which were awake.

By the time a child was two or three it joined in play with the other children. The children's playgroup was overseen by the grandparents. Mom, no longer needing to nurse her baby throughout the day, was often three miles away gathering food with the other women of the tribe. This mom got four to six hours "off" each day. She still slept with her baby at night, so she spent, on average, 18 hours with her child, about 6-8 of which were awake.

Similarly, in many times and places in the past, children were raised in extended families. The main caretakers of the very young were the older-young (kids 8-12) and the old (grandparents).

In fact, evolutionary scientists argue that humans would not live as long as they do if it did not contribute to the survival of the young. Most animals do not live long after their children are grown and have children of their own. But human grandparents (and especially grandmothers) made such important contributions to the survival of their grandchildren (by caring for them and freeing their mothers to gather more food) humans evolved to live longer and longer.

Evolutionarily speaking, grandparents exist to be of service to their grandchildren. Today the opposite is generally true. Grandparents do not serve their grandchildren but rather TAKE from them in the time and resources that they take from the child's parents. It is not surprising at all that we are seeing a fall in average lifespan.

It is insane to me that any grandparent would take from his or her grandchildren, and yet I hear nothing but demands from grandparents. Grandparents often see themselves as "matriarchs" and "patriarchs" of a clan whom everyone should bend over backward to care for and please. But, as I said in my last piece, I believe this is a mistake.

Those over 70, whose brains function at the same speed as a 5-year-old, are not and should not be the leaders of their clan. They should be advisors who serve the current leaders. This is how I plan to do it anyway. (For more on this idea, see http://roslynross.blogspot.com/2016/07/living-right-story-parents-as-kings-and.html#comments)

But, though I can be that contributing-grandparent for my children one day, I don't have that for myself, and I imagine you don't either. In a world without contributing Grandparents (and older cousins) to help the young couple with a baby, how is a couple to survive their 112-hour a week time commitment (not to mention the other 40 to 80 hours a week required to acquire money for food and shelter!) without going insane or becoming severely depressed or turning to government schools because after working 112 hours a week for six years they are so desperate for relief?

Tangent: I highly recommend thinking this out BEFORE you have kids. Better yet, think this out before you graduate from college. Because, if you think you will have kids one day, instead of focusing on the perfect job, maybe move to a place where you have the most social capital–i.e. make finding people who share your parenting ideals a priority, live near them, and create your life/income stream there.

But enough of these ideals, here is what I actually did to survive my first 4 1/2 years with Anders:

*Note my arrangement with my husband is that I am 100% responsible for Anders's care. Tom has an extremely demanding job and though spending time with Anders is a priority for him, I must plan my life to never rely on it. On average, I get three to five hours a week off from Tom, which, brings my work load from 112 hours-a-week to 107 on a good week. I am not complaining here; I am very happy with our arrangement, especially now (on the farm). I was less happy with it when we lived in Los Angeles for reasons I will make clear below, and even less happy when I expected him to pull a certain number of hours per week and was constantly frustrated when his job got in the way.

INFANCY

When Anders was an infant I followed RIE parenting methods and had plenty of time off as Anders entertained himself for long periods of time. Long attention spans and ability to play independently from infancy are two of the things RIE teaches.

*Note that "attachment parenting" is the style of parenting that is quite well-known in respectful parenting circles, and I do not advocate it at all. Here is a post I wrote about it: http://roslynross.blogspot.com/2015/02/attachment-parenting.html

When I needed time out of the house by myself, I hired a babysitter.

TODDLER

When Anders got older, I became friends with a RIE teacher who had four children, one of whom was a 10-year-old girl. She became a "mother's helper" for me. I hired her to come to my house to play with Anders while I rested.

I tried not to hire babysitters to "get work done." Work is something I tried to do with Anders. I "played" with him very little. Rather, I "brought him to life with me." As I said above, Anders helped me cook, clean, do errands, yard work, and make social calls. He made everything take twice as long as it would have taken otherwise, but he also made everything a lot more interesting and was extremely cute about it. I actually really hated doing errands before Anders. With Anders, errands became much more tolerable because even though I loathe the activity, at least I had someone I loved to do it with.

I did hire plenty of babysitters at this age. Anders generally slept for around 9 hours every night, leaving me with a 15-hour day. I found that a twelve hour day was doable for me, but 15 made me cranky. So I tried to make sure I got 3-4 hours off each day to take care of myself.

When I hired babysitters, I always looked for people who knew nothing about children, but were willing to read the books I gave them. (As the people who "knew" things about children generally were the opposite of what I wanted in a babysitter!)

One babysitter I used in emergencies (after Anders was 2) was YouTube. See my Anders Playlist on my YouTube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD5CYaUtWd6SjTovWryZtPz7pSTwdMj5K

I took videos of Anders and made a playlist that lasted 60 minutes. There were also a few movies out there that I think are okay for kids at this age. See the list here:

http://roslynross.blogspot.com/2016/03/anderss-bibliography-by-age.html

I tried used these as babysitters sparingly though, about once a week.

At this age I also read the Little House books to Anders, and they helped me to feel a lot better about my extremely hour-intensive work-week.

PRESCHOOL AGE

I moved to a farm in Nicaragua. Here, maids and cooks cost a dollar an hour, so I have virtually no cooking or cleaning responsibilities.

And the kids who live on the farm across the street come over to play every day. One is 5, her name is Jesslyn. Her brother takes care of her and is always with her. He is 12, and his name is Yesnir. Moises and Ramon, from a different family nearby, also come over, but not every day. The kids join Anders in watching the workers; they swim; they run around; they pick fruit they can reach; they pick carrots; they paint; they play legos; sometimes they find a way to help the workers with a project; they play with the dog, the cats, and give treats to the chickens; they helped feed the cow when we had one. When they are ready to sit down, they ask me for their workbooks. They think their math and reading Kumon workbooks are super fun. We also play board games, do puzzles, and lots of brain teasers. We are watching the Families of the World series on my computer. They also love the documentaries we own. We watch these sporadically, maybe every third or fourth day.

Most days here the kids play for four to eight hours, so I get plenty of time off. Do I worry about the local kids' influence on Anders? Not very much. They are very respectful kids. They are more tough and less empathetic than I am raising Anders to be, but because Anders gets plenty of exposure to empathy and compassion with me and at camps in the US, I think the exposure to the tougher kids may be a good thing. Also they are almost always at my house where I can make requests regarding their behavior which makes me more comfortable as well! But we will see as time goes on.

Here at the farm Anders and I get to see a lot more of Tom, and that is another reason why our life here is really working out.

At this age, the work I do is managing the workers, overseeing construction, shopping for decorating, and writing. Anders now does these things with me. When I want to write, I tell Anders, and he says he is going to write too and works on his little scribble books for an hour at a time. The result is that he is very motivated to learn to read and write. I also spend time each week computing hours and wages and paying our workers. He fits perfectly into this work, siting patiently and watching while I count money and put it into envelopes. The result of this is that he is very motivated to be better at math. He often walks around the construction area with paper and pen and "takes notes" about improvements that need to be made. He is less interested in the decorating, but is very good at it–his opinion is valuable.

When Anders and I travel to Los Angeles, he does camps–theater camp and gymnastics camp last spring. This summer he will do a Montessori summer camp. A camp day is six hours long. Six hours is the maximum number of hours I would want Anders to be raised by other people (for now). Unless it was a close friend who I knew shared similar values maybe.

When baby number two comes (hopefully in late 2017), now that I live here at the farm, I think it will not be nearly as hard. Baby 2 will be so lucky to have not just me to bond with as an infant, but a whole farm full of people. Not to mention that Anders idealizes Yesnir and hopes to take care of his little sister the way Yesnir takes care of his. (In Anders's head it is definitely a sister.) I am SO glad that I have waited five years for baby number 2. I will let you know how it works out, but right now it feels very ideal.

Is There a School Out There Better Than Homeschool? Even the Best Private School in the World Isn't as Good for One reason: the Family

I have gotten some emails from parents who do not want to homeschool their kids and are desperate to know what their other options are. I have been sent links to at least two dozen alternative schools. Most had all the same problems as the current standard indoctrination-education we call school but with fancy wording on their websites, but some are really trying to be different. It has been wonderful for me to see some of the options out there. It's heartwarming to know that there exists a tiny free market still alive in education trying to make the world a better place.

That being said, my conclusion so far is that being with Mom and Dad (or the person whose job your kid wants or a small, committed community) is best. More on this below, but here is the "gun to my head" (as one reader put it) answer to the question: "If it were absolutely impossible for you to keep your sons with you, what would you do?"

My first response is that I cannot imagine a situation in which it would be "absolutely impossible." But, okay, I will play along. If it were "absolutely impossible" for Anders and Henrik to stay with me, this is what I would do:

A RIE daycare, ages 0-1
A Montessori preschool, ages 2-6 (making sure it's a real one)
Thales Academy, ages 6-10
Apprenticeships
Higher education when wanted and only if truly necessary

BUT I would be willing to suffer so much pain to avoid any of these, because:

1.  It doesn't matter what school is chosen, I would not be the one raising my kid.

I have often thought of taking on two or three children from other people and teaching them along with Anders and Henrik. But that would not be ideal because the parent is not raising his or her own child. If I raised your kid, your kid and I would get along really well! But is that your goal? For your kid to get along really well with me? [More on this below]

2. The greatest predictor of Anders's and Henrik's future career choices are what their parents do. If Tom and I do not "bring Anders and Henrik to our life with us," we are depriving them of an education in the career they are most likely to pursue as adults. [More on this below as well]

More on Point 1: Why It Is So Important To Me That I Raise My Children

The vision of parenting sold to parents today is that we are birds. We raise our young, and then they fly away. That is what parenting was for my parents. They suffered through the rearing of their children and will spend the rest of their lives tolerating those adult-children at family holidays. If that. There is a lot of lip-service to the importance of family, but let's be honest: We can barely tolerate each other long enough to get through holidays. And even in families that like one another, they don't share their lives, just a couple days a year.

When I think about this model of family life I... would rather not have kids. Luckily, I know I am not a bird.

Monkeys form strong familial bonds and live in the same band as their parents about 50% of the time. Same with hunter-gatherers. About 50% of the children in hunter-gatherer societies leave their parent's band and join another band. The other 50% stay with their parents for their entire lives. There is a risk that these parents will have a kid with whom they don't want to share their lives, but there is also a 50% chance that their child will fight for his survival with them throughout their lives!

Now those are odds I would take! In that scenario, I would have kids.

My dream is a tightly bonded family, people with whom I really share my life, people with whom I battle for survival. I don't dream of seeing adult-Anders and adult-Henrik on holidays. I dream of them living next door. Or on the same farm. I would never force it, but that is my dream.

If I raise Anders and Henrik, if I bring them to life with me, I estimate that I have a 50% chance of creating this kind of life-long bond. If I hand Anders and Henrik to other people to raise, my chances of creating this kind of bond are close to zero. Is it possible for my children to be raised by someone other than me and still turn out to be someone with whom I am truly bonded and happy to spend my time? Hypothetically--sure! But I have not seen any evidence that that actually happens.

[Incidentally, the Amish have a 90% retention rate of their children. Why? Because they do not under any circumstances allow anyone else to raise their children. They don't homeschool though. They do one-room school houses that serve three to five families only. They hire the teachers. Their children walk to school and attend for no more than three hours each day and only through eighth grade. They have absolute control over what their children are taught--from the Amish reading program, to the excellent Amish grammar program, to Amish math textbooks... this is why "going to school" works for them.

Many religious groups have schools based around their religion and do not succeed like the Amish. This is largely because they allow their children to watch (be raised by) television programs and read (be influenced by) fiction books that accomplish largely the same task as public school--the children are being raise by someone other than their parents. Amish children do not do either of these things.

If my children could attend a one-room school house with just four other families involved where I had a huge sway over the curriculums used, I would do it in a second over homeschooling! But dreaming of things that do not actually exist is not the purpose of this essay. The point of this tangent though, is that my odds are 50% whereas the Amish have odds of 90%--their method, though unavailable to me--is superior to mine.]

The trend that I saw while working with families and their children was that parents and children had very little in common. They didn't share a life; they shared a house. Four to six strangers had dinner together sometimes and suffered through vacations together. There was talk about family being important, but all I saw were roads diverging from one another. Parents loved their kids but didn't like them. Children loved their parents but didn't want to have similar lives.

Today, animosity between parent and child is considered normal. We talk a big game about how important our families are, but on holidays and at weddings, when we have to actually spend time with those weirdos... those of us who aren't lying to ourselves, can't help but be heartbroken about the arrangement, the gulf between our siblings and ourselves, our parents and ourselves.

I saw this with endless couples as well. Two people leading totally separate lives who do drugs together on the weekend (TV, video games, alcohol...).

Think of how you feel when someone is on your team, the bond of fighting a battle with them! Maybe it was a sports team in your youth. Maybe it is someone you work with today. Going to war with your partners, the people who have your back, the people on whom your survival depends: these are bonds.

More on Point 2: The Dream Is The People, Not The Job

In Not Fade Away a wealthy, dying man leaves this piece of advice for his children: Do not take the highest paying job you can find. And don't worry very much about the actual job. Work for your hero. That's all you need to do to have a good life.

I read that after I came to that conclusion on my own. I moved to Los Angeles to "be an actress." But acting in disgusting movies I can't stand with people I can't stand... didn't turn out to be much of a dream worth fighting for. If I had it to do over again, I would not have decided on the job, acting, but rather the person, Clint Eastwood. I would have worked for him. I would have gotten him coffee for free until he hired me. I would have joined his team and learned everything I could from him about telling the stories I actually wanted to tell.

But largely, I think the Dream Job is a lie.

We are pelted with these family-destroying ideas our entire lives: Get off the farm and do something with your life! As if wearing a suit and being a paper pusher in the city is a real life. Be your own man--if you do what your parents do, you are a loser. If you take over Daddy's company you have failed. If you are a stay-at-home-mom you have failed. If you and your husband work together, you are overly involved. You are supposed to have your own life. Parents who homeschool their kids are failing to let their kids go and holding them back. A child's job is not to learn to work and live well with his parents, not to create his place in that clan, but to explore his own interests, so that he can leave the nest. Our job, as parents, is to pelt our children with infinite experiences, so that they can "find their passion."

This cultural script exists partly because parents and children can't stand each other and would never want to work together.

But it also exists because many parents fail to give up the keys to the kingdom. It goes squire, warrior-king, wise man. Not squire squire squire king. The minute your child is an adult with his own child, you are not the king of your clan. You are the wise advisor. Same with women. It goes maiden, warrior-queen, wise woman. Or, in my opinion, it should.

A study came out a year or two ago showing that people who live in small, intolerant communities are happier than people who live in large, tolerant/diverse ones. Small bands of like-minded monkeys traveling through life together.... We were taught that there was a job out there that should be our dream. But what if that is not true? What if people are the dream? People with whom to fight the battle of survival who make your heart sing?

But let's say there are some people who do have One True Job Passion and Anders is one of them. Would it behoove him to have his time wasted in school because he just has to know about All Kinds Of Things or would he be better off at home, where he is allowed to pursue that One True Passion all he wants?

Moreover, I have a theory that a truly brilliant career takes at least two and usually three generations to make. I have a great post about it here--

http://roslynross.blogspot.com/2015/03/nature-versus-nurture.html

Despite the efforts made by schooling and our cultural script, the best predictor of someone's future job is still what his parents did. Yet the child who is going to grow up and be a writer like her dad anyway, wastes 22 years memorizing random things first and acquiring massive debt. Why?!

No matter how great the school, if I send my kid there, I am depriving him of learning about the career in which he will most likely end up! He could acquire his 10,000 hours in that career by the time he is 14! Or 18! Or he can waste 22 years trying to find his "passion" and start acquiring his 10,000 hours (which takes about ten years) at age 22.

So: knowing that the greatest predictor of my child's future job is my job or my husband's job, and knowing it takes 10,000 hours to become world-class at something... why on Earth would I send my child to even the best school in the world, so that he can spend 15,000 hours becoming world-class at nothing? And at the same time deprive him of excellence in the career he is most likely to have!?

I could only possibly do that if I bought into the idea that there is a One True Passion out there just waiting for Anders and Henrik to discover (if only they are exposed to this-wild-mess-of-everything that is attempted in schools). And if I believe that your job is more important than your people.

Let's say Anders is an expert at my job and Tom's job by the time he is fourteen, but he decides he doesn't want that to be his job. He still has plenty of time to do something else. And it's certainly not like he isn't exposed to a ton of other things just by going to life with me! It's only the kids shut up in school-jail all day who don't get exposed to the varieties that life has to offer since they are being deprived of actually living it. (And note that should Anders want to apprentice with someone other than me and Tom at any time, he is free to do so. Likewise should he want to go to school.)

My conclusion at this time is that there is no school better than homeschool.* Because whichever way you cut it, the child not living life with his or her parents is being raised by Not Them to be Not Like Them.

*Except Amish one room school houses and likeminded homeschooling groups.

A Nutritionally Perfect Day in Nicaragua - 100% RDA In ALL Vitamins and Minerals

Could look like this:

Breakfast

Turmeric tea

Gallo Pinto (beans and rice with minced onions and peppers)

1 egg fried in butter

Lunch

Tilapia filet with butter-parsley-lemon sauce

carrot/cabbage salad with vinegar and olive oil

rice -1/2 brown 1/2 white 

banana/mango kefir smoothie

Dinner

1 cup bone broth

Steak quesadilla made from corn tortillas and with cheese and fried in lard

Guacamole

Papaya with lime juice

*liver fritters once or twice a week instead of steak

This is a slightly-altered classic Nicaraguan diet that would provide the consumer with 100% of his RDA in all vitamins and minerals.