This week marks the first fall in about 27 years that I did not start a new homeschool year, and I am now looking back at memories. I remember that indescribable moment when a little one first “gets it” when they sound out their first word. I think of every summer’s ritual of sitting poolside with a pile of books, planning the school year, while the kids splashed in the water. And yes, I must include those bathroom breaks where I nearly cried over long division.
Homeschooling was the hardest job I ever loved.
One of the things that teaching six kids taught me is the reassurance that comes from gaining a “bird’s eye” perspective on life.
You see, as if parenting itself doesn’t come with its own set of pressures, when you are homeschooling, you feel the additional weight of comparison. You feel like you must be on Lesson 32 on exactly Day 32, and you feel like a failure when you aren’t. And then, you hear that someone else’s kid already knows his times tables, and plays the violin, and is in a debate club that goes to Washington DC every year in front of Congress…and he just turned 5! But your 9 year-old is still counting on her fingers to do subtraction, and, let’s be honest, so are you.
And then you run into the stranger in the grocery checkout line who feels close enough to ask you how you could possibly give your kid enough “socialization,” as if your child were some sort of puppy, and then presumes to quiz your child on random facts that most of the adults standing in the line next to you don’t even remember.
This combination of self doubt and public scrutiny can lead to a feeling of panic: what if we are falling behind?
Enter the Bird’s Eye View.
I have waded through grades Pre K-12 six times. Well, seven, if you count my own childhood–but I wasn’t paying all that much attention then–so, let’s say six times. (You’d think, after all that, I’d be smarter than I am, but, alas, here we are!) This experience has helped me to develop a more macro picture.
Here’s how this works: especially in the elementary grades, when you are on Lesson 31, working on, say, verbs, and your kid just isn’t getting it, it is not worth it to panic and damage your bond with your child today. Here’s the secret: next year, around the same time of the year, the curriculum is going to cover verbs again. And the year after that? Verbs again. You don’t have to win the whole war today; learning is a slow, repeated cycle, and teaching is, above all, a relationship.
This concept of a bird’s eye perspective can be applied to all of our lives, no matter what our stage.
It is the idea that, while we are deep in the weeds, trying to trudge through life, there is a view from above (the way a bird scans the land below) that encompasses the whole picture, from beginning to end, that sees what is being accomplished.
It is a perspective that reminds us that the seasons are not permanent. In the last season, I was assembling with my students in our “morning meeting,” while today I am using this morning time to write about them.
It is the point of view that steps away from any current trials or worries and understands that a macro sculpture is being formed through micro molding and trimming.
I am old enough to recount the ways God has orchestrated the past events of my life to shape me into who I am now. But I am also young enough to be tempted to worry about what is next. I am past that gloriously naive, hopeful phase of young adulthood, and I have witnessed enough to realize that scary stuff does actually happen. So I may have doubts and fears about the future.
But I can trust that, while I can only see what is in front of me right now, God does indeed have that bird’s eye view of my life, and that He does have a purpose for me. So when I am fretting about something happening today, I can know that the One who knows the whole picture is the One who is walking with and guiding me.
He does not promise that all will work out according to how I want it. But he does promise to be my God through it all.
Today I would tell that frantic young mother not to freak out over long division, but to take a deep breath and look up. As I officially “close the textbooks,” I’m reminding myself of the truth I learned: God has the big picture, and He is already guiding the way into my next chapter.
