Just Us... At the Lake

Originally published at Like I Have Time For This?

One of the biggest traps in homeschooling, if you ask me, is the constant pressure to Do Things With Other People. Just this morning, in my email, I finalized plans for friends to come over on Friday afternoon. As I was finishing that, the phone rang, and it was more friends asking about getting together for a day trip to a museum soon. Or, if not that, at least a play date. Or how about the zoo? What are you doing this weekend? Do you want to check out my co-op? It goes on and on.

And believe me, I’m not complaining at all. It’s good to have all these friends. It’s good to get together. But it’s also good to just not get together sometimes. And for me, being new and still sort of defensive and insecure about this whole homeschooling thing, I have to remind myself a lot to Not Always Be Getting Together With People. My previous post, in which you all were so kind as to reassure me that my friend was not exactly being friendly, is an excellent case in point. I could have said no when that woman called and asked if they could stop by. I should have said no, in fact. We were all tired. I’d spent the day sorting toys and catching up on laundry. I wasn’t in the mood for this woman at all to begin with. (Because honestly? That afternoon tea was only the tip of a very large iceberg. The woman’s got some ISSUES, is all I’m sayin’.)

But the thing is, I exist on the defensive most of the time. When people find out we homeschool and start in with the endless questions on socialization, I want to be armed and ready with a Packed Social Schedule. It’s ridiculous and exhausting, but it’s hard to stop myself. And I’m not the only one who does this. Most of the women I know here are much more busy than I am. They’re stretched thin, and ragged, and possibly on the edge of burnout. I can see it in their eyes. And listening to them, I’m learning to simply say No to the endless stream of activities available to us. But when someone who isn’t a homeschooler starts asking THOSE QUESTIONS, I’m always quick to tell them all the millions of things we do all the time, and then having told people that, I begin to think that I’d better ramp up the social schedule, just in case those people with absolutely no experience homeschooling whatsoever are RIGHT and my kids NEED to be surrounded by other people 24-7.

And the truth is, we need LESS people around. We need some space. We need at least one day a week where we don’t go anywhere or have people over. For us, that day is Wednesday. And I guard Wednesdays fiercely. But maybe, I’m thinking, we need more than just that one day.