2011 - Talk Birth

I do retain some sense of having been ”fast forwarded,” in my life, but that isn’t really a bad thing
(for example, now a 32, I have over 15 years of experience in my chosen field, rather than still ”just starting
out” as it seems to me like many thirty-something year olds are!). If I was starting all over again, I wouldn’t
necessarily recommend going to college that young, but nor would I recommend trying to prolong something
that could be completed in less than four years.
My brother and sisters all did the same high school correspondence program, but paced themselves
intentionally to finish later. They also all went to college and finished their bachelor’s degrees. I share this
personal story for those of you who have wondering if homeschooling ”works” and whether your kids will,
indeed, grow into functional adult humans :)
I find it somewhat amusing that I’ve ended up in education as a career. I feel like my outlook was
profoundly shaped by my homeschooled childhood and my students frequently express that I expect them
to think in ways they’ve never thought before and that my assignments are not like anything they’ve
experienced before, ”I mean, you actually expect us to think.” (direct quote)
I have joked before, but am half-serious, that being unschooled ”ruined” me for full-time employment.
It did in the sense that I don’t think it is healthy for anyone—male, female, child, adult—to spend
all day, every day doing the same thing at the same place. That is not how life is meant to be lived! I also
feel like my childhood spent essentially doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it, did have an
impact on my experience of motherhood now, which not infrequently does not allow me to do what I want
to do when I want to do it, and I chafe a little at those restrictions on my autonomy and all of my billions
of ideas.
I also find it somewhat amusing that my life has taken a religious turn now, in that I am currently
working on my doctoral degree (D.Min) in women’s spirituality. I also am the vice president of my very
small UU church. I find myself very passionate about and absorbed in study of the divine feminine, the
sacred feminine, women’s spirituality, feminist spirituality, and the Goddess. It took me a long time and
some childhood religious ”scars” to realize that there is a vast world out there beyond the dominant,
patriarchal, Judeo-Christian lens and to discover that I connect to the women’s spirituality movement on a
very deep and meaningful level.
Homeschooling My Own Kids
As I previously noted, homeschooling my own kids was a foregone conclusion for me. I literally cannot
fathom the idea of sending them to public school. Please see [2]Part 2 of this homeschooling post for
more about what homeschooling looks like for us right now!
1. http://talkbirth.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/mollyatpark.jpg
2. http://talkbirth.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/homeschooling-today-part-2-of-2/
Molly (First the Egg) (2011-09-28 19:44:00)
The prom thing cracks me up. I was in institutional education from preschool on, but I also started college early (at
14, graduated at 18, mostly because I felt high school would be a boring waste of time spent with the same people
who tormented me in junior high, and my home life wasn’t awesome either), and people’s biggest terror at that was
consistently ”But you won’t get to go to prom! What about prom?” I did go to a friend’s prom, actually, and it totally
sucked. (You knew I’d right the whole post!)
298