This word is rather trendy right now so I apologize if you are sick of hearing it, but I also kind of love it. Amazon-the-all-knowing is aware that I love it, because it keeps offering me books about intentional parenting, intentional relationships, intentional thinking, intentional ageing, intentional gratitude, and of course, simply intentional living. So what exactly does this mean? A quick Google search tells me that intentional can be defined as "done on purpose, or deliberate." How great is that?! I certainly hope that most of what we do in our lives will be done on purpose, rather then by chance or accident or because it was easy or just because it's what others were doing.
There is a formula in my head in which the number of children in one's family (C) is directly related to the amount of intentionality (IN) required to have a smoothly functioning home & life. In other words, as C increases, so does IN. When I had just one or two small boys (low C value), I won't say that life was easy - in some ways parenting was much more difficult than it is now, and my fervent prayers for all of you who are in that spot because it can be downright hard! - but I didn't have to be quite so careful (low IN value) in how we used our time, simply because there were so few demands upon it. We had very few appointments and no one was asking to play with friends and they still ate less food than I did and they were too young for every class or lesson available! I distinctly remember one moment when our oldest was about nine months old and I was sitting on the floor, watching him play, in the peace of a perfectly clean house and a perfectly quiet child, thinking, "This is pretty easy. I could definitely have another one!" Granted, some of that thought was a first-time-mom's inexperience in believing that Another Child would sleep just as well as the first (he didn't) and be just as calm as the first (he wasn't) - but on the other hand, I was right. It was easy. Unsolicited advice from Me to You: if you are able, if God and your circumstances allow it, keep having kids until it's not easy. And maybe one more beyond that. You will grow so much, so very much, and God will use it for good.
But back to my story. We had more kids, they started growing up, and all of a sudden our time each day seemed to be vanishing faster than fresh homemade cookies. Seasons change quickly, and what worked for one year of your homeschooling or parenting may not work for another year! As another and more recent example, when the kids were slightly younger than they are now and slightly more needy and doing slightly less "school" work, I tried hard to get us out of the house most days after our brief morning routine was completed. We would run an errand or go to the park or visit the library or walk around the mall. Why? Because we didn't have much school to do and, especially during the harsh winter months, it felt good to get out of the house, stretch our legs, and be in a different environment for a short time. 98% of the time our kids have been amazing car travelers, so a short drive with all the minions restrained and out of trouble felt like a mental break that refreshed me immensely. However. Life is getting busier as our children grow up, and this year my perspective on morning outings has changed drastically. We have more school to do now and, the more kids are in the mix, the longer it takes! We have more commitments that fill up much of our week! More people are living in (i.e. messing up) this house, which means we need more time to stay on top of it! More people are eating larger amounts (multiple times a day too - the audacity!) and I need to do more cooking! All of these factors have led me to this obvious but necessary conclusion:
If I want to be a good homeschooler, I need to be home.
If I want to be a good homemaker, I need to be home.
Groundbreaking insight, I know.
I do, very much, want to do a good - even an excellent - job at these two careers of mine, and so I am (intentionally) praying and thinking about how to maximize my time at home.
Of course, one of the many perks of homeschooling is that you can, hypothetically, do it anywhere. Take your books to the park! Or the coffee shop! Or on your next road trip! But as romantic and free-spirited as all of those options sound, I have found that as long as we have babies or toddlers around (which has been always, thus far), they are just not very practical. Imagine with me that you are sipping a steaming latte at your local coffee shop, working through a math lesson with your nine and ten-year-olds, while simultaneously making sure an active seven year old stays in his seat, a chatty four year old doesn't talk too loudly, and a two year old (prone to screaming) doesn't do so, or leave his seat, or spill your coffee, or spill anyone else's coffee. Does that sound dreamy and relaxing to you? Me neither. So yes, it's super fun and exciting to get out and do things that the public schoolers can't, and sometimes we do, but at the same time it's a fact that in this season our best school time happens at home.
Here are four ways we are trying to be even more intentional about how we use our time.
Protecting our mornings. I've observed that our peak school time is approximately 8:45-10:30, which means that whenever possible, we need to be home during that time. In the past I was more relaxed about scheduling appointments and they would often be at 9 or 9:30 in the morning, but the trouble is that when that happens, we don't have time to get into our books before packing up to leave, and then once we get back home again everyone is a) hungry, b) tired from being on their good behavior, c) ready for a play break, and d) hungry. This means that we can't get back into the books right away after coming back home, which means that the whole morning is gone. Conversely, even if the rest of the day gets busy, if we can stay at home during these first morning hours and work on some school subjects, I feel so much better about our day! Doctor appointments and dentist and therapy and playdates will all have to be scheduled after this time.
Saying NO. This is a hard one. I am coming to see that an absurd level of busy-ness is not the sole property of normal schooling families; rather, it seems to be engrained in our entire American culture. Even as homeschoolers who are trying to have a slower, more intentional, counter-cultural life, it takes a lot of fortitude and determination to say NO to the myriad of opportunities available! This is getting exponentially more difficult as our children get older. There are many, so very many classes and field trips and lessons and opportunities available, specifically for homeschoolers, and all of them are good. Some are even great! But not every one is good for our family, and not every one is better than what we could be doing with that time at home. In order to protect our time at home, I need to say NO to outside activities far more often than I say YES.
Scheduling rest and connection. This may be a sign that I am a control freak but I find something extremely satisfying in having the power to create our own schedule for the day. When the boys were younger, I typed up their list of morning responsibilities and at the end I added "give Mom a hug" - and they did! Every morning, for years and years! It was amazing. The bottom of our daily menu on the fridge says "Don't forget to thank your mother" and sometimes I will write "and tell her she is beautiful" - and they do! Usually while laughing and thinking Mom is SO weird, but it's still fun. We have the power to shape the rhythm of our days**, for better or for worse, and we can use that power to recapture the time we need. Re-examine that school schedule you typed up in September - what if you added in "read a picture book together" right after "math lesson"? Seeing these words typed up and laminated on the fridge gives them more importance and increases the likelihood that we will actually sit down and read that picture book together, rather than rushing on to science or handwriting. Plus, then you get to cross it off your list and feel that - instead of it being an interruption or a side note that took away from your Real School Time - you actually accomplished part of your school day! You can do the same thing with "nature time" or "go for a walk" or "quiet reading time" or "take a rest" or "play a game together" or "bake something" or "have a dance party" or whatever else your family needs to slow down for a bit and connect with each other. Type it up, print it off, stick it on the fridge, and suddenly - like magic - it feels official! And now you have your excuse ready to help you in saying NO to extra activities: "Sorry Susan, we can't sign up for 'Primitive Art of a Weirdly Specific Native American Culture class' on Thursday mornings because that's our Play a Game time. Maybe next year!" Of course, this is all assuming that family Play a Game time is more important to you than Primitive Art - but maybe it's not. Maybe your family is super into Native American culture and THIS IS THE CLASS you've been waiting for your whole life! If so, that's awesome. The beauty here is that you get to choose, and your family's priorities will be different than mine.
** barring acts of God, of course, or the myriad interruptions of daily life. Our plans are in pencil and are often erased due to specific assignments God drops in our laps, whether that be a child who wakes up with a fever or a washing machine that breaks down or a friend in need of a listening ear.
Knowing our family priorities. It is difficult to make good choices about your time unless you know what is most important for your family. And frankly, I have not thought much about this until just this last year, so if you just have one or two very young ones at home, please do NOT feel like you must do this or that you are failing at life or any other such nonsense. Some of this evolves naturally as your family lives and grows together, but there may come a point when it is worthwhile to intentionally (are you tired of this word yet?) sit down and think about it. Here's a book that Dear Husband and I used to think through our priorities; some were already clear to us but the process was still helpful. Setting a few goals or priorities, whatever that looks like for you, can help to focus our energies and give us confidence that we are using our time well.
Choosing to be intentional about our time can be hard. It's hard to say no and it's hard to sit down and think or pray about goals and it's hard to take the time to craft a schedule that serves our family well - but this is one of many circumstances where we need to choose our hard. Living in chaos, trying to survive each frantic day, wondering if we're making the best use of our fleeting years with these precious children - that is also hard. How do I know? Because we've had days/seasons like that, and I don't like it. Life is short, childhood is even shorter, and I don't want to look back on our parenting years and think, Wow, we spent so much time on things that really didn't matter to us. And no, we don't always get it right. We won't always get it right. Some decisions we will look back on and realize they did not serve our family well and need to be adjusted going forward. Some seasons are spent in survival mode with not a speck of energy to spare for goal-making or planning. Some seasons may be uncertain, with multiple paths forward and little or no action but instead much time spent in prayers for wisdom. There is grace for each of these, and the Lord's mercies are new with every rising of the sun. What a blessing that is!
"So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."
Psalm 90:12
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