Nobody asked you.  The words rattle in my brain during a slow moment at the cafe as I hide on a corner stool in the back of the kitchen and scroll through the New York Times on my phone.  The debate about whether or not to open schools captures my interest.  I read an Op Ed from a woman who argues that in pandemic culture, a person can have kids or a job, but not both.  I read debates about the dangers of not opening, that children will be left behind, that they won’t be able to keep up (a concept that mystifies me).  I read about the dangers to children in abusive and neglectful homes. 

What I don’t see in the debates are the voices of family farmers, home schoolers and radical homemakers, all who are steeped in a culture of blending work, family and school every day.  This doesn’t concern us, I suppose.  We’re unaffected by this wrangle about whether or not to open schools, so our views aren’t solicited.  

The irony is that it doesn’t concern us because it has always concerned us.  The concept of school or daycare is conspicuously absent from many of our lives sometimes by choice, sometimes by economic default, sometimes for cultural preservation.  But either way, there is a vast sub-culture all over the world in rural and urban settings that has managed economic survival with children at home at all ages for many generations.   I’m  surprised at how the public debate has focused on reinventing the wheel, rather than inviting our engagement with addressing the problems.  

We’re too fringe, I think.  Our experiences are discounted because….because why, exactly?  Because many of us made these choices voluntarily?  Because we’re dismissed as religious fanatics or subjugated or too naive about the real world to know better?  Or because we’re somehow super-competant, intellectual outliers or addicted to martyrdom? Or maybe just whacky?

It’s hard to say.  But the truth is that many of us have found the greatest part of our journey keeping parents and children together throughout the day is our own personal development.  We grow and learn from this experience all the time.  And that growth longs for expression.

And so, I know nobody asked me how to cope with having kids at home all day.  But I want to use today to talk about it.  Because I’ve done it.  And I’ve done it while writing seven books, maintaining a blog, going through the throes of entrepreneurial start-ups and running an existing family business.  I’ve done it while caring for parents, I’ve done it while negotiating learning disabilities.  I’ve even taken a third youth into my home to help him resume his education over the next few years.  

And I’m not a talented educator.  In fact, I’ve done it, believe it or not, with the support of the teachers at my local school.  Even though I’m a home schooler, their involvement has been key to our success.  Thus, in my mind, when I look at the collaborative prospects of families and schools working together to educate our youth, I’m genuinely excited for them.  This can work.  

And society will  probably find a way to improve education as a result of this upheaval.  

But the only way to get to that better place is to move through this tough place.  

So with my compulsion to express wisdom from my own experience, I’ve offered here are a few tips about balancing work with educating children at home.  They won’t all apply to all situations, but hopefully some will prove helpful if you’re a worried parent:

1. Work your prime hours only.  Most of us have hours when we’re at our best:  our focus is razor sharp, our energy is highest.  For me, that’s a three hour window before everyone wakes up. When my kids were really little, I learned that I could accomplish a full day’s work by focusing on those prime hours alone, and then had my days free to parent and run a household.  When I worked for employers, once I proved I could do the same job in fewer hours, I was able to negotiate for 8 hours’ pay for 3-4 hours work.  
2. Actual “school” doesn’t take that much time.  I had a homeschooling mom explain this to me.  She came to her path while working as an aid in her oldest daughters’ classroom.  She began observing how much time went to changing tasks, taking attendance and managing disruptions, then started clocking the actual hours spent learning.  The school day ran from 8am until 3pm.  The actual teaching was under three hours.  From kindergarten through high school, I’ve been able to fulfill my teaching obligations to my kids in two focused hours per day.  
3. Find the sweet spot and stay within it.  While going through the worst of Ula’s visual impairment and learning issues, I took some time to study neuroplasticity in the brain.  (See my essay Brain Science for Eight-Year-Olds if you’re interested)  And I learned there was a sweet spot.  This was where the time of day was right, and she was challenged with new information, but not overwhelmed.  If her experience during this window was positive:  she felt good, she was interested, the mood in the room was positive, and the web of dendrites and axon terminals in her brain would grow more complex and functional.  If the mood was rife with anger, fear or frustration, that same web will whither.  Thus, I learned to start schooling reliably at the same time each day, and to deliver material quickly, then let her go play.  Homework was only as good as it held her interest and gave her a chance to practice her lessons.  Beyond that, it was detrimental by virtue of the stress it caused.
4. “Keeping up” is scarcity thinking at its worst.  When parents worry about  their kids “keeping up,” they are buying into a toxic belief that their children are in a race for which there are only a few winners — for the slots at the best schools, the best colleges, the best jobs.  We try to practice abundance thinking in our family.  Opportunity is something we create.  It is limited only by our imaginations.  That makes the “keeping up” mentality seem pretty silly.  I’ve learned that when I teach my kids math curriculum two years behind the common core recommendations, they are emotionally ready for the content and jazzed to play with it.  I don’t even know what reading level Ula is.  Corey’s life threw him for a loop and he missed a lot of schooling years.  Saoirse found academics easy, but has zero interest in attending college.   They’re all intelligent kids who would charm you to no end with their engagement with world issues, and their curiosity and fire for life.  They all have bright futures.  They’re all now working on the farm with vast competencies. None of them “kept up.”  Learning isn’t a race that we finish on a schedule.  It’s a lifelong pursuit.
5. Learning happens outside of academics.  Instead of “keeping up” during the pandemic period, I’d urge parents to instead keep connecting at the dinner table.  Lots of learning happens there — whether it’s vocabulary, current events, or just emotional intelligence.  And then there’s the education that happens outside, when we learn to connect with and treasure our natural resources or local parks and identify them as part of our true wealth. Study less, connect more.  The dividends are surprising.
6. Family – Family – Family; Community-community – community.  I know we’re supposed to be social distancing, but be strategic and find your support network.  We aren’t going to get through this crisis as independent islands.  Expect partnership from your partner.  Ask for help in the absence of a partner.  You’ll likely be enriching someone’s life by asking them to participate and help you.  If you’ve got the bandwidth, be a neighbor or a family member or “pod member” to someone who needs it.  It isn’t enough for society to lament inequities and injustices, then leave it to government and institutions to resolve it.  Systemic racism and inequalities demand that we absorb them on a personal level.   It may seem awkward.  It may be inconvenient. But getting involved and sharing the experience with others will be memorable.  And speaking of memories…
7. You will remember this time fondly.  Yes.  Fondly.  Think back on some of the hardest times in your life (PTSD-inducing trauma excluded).  How many of those “hard times” resulted in fond memories?  That’s because working through problems is what makes life interesting.   Tackling this challenge is going to stay with you and your kids for the rest of your lives.  It will stand out from the mundane day-to-day shuffle to soccer practice and science class and whatever other “enrichment” activities they were enrolled in to “keep up” and help them run the mythical race.   

Because the race is over.  Life now is about savoring the connections we have.  It’s about rebuilding something new from the rubble of the chaos.  It’s about rising from the ashes.  This is an extraordinary time to be alive, and for your kids to be present in the moment with you.  No, this doesn’t solve all the problems with blending public education with social distancing. Then again, public education was no panacea before, either. But maybe it will give a few more of you a dose of encouragement for making the most of it.   And yes, it’s inconvenient.  Yes, it’s hard.  That’s what will make the experience so darn savory.  Make the most of it. 

Now I’ll shut up.  Because nobody asked me.