This morning, I’m crying over the algebra textbooks.  Not for the usual reasons folks cry over algebra.  My hands press into them, as though by pushing down, I can hold her here.  Like this.  With me.  Always.  The reality that I’m letting go of my oldest child now shadows my days constantly, even though she rarely leaves my side. 

I shouldn’t be crying.  I should be proud.  Yesterday, I was proud.  She and her boyfriend Corey (also homeschooled) went together to take a qualifying test to see if they were ready to enroll  in the TASC prep class (that’s our state’s high school equivalency exam).  The proctor welcomed them warmly when I dropped them off.  She wanted them to be relaxed.  She also gave a small warning.  “A lot of people fail the math portion,” she said.  “Try not to worry about it. You’ll be able to take it again.”

I tried not to be nervous on Saoirse’s behalf.  I mentally rehearsed all the potential ways I could handle my kid’s disappointment if that happened.

It didn’t happen.  The proctor’s eyes were bright when she brought Saoirse back out to the waiting room.  “She aced it!”  She exclaimed.  “She’s ready!  She can graduate by December if she wants to!”

Graduate by December?  

Saoirse says little on the car ride home.  But after we drop off Corey, she turns to me, her face radiant with joy.  “Thank you, Mom.”

In that moment, I’m suddenly thrilled for her.  Even though I purport to lay no faith in exams, all day long I crow about my brilliant daughter to anyone who will listen:  to Bob, Mom and Dad, Kate, Shilo, the dogs, the pigs, the meat in the walk-in freezer.  I’m so.  Dang. Proud.  She kept her cool.  She thought things through.  She knows her shit.  

“You should be proud,” Mom looks up from her rocking chair on the porch.  “You did this, Shannon.  You did this for your kid.”  Mom doesn’t hand out compliments lightly.  I bask in her praise all night.

But today it doesn’t mean squat.  Today I’m simply trying to wrap my head around the idea that my 16-year-old daughter may no longer be my pupil after three months.  And I think of a scene I saw only one week prior…

We were coming home from a canoe camping trip in the Adirondacks when the Museum on Blue Mountain Lake came into view.  It was a special day for homeschoolers, so we took advantage of the free admission and quickly scattered to visit our favorite exhibits.

Mine is a rustic cabin a family had held onto for generations, dismantled and moved to the museum in the 1990s.  I’m drawn to it for its simplicity.  I like to stand still inside it and reflect on how little one needs in order to be happy.

My revery is shattered by another mom, pointing at the exhibit text.  “Portage.  Look, kids!  They’re using the word portage here.  Now who can tell me the definition of portage?”

Three girls giggle and squirm behind her.  None of them offers an answer.  “Portage!”  She barks the word at her kids.  “You know this!  That was on our vocabulary list last week!  Someone tell me the definition.”  Still, no reply.  Then she shouts.  “Why am I doing this for you?  Why am I wasting all my time trying to teach you anything if you won’t learn it?  I’m not going to keep going if you can’t be bothered to learn!”

I have a solid decade of homeschooling experience on her, and I want to explain that vocabulary lists don’t work.  Reading great books to your kids works.  Talking to them like the fellow intelligent humans that they are works.  Eating dinner together around the kitchen table works. Homeschooling isn’t schooling-at-home, is the refrain that comes to mind.  At first, I want to shout at her to stop hurting her kids that way.  I also want to laugh at her.  But now, sitting here with Saoirse’s algebra texts, I want to reach back through time and hug her.

I remember being in her shoes.  I remember dropping obscene amounts of money on curriculum that promised to help my children “be advanced,” only to have it daily remind my daughters and me of our shortcomings.  Pages of undone activities screamed out to them: You can’t learn; and to me, You can’t teach!

Curriculum like that, trying to mimic the conventional education system, left me behaving just like this poor mom.  The money wasted and the anger were just a few of my many mistakes.  Our house became cluttered with failed attempts to build 3-D maps, failed papier—mâché projects, failed science projects, failed music lessons.

I wasted too many of those early years secretly fearing I was screwing up my children.  

But they never once asked to go to school.  Every day they came back to the kitchen table, and we all kept trying until we figured out what worked for us.  They never once wanted leave my side.

Until now.  

And truly, it is for the best of reasons.  My daughter is moving forward with her life.  She is ready.  And it isn’t as though she’s moving out.  She’s still here to fight with me over the last drips in the coffee pot, to drop her clothes on my bed, leave her hairbrushes and makeup on my dresser.  She’s still beside me in the cafe, pounding butter for the croissants, passing espresso shots back and forth in the morning as we dial in the machine and the grinders.  She’s still with us as we herd the chickens into the pens, as we gather for our mid-day meal.  But her mind is less mine to mold, and more hers to cultivate.  I want that for her, more than anything.

But for now, for this moment.  Give me these books.  Give me these final months to sit beside her and puzzle through calculating the volume of geometric solids and endless variables and complicated terms.  And to that mom, if you’re out there and this essay finds you, please know this:

It’s gonna be okay.  It’s all right if they don’t know their vocabulary.  It’s all right if you can’t keep up with the curriculum.  Please, just love this day with your daughters.  Be open to the lessons it offers them and you.  That’s really all it takes.  One day, they’re gonna blow you away with what they know, and you won’t know how the hell they learned it.  But they’re going to look at you and say the most amazing thing:  Thank you, Mom.

And then you’ll find yourself crying over the stupid algebra books. I promise.