Feeling Conflicted

Sometimes I feel so conflicted.

When I'm posting here I like to keep it real. Unschooling is awesome, I love it, but its not all sunshine and rainbows. It's hard sometimes, and I don't mind sharing my struggles here.

When I'm face to face with other parents though, I feel like I'm representing the entire unschooling community when I answer questions. So when my neighbor is telling me how she's booking up her son's summer so she doesn't have to be with him 24/7 for three months, and she says to me, "I don't know how you deal with your kids being with you all day, every day. I couldn't do it." I feel compelled to say something about how much I love being with my kids and how great homeschooling is.

I think those types of answers are doing the homeschooling movement a disservice. Instead I wish I would say something like, "You know, it was really hard at first. We had to relearn how to live together. But its gotten easier and I really do enjoy it now. Of course there are good and bad days. If you ever choose to homeschool I'd be happy to commiserate with you while the kids play."

I don't want to perpetuate the image that homeschooling parents are super-human, uber-patient, Stepford Moms. I don't want to make other moms feel badly for feeling like they couldn't do it. I used to feel like that too. I want to be encouraging and supportive and REAL. I'm going to keep working on this.