Category: Culture
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On being alone, on being a neatnik, and other mother things
When you are a neat person living in a house with three people who are… um… less-than-compulsively-neat… you dream of having clean closets. But really you’re always one step behind the people making messes all over your darling house. So, in essence, the most horrifying aspect of your life is that you never get to…
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Calm in the face of chaos, otherwise known as modern parenting
I just got back from a refreshing and fun homeschooling conference. Homeschooling conferences are their own sort of thing: part conference, part costume party, part mass therapy session. This one was no exception. During the Q&A part of a talk I gave, one of the moms in the audience told me something like “I feel…
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The Value of Competition
Our kids are just as smart as we are….if not smarter. They know when people are putting them on, so if we continue the charade that kids’ achievements are all the same, we’re not doing them any favors. Yes, it’s great to celebrate all children’s abilities, but avoiding competition puts our children into a manufactured…
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From the HEM archives: The Feminist Homeschooler
I was sad to see that after the demise of the long-running Home Education Magazine, the publisher chose to take down the entire site, and with it the archive of years of articles that they published. I wrote for HEM for only the last two years, but I loved being able to contribute to an important voice in…
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Favorite picture books
In our house, picture books have a very long life. My thirteen-year-old refuses to get rid of her favorites, still! Here are a few of the most memorable, with some memories to go along with them. Goodnight, Gorilla We’re a family of words, so what’s this book of very few words doing on our list?…