What to do when God and your spouse conspire to force you to follow your dreams?

[mommamaree]

I want to clarify that saying the safe route feels like the cowards route means, for me personally, that I am normally adventurous by nature. Heck, I packed up house and moved with my husband cross-country to a new home, sight unseen, when I was 8 months pregnant with my first child. I have repeated such adventures throughout my life. I am always talking about life as an adventure. But lately, my daily life has hidden and suppressed that aspect of myself, because life has been quite difficult.
My husband and I have talked for years about living abroad, about being the traveling family circus, modern nomads, etc etc. Now that we are a week away from a possible invitation to go for it, it would feel cowardly to back away in fear. Especially since we have repeatedly tried to find a way to NOT be stuck in the town we are in before. We have moved away TWICE, but have moved back both times, because of the jobs available at the time and the fact that we were, on the second time, unable to sell our house in a tough market. Those reasons are not obstacles any more, but I am afraid to try again. Or maybe I am not too afraid, and I am just in the process of screwing up enough courage!

 

[Xantippe]

Mommamaree said:

“But I feel guilty about the idea of NOT homeschooling. If my kids get a poor education, or if they lose their faith due to exposure to secular teaching that despises Christianity, it would be all my fault.”

If the education they’re getting is unsatisfactory, you can pull them out at any time.

I think it’s a particularly good idea to have them in school in China, as often a school can provide the whole family with a sort of ready-made community. It might be very isolating to homeschool there.

“So I think my fears have a lot to do with choosing a path that neglects my children and puts them in harm’s way. Identifying with the Catholic homeschool movement was a way for me to deal with those fears. But truth be told, my husband asked me to homeschool and I agreed to do it, because we saw the problems our oldest was having at the school, not because it was my choice for myself.”

Does your oldest have learning issues? It’s unlikely that a private school in Shanghai would be well-equipped to deal with those.

“Of course, if they go to private school in Shanghai, I would still use the same religion curricula series to do catechesis and sacramental prep at home (and enroll them in CCD if they offer that at the international parish, as my son will be preparing for his first Holy Communion overseas).”

Very good!

 

[Xantippe]

Mommamaree said:

“I want to go, I think. But I am afraid of letting go of what I have worked hard for here, even though I will be the first to admit that I don’t have much to show for it. The other Catholic homeschooling families at our parish do not associate, or if they do, they do not invite us. Our social circle includes families from the parish school, who do not understand why we had to leave the school. So my identification is with an idea, not with actual living, breathing people with whom I am in relationship. It is frustrating and lonely in this town.”

I think you can do better socially elsewhere, especially as I think you have a lot to offer.

By the way, I wonder if you could meet any friendly Japanese people in Shanghai? If you could find a Japanese housewife or two to be friends with, that would be a great addition to your social circle. Actually, come to think of it, it might make sense to offer an English language playdate directed at Japanese families.

“I have always wanted to live abroad. I love House Hunters International.”



“My current town has no sidewalks and nowhere to go and nobody to see and people hate kids here.”

Gah.

Leave, and don’t look back (except to visit friends). There are hundreds of better places to live in the US (not to mention the world).

 

[mommamaree]

No, my oldest is very capable. Always straight As.

Her class was dominated by some spoiled little rich girls who lived to play games with people’s feelings. The school adopted Common Core math curriculum which was HORRIBLE and required hours of math homework every night and still didn’t help the kids to learn (when you try to indoctrinate kids that 2+2=5, and they know it does not, it takes hours of reconditioning to prove to them it actually does). The lunch room situation was horrible and she wasn’t getting a chance to eat her lunch. She would be made fun of for eating what she brought, and would be left out of playground games if she stayed to finish, instead of throwing her lunch away. Just a few examples. She was hungry, exhausted, and confused and miserable for most of the year. We were upset, because we really wanted the parish school to work for us, and the school would criticize her if we complained of problems, or they would ignore us. We were too low in the food chain to earn the notice of anyone.

 

[Xantippe]

Mommamaree said:

“Her class was dominated by some spoiled little rich girls who lived to play games with people’s feelings.”

You may well run into that in a private school in Shanghai. Or not.

“The school adopted Common Core math curriculum which was HORRIBLE and required hours of math homework every night and still didn’t help the kids to learn (when you try to indoctrinate kids that 2+2=5, and they know it does not, it takes hours of reconditioning to prove to them it actually does). The lunch room situation was horrible and she wasn’t getting a chance to eat her lunch. She would be made fun of for eating what she brought, and would be left out of playground games if she stayed to finish, instead of throwing her lunch away. Just a few examples. She was hungry, exhausted, and confused and miserable for most of the year. We were upset, because we really wanted the parish school to work for us, and the school would criticize her if we complained of problems, or they would ignore us. We were too low in the food chain to earn the notice of anyone.”

Oh dear.

I expect you’ll probably be pretty safe from Common Core math in China–I expect the expat families would have no tolerance at all for that stuff.

How well will you be able to vet the school before the kids start?

 

[KCT]

But I feel guilty about the idea of NOT homeschooling. If my kids get a poor education, or if they lose their faith due to exposure to secular teaching that despises Christianity, it would be all my fault.

Ding, ding, ding!! Stop right here…

When kids grow up and make choices we disagree with, it’s not ‘our’ fault. They have a free will. You alone are not responsible for your kids, your husband is as well.

I doubt they will get a poor education in China. My husband comes from a missionary family; his dad and siblings were born and raised in China. They are all well educated, good, Christian people.

Do you feel guilty about not homeschooling merely because of academic standards? Do you have the idea that somehow homeschooling will protect your kids from the outside world? Is homeschooling a reflection on you as a mother?

 

[mommamaree]

I expect you’ll probably be pretty safe from Common Core math in China–I expect the expat families would have no tolerance at all for that stuff.

How well will you be able to vet the school before the kids start?

The company pays for a “Look-See” trip prior to the actual move, so that we can select our school and thereby select the proper area for an apartment. I am seriously considering the bilingual school for American children. They get an immersion in Mandarin, as well as an otherwise excellent academic education. But we will know more as we continue our research and actually go over there to select the school.

 

[Xantippe]

mommamaree said:

“The company pays for a “Look-See” trip prior to the actual move, so that we can select our school and thereby select the proper area for an apartment.”

I LOVE these people.

For our current location in Texas, my husband’s department flew me out for a visit to meet people, be shown around and to house hunt. It’s a very good idea. They don’t want spouses to arrive cold, hate the area, and bail.

 

[mommamaree]

Ding, ding, ding!! Stop right here…

When kids grow up and make choices we disagree with, it’s not ‘our’ fault. They have a free will. You alone are not responsible for your kids, your husband is as well.

I doubt they will get a poor education in China. My husband comes from a missionary family; his dad and siblings were born and raised in China. They are all well educated, good, Christian people.

Do you feel guilty about not homeschooling merely because of academic standards? Do you have the idea that somehow homeschooling will protect your kids from the outside world? Is homeschooling a reflection on you as a mother?

Thank you for your straightforwardness and reminder that I alone am not responsible. I hear the concept repeated all the time that the mother must be perfect or she will screw up her kids. It is too much pressure. It makes me want to escape sometimes, which is exactly why I love and NEED my solo outings to just be myself with no responsibilities for a couple hours.

Do you feel guilty about not homeschooling merely because of academic standards?

No, I am constantly hearing how bad public schools are, from an academic and moral perspective. But yes, I feel badly about the idea of not homeschooling because of what my kids would be exposed to, and the education they would not be getting. I know a private school has the potential to be the best of what we could obtain for our kids, though.

Do you have the idea that somehow homeschooling will protect your kids from the outside world?

Yes, it does protect them somewhat. They are still little, though, so the major concerns wouldn’t be as relevant until later. Exposure to drugs, sex, and anti-Christian teachings is extremely likely within a few years’ time.

Is homeschooling a reflection on you as a mother?

Yes, but not by choice. If I were completely honest, I would consider myself to be a reluctant homeschooler, but trying to do my best for the sake of my family. I was a teacher at a local, private Christian school (not the parish school my daughter attended) for several years prior to the birth of my first, so I know I am capable of being a good teacher, and I derive a certain amount of satisfaction overall from doing a good job, but I hate the moment we start lessons for the day and I love the moment we finish up. I don’t know what my problem is. I feel like I need an attitude adjustment. Maybe I am just burnt out. Next week is our last week of lessons for the whole year, and I am so ready to be done.
But the problem is, I think that I kind of look at homeschooling as a justification for me being home. Same with the fact of being pregnant or taking care of babies. I was not raised to believe that a woman may stay home with her family, but my husband was raised with his mother home, and he wanted that for our children. I wanted it too, because I knew how special it was to him and how much our children would benefit. But, for years, I struggled with depression after staying home with the babies. Once I became Catholic, the depression lifted quite a lot, and then we started homeschooling soon after that, when we pulled my daughter out of kindergarten at the parish school halfway through the year (we found her hiding in her closet rocking back and forth crying by herself because she had been humiliated by others a couple times and she was certain it would continue happening). So, for a while, I had a purpose. Take care of my daughter’s emotional needs while seeing to her academic needs. Well, we tried putting her back in for 2nd grade, and it wasn’t any better than kindergarten, so for third grade, she was back at home and homeschooling again. It was much more of a wrench for me this time around. I have lost friendships and social opportunities and have become extremely isolated once again.

Another poster was correct that we are to serve. But what if in our serving others, we completely lose our uniqueness? I have spent so much time taking care of others that I have no time for anything. And I KNEW this would happen if I took up homeschooling again. I warned my husband of my worries and we made a plan to avoid it. And yet we still failed to avoid those consequences. The only thing that I do for myself these days is participating in discussions here at CAF, which really picked up when I discovered I was pregnant again and we made the choice to not tell anyone about it because we didn’t want to hear the condemnation for it. I am happy about adding to our family, but I hate being pregnant. So I really really don’t want to hear people judging me about it.

 

[Xantippe]

mommamaree said:

“I have lost friendships and social opportunities and have become extremely isolated once again.”

Not good.

“Another poster was correct that we are to serve. But what if in our serving others, we completely lose our uniqueness?”

I think there are a lot of different ways to serve, that don’t necessarily sacrifice our uniqueness.

For example, my oldest daughter rides out at a therapeutic riding ranch. The ranch is chock-full of horse-y ladies and young women, volunteering and working. They’re teaching and helping the disabled kids, shoveling out the barn, grooming the horses, exercising the horses, doing everything that needs to be done. Do those women hate horses? No–I expect they all, to a woman, LOVE horses and horsie stuff. The fact that they are doing something that they love makes them more effective in serving others.

Likewise, I have a when-my-kids-are-bigger dream of doing something with personal finance, as that is one of my passions. I would like to volunteer as a Financial Peace University coordinator, I’d like to start doing tax work (I’ll need to in order to pay for youngest’s school tuition), and if things eventually take off, I would like to be a CPA or maybe to work at a credit union. I think personal finance is really important, and I think that helping people with their money is an important way to serve.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

I completely understand your fear that your children will be indoctrinated with anti-Christian ideas at school and in society at large. I have only one worry in my life these days: that my children will fall victims to secularism and lose their salvation.

But the reality is that you live in the USA. Secularism is rampant in many areas, the popular culture is pretty low and there is no way you can shield your kids from these things. No way. In the west generally it is practically expect that teenagers disrespect parents and ditch the values they were raised with if they don’t fit the secular trends. Rebellion seems to be the norm these days.

Asia is different. Now, I’m not saying there are no problems, that all teenagers are perfect, that all families are perfect etc., but things just seem more healthy to me. For example,the relationships between the young and their elders are different in these cultures. There is respect. There is a sense of responsibility and obligation. And not just the youngsters. People are so much more respectful than your average westerner, I still can’t get used to it. And very importantly, people on the whole are more religious than in the west.

As for schools, I am willing to bet you anything that your average Chinese middle class kid will be a better influence on your children than most other western kids. Kids are better behaved and are expected to work hard at school. If we stay long enough for our kids to start school, they will go to an international school where the western kids are a minority.

I have met so many other expats here and I can honestly say that my preference is to socialise with locals and other Asians. I became so fearful of people back home, I was always waiting for some anti-religious comment, and very often they were made. I don’t feel like that anymore. People don’t think I’m a freak because I am socially conservative. In these cultures family values are not a joke. (I’m sure there are people who are more western in their outlook and morals, but luckily I haven’t met them so far

Maybe this is something for you to think about when/if you look for a school for them. The expat community is a fine thing, but it is even better to venture out and meet local people.

I’m so glad this thread has been helpful for you. I’m glad people are positive and encouraging.