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While cleaning my home office recently, I found a stack of papers I brought home with me after retiring from the workforce. Before pitching, I thumbed through them and had a great chuckle at one piece hidden away in that mess. It was a flyer titled How to Stay Stressed and it satirically proposed that we humans must really enjoy feeling at our wit’s end because we are really good at inviting stress into our homes. The “self-help” flyer’s author was even so kind to offer strategies for how to stay crazy stressed out.
It provided a much-needed laugh because, you see, I’ve done a fine, yes a very fine, job of welcoming stress into Das Schmidt Haus the past month. So I got to thinking about how I could stay stressed out as our family continues to dig in and pull up our homeschooling boot straps. In the event you, too, are looking for tips and strategies for how to lose your marbles, here are a few suggestions.
I think mommy is losing it!
1. Throw out all time management strategies.
Because you have bought into society’s insistence that the proper and only way to socialize your children is by enrolling them in public school, search and search and search for the best enrichment courses offered throughout your entire greater metro region. Then promptly enroll the young’uns in all of them, every single last cotton-pickin’ extracurricular class.
- Homeschool co-op? Check.
- Dance class? Check.
- Free clipart and piano lessons? Check and check.
- Supplemental catechesis at church? Check.
- P.E. at the YMCA? Check. (WHAT THE … you’re paying for recess?!)
Oh, and please don’t neglect the following important point: schedule in more activities than you can possibly manage. Even more, select classes offered at the most inconvenient times for your household schedule so that all order and balance you’ve worked so hard to establish the past year is thrown into a deep tizzy. Proper order and balance is so so so very …  what’s the word  … Benedictine. And aren’t we a more a free-spirited, wandering, willy-nilly Jesuit society now with Pope Francis in office? Get with the times.
2. Second-guess every decision that’s gotten you to this point.
The curriculum you bought that cost as much as a mortgage payment? Throw it out after Day 1 when it just doesn’t seem to jive with your children’s learning style. Then start over from scratch. In search of the perfect curriculum, read no less than 666 homeschooling mommy blogs by women who’ve been at this for at least a decade. Because you’ll be so confused after reading said 666 blogs, schedule coffee chats with several local homeschooling moms about the choices they’ve made for their family. Then kick yourself for not going with XYZ Home Study Curriculum — the one Mrs. Homeschooler of the Year has used successfully for all her children over the past 20 years. And most important: WORRY about it all. While you’re at it, worry about the stock market, world peace, global warming, and recent reports that Kerrygold butter does not actually come from 100% grass-fed dairy cows after all.
3. Take a prayer hiatus. Â
Prayer is for sissies, friends. Instead, rely on stimulants to get your high. Two pots of bold, dark roast coffee should do the job just fine.
4. Practice the sins of sloth and gluttony.
Never exercise. Eat anything you want. Gain weight and work diligently to stay at least 25 pounds over your recommended weight. Carbo-load and double your daily sugar content.
… and decide to begin homeschooling at about the 33-week gestation mark.
Because readers of your popular blog (popular is such a relative term, isn’t it?) are anxious to hear about every mundane update in your life, put blogging before everything else. Be sure to use evenings and weekends not in quality time with your spouse but rather to catch up on your social media trolling. And this is critical: keep holy the Sabbath by blogging.
Wait until 7:30 a.m. on the first morning you plan to begin homeschooling to sketch out a lesson plan for the week that day. All those storage boxes full of books, paperwork, and files you’ve been meaning to donate or shred for three years now? Head on over to Pinterest and find ways to creatively repurpose those boxes into desks and chairs for the kids.
No, I don’t mean with a label maker, but YES get one and then curse yourself when you don’t instantaneously become more organized simply by owing it. Instead, I’m referring to those simple, innocent questions that well-meaning friends and family ask about your homeschooling decisions. Take each one as a personal attack against you, your spouse and children, your parenting skills, your faith, your politics, and the increasing number of freckles on your beautiful face.
9. For pete’s sake, stop laughing already!Â
Homeschooling is no joking matter, people, and you shouldn’t just roll with the punches. Your children’s entire future hangs in the balance at the mercy of your hands. Say what? Only the truly holy people can laugh at themselves? Humbug. Damn lies and statistics right there.
10. Finally, and above all else, set impossibly high standards.
The higher the better. For you, your spouse and children, shoot, even for your slobbering black lab. The serpent in your five-year-old’s Garden of Eden illustration looks more like a friendly cat? Time for a trip to the zoo and some hands-on training at the reptile exhibit. Sure, she might be freaked out, but SHE’S GOT TO LEARN! The 19-month-old isn’t talking much yet? Call a speech therapist. Wait, better yet, this is your opportunity to teach Latin before he gets hooked on English. Your husband can’t stay awake past 8:30 p.m. because he’s been up since 4:30 and has worked like a banshee the past month? Ladle up a bowl of guilt soup in the form of thinly veiled barbs that your children won’t understand but will be crystal clear to your husband. Make him feel terribly guilty for ignoring you and leaving you to hang high and dry with this whole homeschooling mess you’ve gotten yourself into. And woman, please, stop being so selfish and get up at 4:30 a.m. with your husband, take a shower, style your hair, put on your “face,” and for the love of all things feminine genius, wear more dresses.
* * *
There you have it, ten ways to stay stressed out during your first month of homeschooling. But hey, I’m no expert. What stress-producing or stress-sustaining strategies work for you?  I would love to, ahem, learn from you. Combox is open!
This is one of my new favorite posts that I am bookmarking right into my Homeschool folder! I hope your school year is off to a good start, and I look forward to hearing more about it and learning from you!
The whole list is great but #1 is classic. I really want to be more Benedictine but I am naturally more Jesuit. ;) I hope homeschooling is going great! Your first day picture at the park was super cute!
<3. It is hard for people to understand #1:-) too much pressure to do it all:-) we actually cut back the yer & people think we are weird:-)
Love it! Having been a homeschool mom and supervising teacher this is awesome! Congrats on your choice to homeschool too!
Slow down girlfriend! We need to chat, soon. ;) I remember that first year stress-that I put on myself, very well thank you. The most important thing I have learned since then is that we are raising disciples, not Einsteins. When I learned to keep that goal #1, the academics all fell into place.
Fast forward 5 years into this journey and here we are today, our day off from lessons(we do a 4-day week T-F), listening to the kids reading field guides to figure out what kind of crickets they found this morning and what they need to feed them if they want to keep them alive long enough to show their cousins later. I haven’t taught a single thing to them but they have learned so much already today, before 10:00am!
Love you ,friend!
I got pretty stressed out just reading this. :)
As a mom who is returning to homeschooling after a 2 year break, I really enjoyed this! Thanks for reminding me about what is important and for a much needed chuckle! My only question is in#10: are you saying that we shouldn’t get up with our husbands or that wearing dresses is bad? I hope not!
Hi Jenny! Thanks for your message. Re: your question: If you follow my “satire logic” that would be what I’m poorly proposing, huh? Here’s the thing. I’ve hit that point in late pregnancy where it’s just hard to get comfortable and have a good night’s rest. I’m tired. So tired. And as much I want to be able to rise with my husband and pray with him (it was actually a discipline I was working toward several months ago) I can’t beat myself up for the days when I simply need to give myself a little break in favor of a little more sleep. It sets me up to be better for my kids come mid-day when “witching hour” hits and my nerves are shot. I just have these lingering “shoulda, coulda” guilty feelings that don’t help with all the other stuff going on.
And the dresses/skirt thing … I absolutely love wearing them! I just don’t have much that fits right now so I just need to give myself a little break for a few more weeks.
Thanks for asking the question so I could clarify.
Oh Lisa! I get it!! And, I get it because I have been/am in your shoes!! I am NOT a morning person and with 6 children in 9 years, I’ve not been good at rising early with my husband! I am currently struggling with getting up at 5:30/6:00am to start my homeschooling day and the earliest I have been able to do is 6:30 and I’m not even pregnant! I think my husband has given up on me! I’m sorry too if I gave the impression that we need to be skirts/dresses only. That certaintly isn’t the case for me. While I find that skirts/dresses are more comfortable for me, I still have some shorts and jeans in my closet.
Thanks again for a great piece! I really did love it! I’m sorry for the misunderstanding!
Truly, I’m glad you asked the question you did. :)
oh my goodness, this was hilarious! I swear you´ve had to have been a fly on my wall over the last 8 years to write this. So true- each and every one- been there! Too funny.
Know of my prayers for y’all all around, regardless of the issue. That said, admittedly the only item to which I can relate is #3. Personally I’m about ready to ditch coffee after getting a water pitcher with a filter that fits in the door of my mini-fridge at seminary. It sounds corny, but the water really does taste better and I feel better (at least physically) after a cup of it (plus it’s ultimately cheaper). More importantly of course is prayer, which is my chance to dump my concerns on God as well as reflect on the Mass readings for the day, trusting in the wisdom of the Church and what is needed for the given day. Furthermore, praying the Psalms in the Liturgy of the Hours is tremendously helpful as they’re versatile; sometimes I find myself laughing at them because they describe exactly how I feel.
Wonderful post! This applies so much to my non-homeschooling-life too! Hang in there!
Perfect timing for me to read this! Just completed my first week and I am exhausted!! I needed the laugh! Actually I don’t laugh enough and need to find a way to be less serious. I am always trying to fit it in. Thank you!!