Donna's Journey

I had a huge stained glass project I felt drawn to create. I had nowhere but the dining table and all the glass and supplies came from donations. It took two months to create and assemble. At first, the drawing sat on the table and I was afraid to cut the glass. A friend offered me safety glass door to practice on. It would not cut. I thought I was nuts to have such a scheme. Then a thought came to me. Compare the thickness of the glass to stained glass. It was several times thicker. I got a piece of stained glass and it cut so easy. By the early weeks of December I left it completely alone as it had been fully distracting me. We ate Thanksgiving and Christmas standing and most meals in shifts at the counter. We have since remodeled the kitchen and could easily all eat at a portable table.

After Christmas I was determined to have the work and school done each day before I touched the project. Life simplified and we settled into the rhythms. The children chose to hover around me as I worked on the glass. Soon they were wanting to learn and do with me. I would let the eight and ten year old practice on scraps and they willingly worked as apprentices helping keep the dining room shop clean. My older daughter learned every step of the process.

After the glass project was completed in January, life rhythms held lean and steady from January through the fall. Chores were still a distraction. The heart of the home and the health of the family life was gaining strength.

In July, Julia and I were Invited to attend a Face to Face With Greatness three day seminar in Cedar City.

I had a local CM study group going again. We all just shared what we were doing on a specific subject, so it was pretty low stress, except for the monthly contact to remind people of the meeting. I opened a Momculture yahoo group to keep group members notified of meetings and to reduce time needed to contact them.

Continued in the next post…

This is my response to a question asked by a friend on the yahoo group TJEDMUSE…

Dear, you are not alone. I read your letter and this is a struggle for many modern urbanites. Bear in mind, I am speaking generally about what I see and hear from mothers, and this may or may not apply to you.

> Time Management was a skill I did not learn as a youth due to a dysfunctional home (no one there really to teach me how to do it). I still struggle with it a lot. But I know that I am what I am because of my parents and it is my fault if I stay that way, so I am trying to improve in this area. But because I struggle with it, so do my kids.

Once upon a time, the demands of agrarian life imposed rhythms on us. People had to arise early to feed animals and care for them. Simple tasks such as bathing took time to draw the water from the well and heat. Laundry was taken to a stream and beat clean. Wood had to be cut and stacked or it would not be there when we needed it. In order to have a clean home and necessities provided on the Sabbath, the week got systematized. Monday wash day, Tuesday ironing day, Wednesday mending day…

Now we:

* Have hot and cold running water at the twist of a knob. We do not even need to wait to fill a tub, we can be showered, dried and dressed, before a tub can be filled
* Few of us have animals to care for, outside of house pets
* We can throw in a laundry load, pop dinner into the oven, and while those electronic slaves work, we can spend time with our family even head to the store if we need to, or perhaps read to a child
* Many fabrics are wash and wear, not needing ironing
* Many of us have gas or electric heat, it is run by a slave called a thermostat. For many of us there is no need to chop wood, except for ambiance.

What is the result? If there are no compelling reasons to structure one’s life, we tend to default and live by mood. Our great grand parents, more likely than not lived by rhythm rather than mood.

I see this lack of structure as a result of our society devaluing the core phase. Children from dysfunctional homes (what is normal? My daughter jokingly says, “I’ve seeeeen neeermal and it ain’t pretty!”) and children raised by caregivers in daycare, as well as, children whose parents were raised that way, are more likely to have these time structuring issues. Why? Simply because those situations are places where children are cared for, protected, and entertained, and less likely where they are engaged in a routine.

I see moms struggle to maintain a home and to home educate. When they are working on their home, they feel guilty because their children are being neglected. When they are focusing on school and the house is a mess, they feel guilty. I often see this with public schooled families, as well. Trying to make family and career work is a juggling act for many. Throw in a home business and you have an earthquake! There are solutions.

One thing to remember is that you can do it all, just not all at the same time. I believe that it is the structure of day in and day out family rhythms that provide the structuring of the time, that later academic success is built on. I call it the Ecclesiastes Approach, “1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…” Yes, I feel you need flexibility to follow epiphanies, yet, after all is said and done, structure prepares the scholar! We often refer to different areas of study as disciplines.

I feel that if a child is engaged in life rhythms in their core phase (pre and early school years) that they will have the habitudes of mind to engage in the love of learning, and sky rocket into a diligent young scholar. Nowhere do I see this more than in family work, done by rhythm. A parent working with a child is likely to finish the task, and do so diligently. Day in and day out, week after week, month after month, year after year- an example of diligence and finishing being a goal, rings loud and clear. The child learns from example and that adults finish. The same goes for quality. I do not think of adults doing a slipshod job when working with children. I really feel that doing family work by rhythm helps discipline the mind.

Too often, I see homes run by mood, where the child does not feel like doing this or that, as it is too much effort compared to the alternative of being entertained. Or the parent only cleans when it becomes too overwhelming. I have also watched as parents in exasperation throw up their hands and send their kids to school to “get structure,” so they will actually get something done academically. What they do not realize is that the same things that lead to school success are the very same things that can lead to success in the home. Charlotte Mason spoke of education being “an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.” I really feel if the atmosphere of the home is chaotic and by mood, it does not usually yield diligent and disciplined minds. I am not talking about a rigid mind. I feel that somehow the atmosphere of a disciplined life somehow disciplines the mind for thinking.

Many bright students, who qualified for college got there, only to waste their time, distracted by the endless array of distraction and activities, and end up either quitting or failing. A youth who has lived a disciplined life is more likely to rely on rhythms that have served them. I see the lack of self discipline, and the lack of study skills, shows. I find it hard to believe that a youth that has never studied more than an hour, our even four, would somehow be transformed into a diligent scholar the moment the parents leave him at the university door step.

> I’d love to get some input from those of you who feel you have a handle on structuring both your time and your kid’s time and how you teach them to manage their time.

I have fought through some of these issues myself. I have watched these tendencies in myself and among my own. I have also seen what family work and rhythms can produce in my home and family. I feel this is why it is so valuable to revisit and reevaluate all engagements that impede the structure and rhythms of a home. I know the toll that running a family business can take on home life. These few things can go a long way:
* Check the Pulse by self evaluating and counseling with the Lord- helps us see what needs to go, what needs to stay
* Counsel with spouse and family
* Adjusting and working towards rhythms that are ideal for your family is important.
This is dynamic and needs to be revisited often. Running a home is huge. Home education is huge. To combine them it helps to develop a discipline of personal and family rhythms. Throw in a home business or other demanding activities (or distractions) and you can get by for a while, but sooner or later you will need to consider the orchestration.

A simple structure is best. I do not believe in over structure or planning every minute. We all need margins in our life for epiphanies to be more abundant.

Life no longer gives us rhythms. We get to choose them. They are not prison bars, but rather like a default setting that we do unless something important causes us to do something else. Then when the important passes, we pick up our rhythm where we left off. If our present default is not working, perhaps it is time to revisit it. If our children lack structure in their studies, ask ourselves how we have prepared them to have a well disciplined mind. I believe that helping our children have structure in their lives, is part of sowing seeds of greatness in them.

It is time to check the pulse here! A great activity for Sunday.

It only appears like chaos on the surface, a deeper look says that life has subdivided and now there is an opportunity to guide life and help evolve it to a higher order. Translation, many things have happened in the past 18 months, a daughter married, I had a five month respiratory illness, an almost move to Monticello (our house did not sell, go figure, at the time it was on the market, almost no one could get a loan), a thesis completed (whew, after 80 hour weeks last summer), graduation from graduate school, a slip on ice and injured wrists, a granddaughter born, another daughter married, a grandson born, a business launched, a sprained ankle, and separated AC. All of these things change the variables of my life. Yes, change is inevitable. I am adaptable. To survive and thrive one needs to be aware of the opportunities and Carpe Diem “Seize the Day!”

I am rethinking the order of my life to meet life as it is. I crave order. My creativity craves an ordered life. I felt helpless as my landscape began to change. I needed order but why establish new order and then have to pack, move, and have to establish new order? Sanity maybe? Last night as I waited on the curb for my husband to pick me up at the university, it hit me, my solution. Have a Winter Quarters mentality. When the people with Brigham Young were at Winter Quarters, they planted and carried on life as if they would stay, but were prepared and ready if they had to move on. I need order now.

The events of the past 18 months have resulted in Chaos, some caused by fewer people and the changes that necessitates. Other challenges because of resulting selective neglect, as I am but one woman and my family life was impacted by several very time intensive experiences. It all adds up and systems have slipped into disuse.

Time for the Georgic in me to reawaken. I need to come out of my pastoral stage of grazing. Georgics need to actively create (plan) and then work to exercise dominion over the elements of their property that they may obtain life from their property. Georgic thinking will move me forward into my creative space, where I thrive.

I need to go through everything I own, including books, activities, things that pull my time and mental energy, etc., and decide whether to keep, share, or toss. If I stay here in this house for a long time, the new order and extra space it provides will be a great blessing. If I ever have to pack up and move, I will have a home ready for show and I won’t have to sort as I pack, nor will I have to move things I no longer need.

As I go through each thing, I can really think how I can systematize and make less work for the future. This simplification creates space for creativity to flourish, energy to be renewed, and peace. Ah, the Hebrew word for create, bara is also translated as organize. He says that His house is a house of order. The press has circulated the idea of disorganized genius. That is only a part of the picture. Some may be so focused that they neglect other areas. Others had someone in their lives that took care of the periphery. Others still were very organized. Like a pregnant woman may crave exotic or wild foods, the creative craves order that they may have space for creative ideas to flourish and time to explore, experiment, and discover. Disorder is a distraction and distraction can cripple creativity. So, I am on a quest.

Order is not a project but a process, and is a continuum. My female brain has so many cross overs through my corpus callosum that I can see how the periphery can affect the important. Ordering will help move things forward. If this makes any sense to you, what are you waiting for? Go georgic! Take charge of your life. Exercise your ability to create. More later as I create…

I was pondering while I was doing a few minutes of weeding, literally less than 10 minutes to tame the dandelions!

Why do so many young parents have trouble with navigating the core phase? They really do not have any idea how it can look. Then I realized that young parents today are from the post babyboomer generation, and according to the Fourth Turning they have a generational consciousness as nomads, Generation X. Many of this generation were in daycare, nursery school, and basically tended by others.

This is a generation that was raised for a career world, by parents who were also raised for careers. These two generations were raised with a plethora of household servants (dishwashers, washing machines, dryers) and much entertainment distraction. Basically, parents trusted professionals to know how to raise their kids.

The work of running a home together, became hijacked. Instead of building the next generation through shared work, work was treated as a duty, chores were doled out, efficiency became the focus, so they could get on to “real life” of entertainment and leisure. So, the work of running a home became divided and individualized. Turning mom and dad into managers, rather than parents.

Children did school. Then they came home and did homework, not to learn but to get it out of the way so they could play. They did chores in isolation, not to serve, or think, or bond, but to get it out of the way too. When something is done just to get it done, it soon loses its power. Quality slides and everything soon becomes “good enough.” Society and relationships grow casual and detached.

When parents who only did school, got chores out of the way, and were entertained, more than they played, become parents, what happens. Some continue the cycle. Others make different choices. When these parents come to the homeschool front, their homes have usually already been filled with mind candy entertainment distractions, and hold over paradigms of their own childhood. So, when I talk about delaying the focus of academics, they give me a blank stare. They have no idea what to do in its stead. After all, if it is not school and it is not entertainment, what else is there? Many of the parents never worked along side their parents, chatting and learning as they went. Many have no idea how to manage a home, much less work with children. They somehow how have the childish notion that childhood should be an endless Romper Room or Barney, endless entertainment and self indulgence. Many are simply family life challenged. No wonder their friends stare in disbelief when these parents choose to homeschool.

Ah, but the skills can be learned. Paradigms can be changed. We can be weaned off distractions, and really learn how to work, play, learn, explore, worship, serve, and more, and we can learn to do it together. When parents make the sacrifice to learn, they find life is less stressful, and even cheaper to live, leaving more time for real living and family.

Just as order gave life and beauty to the earth when it was dark and void, so it does to us.

James E. Faust