Thanks, Thursday! I am glad someone is getting something out of my posts. DH actually is persuing the coding. Not the bootcamp per se but some online classes. If he started out with $30k a year that's fine, we're used to living on that. The difference would hopefully be that it would not be a dead-end scenario like he's in currently. He gets cost of living raises of a few cents an hour one a year. He's never got a significant raise ever, and there's nowhere for him to go at his job or in his field. With IT stuff it sounds like there is actually significant growth that can happen over time. I wish I was somehow in a position to earn money but it's obvious that I am not handling what's in front of me well at all. I don't want to go into it here but suffice it to say I have no margin in my life. Full time parenting and trying to homeschool takes 110% of what I have and I'm not doing it well. We're all different. I am not someone with the ability to do this and anything else well.

Sometimes I forget to not eat.

Definitely category A. I became a Christian in my mid 20's with not only zero influence from my family of origin, but with them actually thinking I'm a cult member because of all the bible and Jesus talk. They are all what you could call barely nominal Christians in that they will say they believe in God if asked but think that going to church every single week, reading/ owning a copy of the bible and talking about Jesus are just completely fanatical and weird. I don't know if I could say there's any successful strategy other than God changing my heart. I met people and they were nice to me and truthful without being obnoxious about or ashamed of what they believe. I wasn't looking for a church. The first person I met who I looked at open mindedly with their Christianity suggested it to me and I went to check it out. I stayed because people were nice to me and also because I was open to what I was hearing from the pulpit at that point. It was a non-denominational Christian church heavy on the "grace", which I think can have problems, but it's peobably what I needed at the time. The church we go to now is one we found through word-of-mouth. Also non-denominational Protestant Christian community church.

Speaking of the original idea and not having to do with race... sometimes the line can get blurry I think. For example good decisions and hard work are certainly not meaningless. At the same time, people are sometimes extremely proud of their income and success , patting themselves on the back and lecturing others about adopting their ways while they are blind to the fact that a constellation of circumstances and favorable traits have made it hard for them to fail. A body that tends towards thinness without much effort is another frustrating one for those who were not born that way. Sitting there judging people for being "fat" while they actually may eat worse. It's not fair. In my view of things there's little to nothing we can be proud of since it's all God's grace that we experience anything good.

I'm guessing that one "time saving advantage" they had in generations past was simplicity. Things today are easier in some ways now but also much more complicated in some ways.

I think you might be right. Even though we have books none of us were there in the 1800s. It's possible that I'm just a pansey and that women were breaking their backs 20 hours a day, every day. I am probably a pansey for assorted other reasons anyway, LOL. It's just that we have so much more on our plates today in part because of dishwashers and washing machines (the fact that those things are the norm has hugely inflated what is expected in terms of appearance/ clothing for example). I couldn't do many of the things they did in the 1800's if I wanted to. Should we have exactly 2 toys, one set of clothes and live in a one room shack? I don't know. The society we live in is not set up that way.

I think you are right. While I was getting dinner ready 2 year old found the dry spaghetti in the pantry (he's always finding new ways to reach things) and made a nice big pile of that on the kitchen floor. Dry spaghetti. Impossible to sweep up into a dustpan. Tripping hazard. Fun to clean up. Then with his cooked spaghetti at dinner time pretended to be a digger machine moving piles of pasta to the table. I'm pretty sure he got more pasta and Kraft parmesan all over his body, the table and floor then into his mouth and stomach. So the kitchen is currently as if a bomb went off in a bowl of pasta. Oh and when I was giving 5 yo dd a bath I put up the baby gate and he just busted through it like the Incredible Hulk. I guess we need to look into those ones that you bolt to the wall. These are just small examples. He's like this all day. It's not a necessarily a bad thing. I just had to think about this in light of why I am always wondering how much work it is just to get through the day with everyone alive. Having a toddler tornado and trying to do anything else, especially something like housework is just piling full time jobs on top of each other.

Yes the book I read had an unmarried, unpaid, live-in SIL doing a lot of the domestic work and it was portrayed that someone like her would be very normal and expected in order to keep the household running. It's obvious that they had more work in some ways with the lack of appliances etc. But the vastly different standards/ expectations/ norms/ environments are definitely something to consider.

Thank you. Seeing it as a stage that will change does help. I want to be able to enjoy my kids little-ness without wishing the time away. At the same time it's sometimes shocking to me how much work it is just to keep daily things going in a semi-orderly way. Our home is very small, about 1,000 sq ft, and I try to be ruthless about clutter but the house still looks like it's been burglerized after the kids are done playing. I know I need to teach them to help out more and I have no excuse. Especially the 7 and almost-6 year old. DH does help. But honestly I try to do as much stuff as possible before he gets home from work so that we can actually do something besides housework together. It takes so much work just to get caught up enough to have an actual solid 2 hours of free time. Maybe the toddler factor is really huge. Just keeping him from destroying everything in his path is it's own fulltime job.

It just feels like that sometimes. It feels like just maintaining basic order in the home, personal hygiene, laundry, dishes, keeping things in a non gross-out condition, directing kids to bathe and other basic daily tasks, preparing meals and procuring groceries leaves exactly zero time for anything. Anyone else feel like this? Is it my stage of life and kids ages? Is it that I have a boy toddler-tornado? Truly I am ok with these things and even thankful to have a home to take care of. I just can't figure out if I'm more weak and limited as a person or if people who are able to pull off all these things and actually homeschool their kids have uniquely driven and productive personalities. I just sit back sometimes and ponder how the workload is relentless. But someone has to do these things. Has it always been like this? Have women always been expected to do this massive workload alone? I read a book from the 1800's recently and it made it seem like domestic help was the norm and not something for wealthy families only.

Yes, you are right. I have no desire to argue or take sides. The whole thing is horrifying.

Just horrific. And whichever way a person feels about gun control, something like this goes to show evil will find a way to express itself.

Sweetened condensed milk, like a whole can, chilled strong coffee or espresso and ice. Blend. So so so good. So not low calorie.

This is a helpful way of thinking about it and probably true. I guess maybe we feel the need to call our endeavor "homeschool" because basically everyone else with a 3-5 yo has them in preschool or kindergarten. And calling it homeschool seems to build up some pressure to preform or compete. Other people have expectations too when your preschooler is at home "doing nothing".

Thank you so much M-- That's all I'm asking. To hear some stories, some reflections that the choice was worth it. I think the conversation of "homeschooling probably makes no difference" is valid, I suppose, if you want to talk about that. I consider it off topic though. I KNOW that homeschooling is not some magic wand to good parent-child relationship. Like I said in another post homeschooling is a means to an end. Some people can accomplish the same ends with other means. But this board kinda has something to do with homeschooling. I am asking for some sort of encouragement. Maybe others need some too.

:( Watching local news. It's chaos. Suspect/s are not in custody, stuff is still very tense. Death and injury toll of Dallas police officers still coming in. This is all going on right now. Looks like these killings were planned. I hear helicopters outside my house right now. Praying

Thanks so much, Tibbie and Jean. Those thoughts you both shared are where I am at my better moments. I am feeling a little on edge right now, I guess. Our issue is not that our kids are suffering true lack of adequate clothing or food etc. It's most definitely a "standard of living" issue, which is of varying levels of importance depending on who you ask.

Well, we do have nasty carpet (landlord won't let us change it) and a small home. And things do stay broken sometimes because the means to repair is not easy to come by. The air conditioner in our family car was broken for 9 months and I had to cart the kids around in 100+ degree heat sometimes. I sprayed water on them and stuck towels in the window to shield from the heat. Eventually with our tax return we were able to pay the almost $600 to get the compressor fixed. I definitely do not like living like this. At all. I try to be more vigilant about clutter than other people since they have space and margin that I don't. I try to clean as much as possible even though some things in our home are so ugly and deteriorating it never looks very good anyway. And plus I desire to have the time with my children that not being obsessed with cleaning allows. Even though sometimes I am obsessed because it's the only thing that helps my home be slightly less ugly. I really hope my kids don't grow up and throw photos away because our home was so ugly. Sometimes I actually am at the point of not wanting to live anymore. Not just because of these things but other things too that make life rough. Sometimes I'm so dead sick of struggling and want some glimmer that something is actually worth it. I don't believe I can have any guarantees that A leads to B. That homeschooling or me SAHing with my kids will lead to a desired or favorable outcome. My kids could grow up to be serial killers and/ or one or all of us could die tomorrow or any number of things. I just see these choices as a hopeful means to accomplish current and future goals. All I'm doing is trying to make the best choices I know how to make with what's in front of me (my real life experience shows me that I can't have things how I want them without some form of huge compromise... maybe I'm just stupid and poor, maybe it's just me, but I don't have an ideal situation available to me). But who knows. Maybe I should stick my kids in daycare and the local awful pubic school and work full time so my kids can show pics of their childhood home and not be embarrassed.

Kind of a spinoff. Knowing that very few go riding off into the sunset happily ever after with every last goal and dream in life fulfilled to the max, is there ANYthing... one or two things maybe, about the homeschool life, the sacrifices of parenting full time etc that you've seen that make you glad you've made the choices you've made?

Meow meow meow meow Meow meow meow meow Meow meow meow meow MEOW meow meow meow MEOW meow meow meow MEOW meow meow meow Meow meow meow meow MEOW meow meow meow "Meow mix. Cats ask for it by name!"

Your first couple of thoughts are concerns that I share. I'm worried that after we somehow switch places that it will not work well, and on top of that it will be hard to switch back. The reason this scenario seems drastic is because we have zero margin in our lives. Childcare and mother's helpers cost way more money than we have to spare. We have friends, but zero legitimate support in terms of a relative who would provide childcare etc. And then there's DH job with it's low pay and insane hours making it impossible for me to reliably plan or commit to anything at all. I know it sounds far fetched and that's why I'm asking for feedback. As you can maybe tell, I have a degree of desperation happening.

As I mentioned in other threads, me getting a pt job is basically impossible because of the frequent last minute overtime requirements of dh job including many weekends. Otherwise I would.

*Poof* I deleted. Thanks for the input I received.

Wow, this was my exact experience with a birth board there. I didn't know if it was just my particular board that was bursting with hardcore drama. I've only been a part of one birth board but will never forget some of the stuff that happened there, fake stories and all. But the saddest part was when someon's drunken dh actually rolled onto a cosleeping newborn, and that was real :(

Public schooled all the way until 10th grade when I started attending an "independent study" program basically for juvenile delinquents, which was by far the most enjoyable compared to regular school. I basically homeschooled myself for those last 2 years of high school through that program.