Happy First* Day of School!
*It was the fourth day of school
I sit writing this while on a lawn chair, watching my 2 and 4-year-olds play on the sidewalk under a Minnie Mouse umbrella, as the light shines through a tree on my front lawn, and I think to myself, what a life this is, what a blessing this is.
We started our first week of school this week, and managed to take our “first day of school” pictures on day four, but we did it. This year I have a 4th grader, a 3rd grader, a first grader and a precious pre-K girl. In addition to a 2-year-old and an 8-month-old. Funny enough, this year will feel relaxed, though, because I won’t be having a baby and releasing a book six weeks later.
We’ve been spending a lot of time playing in the creek up the street from our house, and it’s been a magical way to get into the school year. I’m trying to plan lots of free and outside time in our schedule and resist the urge to overschedule ourselves with activites, something I’ve struggled with every year of homeschooling except for 2020, when I had no choice.
Recently a few women asked me for my professional advice on how I work while full-time caregiving my six kids, in addition to homeschooling. I wish I slept more. Yesterday it looked like hiking in the creek, then coming home, making lunch (and burning a quesadilla I left on the stove too long), and running out of the house to do Fox News in studio while covered in mud from the knees down and still wearing my hiking shoes because I forgot to throw nicer shoes into my car. My husband was working from home, and I left my 2-year-old napping and my older kids with their school checklists (they did very little of it, and I suspect they used the opportunity to play on screens instead). I brought the baby and he was passed around the Fox newsroom while I was on air.
We had to finish school in the late afternoon. My 1st grader did math on a folding chair in the middle of the kitchen while I made dinner. That’s what I love about homeschooling, though, this flexibility.
I got home too tired to work, tried to go to sleep at 9pm, actually passed out at 11pm, woke up with the baby at 2am, and sent an editor two emails, one at 1:57 am and again at 2:22 am. She probably thinks I’m nuts.
I wanted to share a few things I’ve been working on recently. I had a piece in the Free Press (aka the Bari Weiss Substack) about an incredible movement here in my home of Montgomery County of Muslim and Ethiopian Christian parents fighting against the county’s requirement that their children read and be read LGBT+ books, and refusing them the opportunity to opt-out.
This issue of parental rights is one that is deep in my wheelhouse, and if you know of similar stories, please pass them along!
In case you’re unaware, I co-founded a Substack with another homeschooling mother about education, books, and homeschooling. I wrote this week about how this week is the week that I see constant posts from panicked mothers asking for co-ops and online programs to do school for them. Please consider subscribing!
In addition, I was on the Walk-ins Welcome podcast with Bridget Phetasy, and it felt like a post-book release therapy session. It was one of the best podcasts I’ve appeared on, and if you have an hour, it’s worth your time.
I’ve been going on TV a lot more these days, and I post those appearances on my professional Instagram account. You can follow that here.
I’m still working on that piece about being present at a sibling’s birth, I will be wrapping that up this week.
I’m working on a piece about how conservative women with children stay engaged in policy and commentary post-kids; if you have any insights, please reach out.
I’m also pitching a piece about a point of common ground on “reproductive rights”: Allowing women to have the provider of their choice fully covered by their health insurance. I just fought and won a battle to have my third home birth fully covered, and it was no simple feat. If you have experience or expertise with home birth, legislation on this and/or health insurance that you’d like to share, again, please reach out. My email is bethanyshondark at gmail.
Until next time friends, thanks for reading and enjoy the start of fall.