Tag Archives: a doctor who homeschools

Claiming Your Identity

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We are back from yet another wonderful visit with family and friends at home in Indiana.  My husband and I were childhood sweethearts, so we are lucky in that home is home for both of us.  Today I am catching up on bills, sequestering fruit flies from a piece of fruit gone bad on the counter while we were gone, and killing mildew on clothes left inadvertently in the washing machine for ten days.

I am looking at an invoice to the local YMCA.  It is addressed to Dr. and Mrs. Fites.  Normally, I’d just write the check and send it off.  But today, I crossed through Dr. and Mrs. Fites and wrote The Doctors Fites above it.  Why?  Why does it matter?  Why am I feeling so pesky about this today?  I am typically the last person to care what you call me, as long as you don’t make me cry.

I’ll tell you why.  With the addition of our fourth child to our family, I’ve gotten less and less time.  Which makes me feel less and less like me.  And less and less like a valuable contributor to society.  I KNOW this is not right!  My husband tells me every  day how my raising our daughters makes a difference in our lives, their lives, and to how they fit into society.  And I am very comfortable staying home, cooking, cleaning, learning, and teaching.  Yet, the loss of control that a toddler imparts to a home and life is challenging for some of us.  Toddlers make you forget things.  Toddlers make you lose things.  Toddlers scream.  Toddlers are unpredictable.  Toddlers leave no cabinet, drawer, shelf, or basket unturned.  Toddlers don’t let you cook when you want.  Sleep when you want.  Exercise when you want.

However, it’s not just about the toddler.  Two days ago I decided to spruce up the living area.  My daughters all came in, “Ooh.  Mom.  That looks nice.”  Then, they decided they all had ideas too on where things should go and how they should be placed.  In MY living room.  Mine.  Mine.  Mine.  My head.  My space.  My time.  Mine.

No.  Hard stop.  Wait.  It’s a family of six.  Brain–take a ticket.  You’re sixth in line.

So, today, I am Doctor Fites.  Tomorrow, I will go back to being Terri.  Mom.  Or Mrs.  Even “Hey, You.”

But not today.  (Smile.)

Do you ever feel like life spins around you, and so, sometimes, you stamp your foot and say, “Not today.  Today I get what I earned.”?  Today, I am ____________________.  Insert your word.  Insert what you worked for and don’t want to leave completely behind.  You earned it.

Back to bills.

Our Fifth Grade Curriculum: Grammar

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I think this is the third year we have used the Easy Grammar System.  It’s about as dry as I am on a Sunday.  The black and white print stares at you like a gray, winter day.  Cut and dry like my grilled steak.  But, we all appreciate Easy Grammar’s conciseness, including my kids.  (My second daughter, in third grade, also uses the Easy Grammar System.)

It takes no prep work or reading ahead on my part.  Hallelujah.  Just turn the page and go.  Grammar takes about a mere 20 minutes a day, and we do it somewhere between three and four times each week, on average.

Many school subjects in our curriculum do not start and end with the traditional school schedule.  For example, math we are about 3/4 of the way through our book.  Spelling we just moved up to a new book.  And writing we are still at the beginning of a book.  I do not march my books and student assignments out at the beginning of the year, but I always periodically take measure of where we are at, what we are doing, and where we need to regroup.  In grammar, we pretty much follow a traditional year.

Grammar Choices

We use two texts from the same author, Wanda Phillips, for our grammar curriculum:

Easy Grammar: Grade 5 (teacher’s edition)

Daily Grams:  Grade 5 (teacher’s edition)

I will describe my take on them and how we use them below.  Please notice the student’s preference for gluten-free bread.  Too bad all curriculums (curricula) seem to like to make use of references to food.

Easy Grammar: Grade 5

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Easy Grammar: Grade 5 is the more traditional manual.  It succinctly explains grammatical concepts and then follows each concept with worksheets dedicated to that specific topic.  At the end of each unit are four “tests” you can use:  a practice unit review, a “real” unit test, a cumulative practice review, and a cumulative “real” test.  I do not all of these tests/reviews.  I pick and choose.  Sometimes we do the unit test.  Sometimes we do the cumulative test.  Sometimes we do both.  Generally, we do 3-4 pages of the manual’s worksheets a day, and we finish early in the school year (about 3/4 of the way through a traditional year).  After we finish this grammar book, we try to focus on writing more.

Please, it is important to note that there is a teacher’s manual and a student manual.  I buy the teacher’s manual for my daughter to use.  It is actually the teacher’s manual on the left side of the book and the student manual on the right.  The pages mirror each other–except the teacher’s side has a few extra teaching pointers and the worksheets have the answers filled in.  Make sense?  The answers to the student’s worksheets on the right side of the book are posted glaringly there on the left teacher’s side for the student to look at if they wish.  Obviously for some students, this just won’t work!  For some, it is no problem.  If it is problematic, you can buy the Easy Grammar Grade 5: Student Workbook for the student AND Easy Grammar: Grade 5 Teacher Edition to check their work and get teaching pointers.  Or, you can buy the teacher manual and make copies of all of the student worksheets and tests you want from the teacher’s manual.  However, if you hang your kids from the ceiling by their ears like I do for “cheating,” then maybe you can do what I do and just use the teacher’s manual.

Daily Grams: Grade 5

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Daily Grams:  Grade 5 is a workbook with 180 worksheets which build in a cumulative fashion.  It goes along with what is taught in the manual I discussed above.  Each worksheet has about 5-6 questions, and literally only takes five minutes (tops) to complete.  I like that one of the questions always requires the students to put together complex sentences.  I buy the Daily Grams:  Grade 5 Teacher Text, and this nicely places the answers at the end of the book (not like the main textbook I discussed first).  The Daily Grams Student Workbook does not come with answers.  Nine times out of ten I don’t need them, but it is getting to where I sometimes do!

If I happened to be really good at grammar, I could get by with just the Daily Grams and not even use the manual I first mentioned which teaches topics.  I could just teach the topics as they are encountered in the cumulative Daily Grams myself.  I be not that good.  So I buy the Easy Grammar text book with the answers AND the Daily Grams with the answers.

We do one or two Daily Grams pages each day we do grammar.  Sometimes I will pick and choose the questions they do, so they are not wasting time on material they know very well already.  We will finish the Daily Grams book on the traditional school year, but it takes us longer than the manual I first mentioned (Easy Grammar:  Grade 5).

One last thing I incorporate into Daily Grams is having them write the required sentence formation question in cursive.  That way they are frequently practicing cursive handwriting.

Closing

That’s it!  That’s our grammar!  Nobody paid for this review.  And I get no kick-backs.  It’s a sound grammar curriculum, but not pretty or exciting.  We will stick with it because I like its conciseness, thoroughness, and I really like Daily Grams.  I also like that I’m not needed too much.  In general, I’m not a good curriculum shopper, and this is working well for us.  If it’s not broke, I don’t look to fix it.  The enemy of good is better.  I feel like my kids will have a great grasp of grammar with The Easy Grammar System.

How about you?  Do you do formal grammar?  How’d you pick your text?  Does grammar take all year?  Do you do it every day?  Are you good at it?  Did you like it when you were a kids?

~~Terri

Our Fifth Grade Curriculum: Math

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PicMonkey Collage (1)Oh, are we are at the end of the traditional school year?  Goodie!  We finally, at the end of fifth grade, have hammered out our fifth grade curriculum well enough for me to share.  It’s not original.  It’s not creative.  In fact, it looks a lot like our fourth grade curriculum with a couple of welcome additions, including a baby in the mix.  (So, currently, I have a fifth grader, third grader, kindergartener or kindergartner–whichever you prefer, and 9 month old.)  It has been an interesting, growing year.  Do you watch old cartoons?  A lot of times I felt like Wile E Coyote.  Or Tom.  Or Sylvester.  Yep.  Did.  Just call it, “The Looney (Home)School.”  That’s it.  But at the end of this year, I would be able to produce for the authorities documentation of education in the following areas:

  • BABYSITTING SKILLS
  • Math
  • Grammar/Writing/Spelling
  • Spanish
  • History
  • BABYSITTING SKILLS
  • Astronomy
  • Poetry
  • Music
  • Physical education
  • Lots of silent sustained reading
  • BABYSITTING SKILLS

Onward to Math:  Saxon Math 7/6

We have used Saxon Math since we started homeschooling, and in fact, I used Saxon Math myself as a sixth grader on up till graduation from high school (except for geometry).  Boring and dry–but tightly and thoroughly knit.  My oldest daughter has been steadily working through the 7/6 book this school year.  There have been times when it proved too hard, and we slowed way down.  Then, something clicked in her brain, and it became “easy.”  So all year, we have moved through the book according to her mastery level, not my lesson planner.  Here’s what we do.

  • Start working in the Saxon Math book according to the lesson which best matches skill level.  Don’t just start the book at lesson one, unless that is where the skill level lies.
  • Moving forward through the book is determined by how well my daughter is scoring on the daily assignments.  If she seems to understand and is consistently getting most of the problems correct, I usually pick and choose the problems for her to do.  Or I may have her just do the evens or odds in a problem set.  At this pace, we are moving forward at a lesson a day.  If, however, she is missing several problems or doesn’t seem to understand concepts, we slow down until she starts mastering most of the problems again.  At these times, she will be assigned half of the problem set one day and the other half the next.  There have been times where we stop completely doing lessons for a week and simply do supplemental problems on concepts she is struggling with.  Supplemental problem sets are provided in the back of the Saxon 7/6 manual.  On average, we have gotten through three problem sets a week.
  • I do not formally teach her the lesson content.  She is supposed to read it herself and attempt to do the problems in the set.  If she does not understand, I teach her the new material as I am checking her math later.
  • We do the mental math component about every third or fourth lesson. We don’t do mental math every lesson, although in an ideal homeschool situation, I’d like to.
  • We do not take routine tests.  My daughter actually asks for the tests, and we have probably done about three this year at her request.  At this age, I do not like to use tests much.  I check her math, and I am very aware of what she is and is not grasping.  So I don’t feel the need to test.  However, later in her education, I will make sure she has tests so she is prepared for “the real world.”
  • To round out our math curriculum, she does some flash cards with a sister and some “applied” math her dad.
  • We will not finish the Math 7/6 book “this year” by the end of May.  We will continue doing some math lessons throughout the summer.  There are 120 lessons in the book, and we are on Lesson 87.  Often, at the end of a book, I feel they start cramming in new concepts just for pre-exposure to the next school year.  I never like this.  I usually stop a book when I feel this happening and skip on to the next book, resuming at the appropriate lesson point.

What about you?

What about you?  Do you use a curriculum as it is designed?  Or do you fix it up for your student?  Do you feel worried when you fall behind your lesson planner?  Does anyone out there “unschool” for math?  That would be fun to hear about!  Wishing you lots of fun in your homeschooling!

Happy May!

~~Terri

Why We Homeschool

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Nature walk leaf identification.

Nature walk leaf identification.

We are two medical doctors who planned on homeschooling before we even had kids, as soon as hopes of living close to my family faded away.  Whaa, whaa.  We are entering our fifth year, and we absolutely love it still.  I laugh when people say, “Well, I suppose you can go back to work when you put them in high school!”

Personally, I’m just biding my time here in this trying elementary school period.  I can’t wait for the good stuff:  trig, calculus, physiology, and chemistry!

“Put them in school…”  I don’t think so!  We’ve got a clause in our will about continuing homeschooling!

The list below doesn’t even begin to capture all the reasons we enjoy homeschooling, but it’s a start.

1.  For ease of travel planning.  Homeschooling allows us to schedule our trips without a fear of truancy or teaching our kids it’s okay to skip out on obligations.

Homeschooling allows us to up and leave whenever we want to go visit family in another state.  No begging partners to get spring break or Christmas vacation off.

2.  For foreign language introduction at a young age.  We’ve all read that language development occurs most easily in children, how learning

We got to observe this baby robin cracking out of its egg.

We got to observe this baby robin cracking out of its egg.

one language facilitates the brain’s ability to learn other languages, and how children who learn a language as a child don’t struggle with an accent.

I want to give my children the gift of language; Spanish is a part of our curriculum.  The ability to share with more people, gather ideas from more people, learn from more people, help more people, and read another culture’s literature is invaluable.

3.  For accelerating learning in areas of academic strength.  Homeschooling allows a parent to closely observe strengths and move ahead when indicated.  I closely observe each one of my children, like I used to observe the vital signs in my ICU patients, using all the clues to tell me what’s going well and what’s working.  There’s no boredom from unneeded repetition of already mastered material.  We plow onward.

4.  For decelerating progression and working on areas of academic weaknesses.  For one child of mine, there was a few years of angst when it “just wasn’t clicking.”  Slow in phonics, reading, handwriting, and poor concentration in math.

The glory was–I could slow down and wait. Take different approaches.  Look up or ask for help.  We found a great place called “Core” in Sumter, SC where they helped her with pencil grip and hand strength for handwriting.  Rather than force phonics and silent reading, I read aloud to her.  Her verbal understanding was [is] phenomenal.  Math, we continue to work on concentration.  Homeschooling shines when you’re a parent who takes interest in tailoring learning to each child.

Mandatory instrument learning prior to graduation.

Mandatory instrument learning prior to graduation.

5.  For socialization among people of all ages. It doesn’t make sense that society funnels kids of one age into a classroom of 30 kids with one adult.  At recess children are around 100 other kids just as silly as they are, with very minimal supervision.  On the other hand, at our homeschool functions, we have eighth graders teaching drawing to elementary school kids and fifth graders helping second graders arrange “electrons” in their proper orbitals in our once monthly chemistry class.  In our home, my 9 year-old learns to amuse my 4-year-old so I can teach my middle daughter.  At the grocery store, the girls interact with the cashier.  At nursing home visits, the kids make crafts with eighty year olds.  On Tuesday nights, they get to dance their hearts out with kids their age at ballet class.  On Friday mornings, us moms try to hold periodic coffees so the kids can play together and “get socialized.”  My kids are learning respect for ALL ages, young and old, and, I hope, learning that each person has a gift to teach us.

6.  To allow time for extra kinds of learning.

  • Sewing lessons (from an acquaintance)
  • Spanish lessons (from a tutor)
  • Drawing lessons from You Tube
  • Piano lessons, specializing in playing by ear and chords and scales (from mom–that’s me)
  • Gardening
  • Cooking
  • Specific delves into areas of history that they find fascinating
  • Nature walks
  • Arts and crafts of their own choosing

7.  To provide an atmosphere in which personality strengths and weaknesses are observed and molded, in a loving and caring fashion, without belittling, mocking, or teasing.  Here in my home, I hope to give the kids the tools they need to not be undermined by the world and what other people think about them.  We socialize enough that my kids have been made fun of, talked about, had hurt feelings, gotten angry, and been irritating.  But I am there.  I see it.  I help them acknowledge their role in the drama.  Or the fairness or unfairness of the other people.  Together we work to help them understand a little better what’s happening and how they’re feeling.

A craft one of the girls made up.

A craft one of the girls made up.

8.  To allow a diverse curriculum:  Spanish, Latin, poetry, art, piano, sewing, cooking, math, science, classical reading, intensive phonics, grammar, and so forth.

9.  To avoid the rat race of pick-up, drop-off, remembering lunches, remembering party days, remembering to bring home or take back books and homework.  School has a lot of unnecessary “busy-ness” which makes it pretty stressful for parents (and kids).  I really feel this gets minimized in homeschooling.  Recently I had to deal with having just one kid in preschool.  The snacks, “dress-up” days, field trips, and parties were difficult to keep up with.  I couldn’t even imagine having all three in school.

10.  To provide instruction in day-to-day habits, such as making beds, making lunch, sorting and folding laundry, and watering the garden.  Sad to say, I don’t think I ever did a load of laundry before I left my mom’s house.  For the first year of college, I was washing my clothes in Downy only.  I thought it was detergent.  A crying shame.

Dr. Seuss party.

Dr. Seuss party.

11.  To share the quality time of day together before we’re all exhausted in the evening. 

12.  For one of the biggest challenges in my life.  “What do you mean?” you ask.  E-mail me.

Mission statement:  To raise daughters who are physically, mentally, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually healthy.

Quitting Work to Homeschool

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wpid-IMAG1859-1-1.jpgLet me just say, if I did not have children, I would not have stopped working as a physician.  I loved working as a medical doctor.  The challenge of acquiring mass loads of information.  Applying the information to patients.  Recognizing patients as individuals and trying to get through to them in a way they could understand.  And accept.  Looking at a chart with loads of data and sorting it into a problem list.  Figuring out how to address each problem to correct it.  Realizing fixing one problem may not be the answer–but make things worse.

On top of this, throw in phones and pagers that make you aware of codes (crashing patients).  Lets the emergency department call you for admissions.  Lets nurses call you about lab values or new changes in your patients.  Lets pharmacists call you about drug interactions or non-formulary drug choices.  Lets other doctors call you to discuss admitting or consulting on their patients.  Throw in new-computer charting that must be learned and navigated.  Occasional meetings.  New governmental regulations.  And it’s just one of the most challenging and fulfilling jobs around.

But I chose to have kids.  Three in fact.  Four if you count a miscarriage.  First kid–kept working full-time.  Second kid–cut back to three days per week.  Third kid–two days per week or less.  I had the perfect job and coworkers.  Loved the work.  Loved the flexible schedule.  Was still able to squeeze homeschooling in, although barely.  My loving in-laws traveled from Charleston, SC to Sumter, SC to watch the girls for us when I worked.  But it got tougher and tougher to manage the household, marriage, kids, homeschooling, and life in general.  Life was getting hectic.  Not so much fun.

I knew I had to make a choice.  For me, there really is no choice but my family.  I chose them.  I created them.  Without me, they would not exist.  My parents gave up everything for me.  Made me know I was numero uno.  That’s what I want for my girls.  A healthy life.  Healthy emotions.  Healthy spirits.  Healthy psychology.  I intend to do everything in my power to build them into strong, healthy women who are discerning towards themselves and others.  With strong ethics and principles.  That doesn’t come from an absent mother and father.  A mother and father driven to perfect their careers, their giving to others–but not giving to their own dearest families.  I may fail in my endeavors, but I could never, ever live with myself if I didn’t give of my best to them.  If I didn’t go down trying to give them what I think they need to achieve inner peace, love, and happiness.

Luckily for us, my husband is an orthopedic surgeon.  Our bills get paid.  Would I make the same decision to stay home and homeschool my kids if finances were an issue?  My emergency medicine doctor friend asks me this repeatedly.  Her husband is a chemist and work isn’t so easy to find for him.  The salary not so great.  She has moved from part-time to full-time.  Moved from homeschooling her children to moving them to private schools.  Listening to her life makes me cower in a corner, sweating.  The juggling act of her life, well, I’m sorry, but it sucks.  I want nothing to do with it.

But giving up years of study, work, and diligence, though, is daunting.  No longer belonging to the ranks of white coats and stethoscopes.  No longer discussing critical lab values and issues with your medical peers.  No longer talking with families, breaking hard news to them.  My orders no longer followed and respected.  Not healing patients.  Not being the “fixer.”  Not being known for doing a good, thorough job.  Not touching the lives of numerous people daily.

Being relegated from Dr. Fites to Dr. Fites’s wife, well, a lot too humbling.  Yeah.  Doctor’s wife.  Fingers on a chalkboard.  A lot too humbling.

Being at a total loss to decide what to do, I pined for a sign to know whether to quit or not.  I wrote up a letter of resignation and as I turned it in, the manager told me something like:  “I don’t want to see it.  We’re raising your salary.  You may work fewer hours if you need to.”  I wanted to stop working, and they were willing to make it easier for me to keep working.  I had wanted a sign.  Surely this was it.  It must not be time to stop.  Right?  I went with it.  I continued my slow work pace until we moved to South Dakota for my husband’s job.  Then, I just never made the initiative to look for a job here:  1) I wasn’t going to find a job like I had.  2)  No decision is a decision.  Unable to decide if I wanted to work, I chose not to work by choosing to not job search.

I have not worked for about 20 months now.  It took about a year to be okay with it.  And what I had to get over was my pride.  My desire for society’s approval of me as a worthy individual because of what I did professionally.   “Do you stay at home?”  “Well, yes…” It seems groping to add on, “…but I’m really a medical doctor.”  As far as being with my children daily and teaching them, I absolutely love it.  It is just as challenging as medicine, just in a different way.  It is what I want for them, and to provide that, I need to be around daily.  Our house usually runs smoothly, or as smoothly as it can with kids underfoot all day.  I miss taking care of patients, but I am finding lots, lots more time to read up on areas of medicine I’ve never approached before.  And that is exciting.  Perhaps my medical path will bud in a different way in the future.

But how did I know it was time to move on and move out [of medicine]?

1.  Persistent edginess and irritation at my family.  After a 12-13 hour shift, I would walk in the door to excited screams, yells, and hugs.  A loving, adoring family.  I was supposed to be happy about this, right?  Right.  But I wasn’t.  I’d try to quietly sneak in the back door and tiptoe straight upstairs to shower and change my clothes, hoping nobody would hear me and come up with greetings.  De-germed–now I was ready to hang out with the family, right?  Nope.  My fast lunch had been metabolized, and I was starving and wanted to eat in peace and quiet.  Now?  No.  I wanted to open the mail without interruptions.  I wanted the kitchen and family room cleaned up before bedtime.  I just wanted to be left alone.  All day the pager/phone attached to my hip had gone off interrupting nearly everything I did–patient admissions, patient rounds, checking labs, writing notes.  I was tired and tired of my own thoughts being interrupted.  Can’t they just leave me alone tonight?  Can’t you just get them into bed without me?  Well, not really.  You are the mom.  Hmph.  If I was off the next day, things were no better.  I was playing catch-up and needed to get things done:  answer business-related calls that inevitably came in while I worked, pay bills and respond to paperwork that somehow only arrived when I worked, run errands, and clean the house up from by absence.  There was no warm-fuzzy time with the kids.  There was too much TV time.  Why couldn’t everybody just leave me alone so I could get my “work” done?

2.  Feelings of guilt.  My heart would always sink when I saw Katie’s (my coworker) number on my ringing phone.  Work was so good about not pestering me to work much more than my part-time schedule.  But, occasionally, they needed coverage and they were down to me.  Katie was also a physician–a mother of three.  Full-time.  PTA president.  Staunch, active worker/member of the Junior League.  And she was asking me to work.  I almost always said “no”, feeling exceptional guilt.  Katie did it.  Katie would pick up a shift.  Or two shifts.  Or an overnight call.  Will would pick up a shift.  Bee would pick up a shift.  Surely I could pick up a shift to help my partners out.  They all work so hard.  Here I am cherry-picking my shifts.  What gives me the right.  I need to “man up” and be a real doctor.  I felt guilty to say “no” to more work.

But I also felt extreme guilt to say “yes.”  The angel on my other shoulder was shouting, “You’ll be grouchy.  You won’t be patient with your kids.  Heck, you won’t even see your kids.  You’ll be irritated with your husband.  You won’t get the homeschool lessons covered.  Say no.  Say no.  Don’t do it.  You’ve got a stack of paperwork piling up on the kitchen counter.  You said you’d have a playdate with Adam and Jo this week.  Your kids need you.  Your husband needs you.  You need some peace and quiet.  Just because Katie does it, doesn’t make it right for your family.”

3.  Inability to let entropy reign in housework.  Entropy is a scientific law.  All things will fall to a state of disorder.  I always justify my constant housework by saying it keeps me at my ideal body weight.  I call it “defying entropy”, and I laughingly say it’s healthy.  But I won’t sit down until the house is in order.  And if you’ve been gone for a few days for 12-13 hour shifts, the house has succumbed to entropy.  I don’t like it, and it takes a day to get it back into my definition of working order.  I do wonder if I would find working easier if I was one of those people who could live with clutter and chaos around them.  Maybe I could work short morning shifts and homeschool in the afternoon.  And if the house fell apart, the cleaners in the top of the closet were falling out on my head when I opened the door, and the laundry 8 loads behind–well, no big deal.  It’ll keep.  And I know it will keep.  But I am not wired to let it go.  And I was neglecting my kids after working to try to get the house back into shape, meanwhile internally berating my in-laws inability to keep things up the way I did.

4.  There’s no Mary Poppins.  Many a working mom can sing the sob-story of not finding good, reliable child-care.  When family lives close enough–in our situation they’d drive 2 hours and spend a night or two–at least you know the kids are being watched by people who love them dearly.  However, that puts grandparents in the situation of babysitter rather than grandparent.  Many aren’t very good at that.  “No” doesn’t roll as often as it should.  And they’re getting older.  Once you start having two, three kids, you see the grandparents’ stamina plummet.  It’s hard for them to get down on the floor and get up off the floor.  Multi-tasking less easy.  Afternoon naps more vital–okay if all the kids take a nap, not so much when the older ones drop their nap.  Somehow computer keys get completely removed from a laptop keyboard, great-grandma’s china gets rearranged in the dining room cabinets (unbeknownst to grandma or grandpa), boxed up wedding veils get removed from their boxes after 10 years of dormancy.  And, oh, the mess–in the kitchen, the bedrooms, the living room.

But ignore the mess.  Ignore the too much TV.  Focus on reliability and responsibility.  For real…What happens when you’re supposed to be at work at 6:30 in the morning and the sitter calls at 6:10 to say she’s puking and can’t make it?  What then?  You’re husband is already in the OR.  Or another one calls from the hospital because she’s having chest pain and ends up with coronary stents.  What then?  What do you think when you host an end-of-the-year preschool pool party and a working friend has sent her child with a younger nanny/sitter of good repute–and the sitter is sitting under the umbrella with her back turned talking on her cell phone WHILE THE CHILD IS IN THE POOL?  What do you think?  I’ve watched smaller-sized daycare owners bring kids to the park.  As I’m pushing my daughters on the swing, the woman has plunked down on a bench to read a book and the kids scatter to play.  One of her wards comes up to her, “Will you push me on the swing?”  I can’t hear the answer, but she keeps reading her book, and the child runs off to play elsewhere.

5.  Homeschooling began taking up lots more time.  I chose to homeschool before the kids were even born.  Didn’t really think about the implications of that on my career.  Wouldn’t change it anyway.  Getting the kids home to Indiana to the farm and knowing grandparents took precedent over anything else.  Didn’t believe in pulling my kids out of class for a “vacation”, either.  I’m just not too thrilled with the example that sets for them.  So when the time came for kindergarten, we homeschooled.  That was a fun, easy year.  Then first grade and second grade came along and my student could actually do some math and write.  I needed to read a bit to figure out how to present reading and writing to her.  Needed to plan ahead.  Needed to sit with her and read the worksheets to her.  Needed to be doing read-alouds with her.  Work began cutting into our homeschool schedule.  We weren’t getting it done.  I tried giving worksheets to the grandparents, but they didn’t get done.  In their behalf, we also had another nanny for a bit, and she didn’t even give the worksheets to my daughter.  Didn’t even give them to her!  I had asked her to just hand them to Mary for Mary to work on her own.  Didn’t happen.  So if homeschooling was going to happen, I had to be there.

6.  Concern about my kids’ second guessing my priorities.  What are my priorities?  Taking care of other people or taking care of my kids?  Time with my kids and family or stuff for my kids and family?  As a doctor, and I’m sure in other fields, as well,  it’s easy to take care of other people–pick up another shift, pick up another call, answer pages off-work hours, run in to see a patient you’ve grown attached to, discuss health problems outside the office at a birthday party, go to a meeting about the new charting system, leave the Valentine’s Day party early to help your partners finish rounds on an exceptionally busy day.  And the question of my ER friend rings in my ears, “What if your husband only brought in X amount of dollars…would you give up medicine then?”  Would I?  I don’t know.  We try to keep it pretty simple here.  No boats.  No video games.  No Coach purses (are those still around?).  My mini-van from fellowship is 7-years strong with a few more years to go!  Our 2 flat screen TVs are smaller than the average-joe’s.  But we have them.  And we love to travel.  And grass-fed beef and free-range chickens aren’t cheap.  So I don’t know.  But, in our given situation, my kids would have clearly seen that I was working to nurture other people and not them.  And unfortunately for them, my parents never had enough for a trip to Disney World, Pasta sweaters, and video games.  But we had enough.  And I love my childhood and wouldn’t trade it for anybody else’s!  So you won’t see me going to work for a boat or a back-patio remodel.

7.  Work days were never convenient.  No matter when they came around, work days always interfered with something.  Homeschool co-op day.  Preschool parties.  Doctor appointments.  Birthdays.  And they always seemed to get sick on my work days.  Croup.  Fevers.  Gastroenteritises.  Work just seemed to interfere!

8.  Things flow more smoothly when one of us stays home.  When a kid gets sick, I am home.  When a tax paper has to be run in, I can do it.  A dentist appointment–check.  Kids in need of a bit more discipline–I’ve got the energy.  Bills are paid on time.  Paperwork pile gone through once weekly.  House picked up.  Usually have food in the house and on the table.  Underwear aplenty in the drawers.  Kids to practices on time.  Get some quiet time with my husband every now and then.  Have time to read about health-related matters helping our family.  For us, it made more sense for me to stay home with the kids.  I have more patience.  I made less money.  I had less technical skills to lose.  We have the utmost respect for both roles in our house.  I know I could not stay home if my husband didn’t treat me as an equal.  I could not do it if he ever expressed that my role was inferior to his.  My complaints about cooking, laundry, and school, he treats as openly and importantly as if it was his work.

Well, I’m rambling on too long.  Kids are awake and all over the place like monkeys.  So I’d better tend to them.  I love what I do, and staying home was the right decision for us.  Probably not for everyone.  If you have any questions about giving up your job for your kids or homeschooling, ask away!  Although the decision to stay home wasn’t tough, the mental process of giving up work to stay home for me was.  When I was trying to decide whether to stop working or not, I Googled and Googled looking for insight.  Here, on the other side, is my insight!  Best wishes to you!