The last few years of homeschooling are hard. The junior and senior years of high school are stressful for mother and student. In addition to testing and preparing for college, there is the desperate worry that somehow, in spite of all your work, you have left holes in their education. People continually ask your child, “So what are you going to do now?” and often ask you the same question. Sometimes they assume that you will be heartbroken because your children are all grown up. Some people realize that was your goal all along – to prepare them for life and send them forth into the world. Whether we had two children or ten, that last graduation marks a milestone change in our lives. The homeschooling lifestyle is consuming. When it ends, where does that leave us? How do we redefine our lives and ourselves? 1. First of all, recognize your achievement. Congratulations! You did it! You ran the race marked out for you, finished the fight, got them to adulthood alive! Most of us will add the phrase, “by the grace of God,” because we know we couldn’t have done it in our own strength. Pat yourself on the Read More
Category: Life
Ten Quotations From a Fictional Role Model
Amelia Peabody is a fictional character. Amelia Peabody is a fictional character. Amelia Peabody is a fictional character. That makes me so sad! For many years, she was my role model. I wanted to be Amelia Peabody. It wasn’t just that she had an adventurous life; she was an amazing woman! She inspired me to be brave and tackle my problems, whether they were minor difficulties or seemingly insurmountable. She was a feminist who didn’t make me feel uncomfortable. She truly adored and respected her husband. Her attitude toward her son… well, that was an inspiration to me during my mothering years. I appreciated her honesty – and sometimes her tactful discretion. (oops, right. Fictional character.) I read my first Elizabeth Peters book, Naked Once More, 26 years ago. I remember it clearly – I moved through the entire day with that clunky hardcover book in front of me, propped up on the counter while I made sandwiches for lunch and washed dishes. Okay, that’s a lie. I didn’t wash dishes that day. I read it while nursing the baby, totally ignoring that sweet little face. I turned on the television and let the boys watch cartoons all afternoon so Read More
How to get old people to talk to you
When I worked with elderly people, especially retired farmers or the veterans of WWII, I used to urge them to write or tell their stories to someone, because they would be of interest to future generations. None of them were enthusiastic about the idea. Some found the task overwhelming. That much concentrated mental exercise can be exhausting. Some of them just didn’t believe that they had anything interesting to say – no one would care. Some were too sad or too bitter to review it. Some of them felt that it was none of my business. 😉 A note here: I worked for an agency that provided care for elderly people. For the purpose of this article, I am talking about men and women who are over 90, usually in need of some physical or medical assistance and often living alone in their own homes or in assisted living facilities or nursing home. Comfortable company is a blessing to them, and they are glad to have someone to talk to, but conversation is often difficult. When you talk to an elderly person in this situation, remember that you are talking to an intelligent adult, addressing them with dignity and respect, Read More
Life
My English teachers always told us: write what you know. Even then, I thought that was a silly thing to say to 14 year old kids, since they have limited experience. I did better writing about things I WANTED to know. My imaginings were much more interesting than my ho-hum reality. In the many years since then (pick a number between thirty and forty), I have experienced enough life to inspire a hundred novels. My Swedish Minnesota roots go waaaaayy deep, but after I was married, we lived in many places. My husband was in the Air Force, so a few of those moves were military transfers, but most of it was just my husband’s nomadic impulses. In twenty years of marriage, we lived in 22 houses. It was mostly just local moves, and as long as our family was together, it was okay. As David said, “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.” We lived in beautiful places. In those places, I made friends and met different people. Some of those people were very different. In Germany, we had lovely neighbors – mostly elderly people who welcomed us warmly, asked Read More
The Other End
A writer weaves stories around the people and events in her life, the things she sees and does. For a while, I was afraid that I would forever write stories about Legos and bicycles and Cub Scouts, but eventually all my sons graduated and went off to college. I took on a part-time job as an in-home caregiver for a company that helps elderly or disabled people stay in their home instead of being forced to move into a facility. The experience was very eye-opening to me. I had never interacted much with people on the other end of the “pro-life” spectrum. They were human, they were alive and they wanted to be treated that way. They did not see themselves as inferior to or less important than people of other ages. I became sensitive to the callous attitudes of the younger generations who say things like, “If I ever get like that, just shoot me.” or “I want to remember them as they were when they were young.” People in this stage of life are just as precious to God as they were as preborn babies. They often need the same kind of care as a baby – being Read More