Doing what I do in the home educating circles, open days, expos, workshops and encouragement days I see a vast variety of moms, dads and children.

There are few moms who are 100% sure of themselves and their choice of curriculum with which to educate their children at home. More often than not there is always a slight look of fear, panic maybe, in moms’ eyes.

It is more prevalent as another more outgoing mom shares about all the wonderful things she is doing with her children. The things that they have created, like a model of the solar system or a steam propelled model train or a full circuit board that has flashing lights to boot!

The look is also there when another shares about her 4 year old who is beginning to make words with the fridge magnets and their 6 year old who plays two instruments and is busy with grade 3 maths.

It is there too when another homeschool super mom shares how her husband stays to teach Maths to their children in the morning before going to work and how he is the “perfect” temperament controlled man. The look is in the mom’s eye whose husband sees home education as the “thing that mom does” and never comes to workshops or curriculum fairs. It’s also in the eye of the mom who cannot get on top of her chores and never has an endless supply of frozen meals in her freezer!

Have you ever met these homeschool super moms?

She challenges us sometimes fleetingly, sometimes permanently.

She has the perfect home, the strong active-in-home-ed husband, the organic veggie garden that feeds her household, children who never complain about desk times and are excelling in whatever they put their hand too,

she also runs a support group and is the epitome of submission in her relationship with her husband.

She is the woman that we all at some time try and keep up with, and we do this to our detriment and to our husband and our children’s loss.

The homeschool super mom spurs us on to be what we are not meant to be;

She makes us commit to things that are not our children’s interests and what we do not have time for anyway.

She is a fallacy and often times an enemy to the mom who is choosing to live a life of excellence in the fear and love of God and what He called us too as home educating moms.

She is what condemns and makes the panic light in the eyes of us moms.

How do we rid ourselves of super moms influence? “Readily recognise what He wants from you and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings out the best of you, develops well formed maturity in you.” Romans 8, The Message.

And “So here is what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday ordinary life, your sleeping, your eating, going to work, and walking around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God has for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don’t become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.” Romans 12: 1 – 2, The Message

The longer I walk this journey the more I realise that as we try and measure ourselves up to another’s standard, or even a self perceived standard, the more damage we do to our husbands, children and selves. We hold out a yardstick that is very probably a false standard and we buckle under the pressure that it places us under.

It is important to realise that to be free of this need i.e. to keep up with the pace that others set for their families, we have to actively choose to seek God for His will in our day-to-day interactions with our husbands and children and in our choice of programs or philosophies.

We have to lay down our own ways as He renews our minds and hearts to the actual purpose of why we are choosing home education. We have to lean on the Holy Spirit’s guidance as He guides us into truth and relationship with our Creator so that this can filter down into our relations with those directly around us.

We are exhorted in scripture to live quietly and be busy in our own home. For those who struggle with anything that has been pointed out in this article I would encourage you to turn your eyes inward and upward, to rest in your home and to have a season of seclusion where you can seek the Lord’s ways for your relationships, education and homes.

Some books to read:

The Spiritual Power of a Mother , Michael Farris

Hinds Feet on High Places , Hannah Hurnard

Other articles you may be interested in:

The Diligent Mother
Surviving Homeschool Support Groups

To other articles
Return to top of Homeschool Super Mom

---