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Ages 8-12 (2013-2018)
School(work) continues
Educationally, my siblings and I thrived during this time. My mom lived up to the demands of her role as the sole teacher of several young children. Each year, boxes of colorful new books arrived on our doorstep, and we’d each begin a new grade. There were the math workbooks with pages of problems, the Latin workbooks full of conjugations and declensions, the science books with an experiment for each lesson, and the history CDs we’d listen to in the car. Schoolwork wasn’t always fun, but sometimes I liked it. I especially enjoyed learning anything related to science or geography. I was also a devout reader. My favorite section of the library was the one that held all the historical fiction series like Dear America, about girls like me who’d lived in distant times and places. I learned through my reading. I remember identifying the birds in our yard, reading books on cat care and gardening, and going through a space exploration phase with my brother. There was so much to learn!
My family-centered life
If there was one thing that was true, it was that my family was always either about to move, about to have a new baby, or both. I had four younger siblings at age of eight, and a fifth one by age twelve. Our house was always busy with lots of little people running around! My dad’s military career progressed with long working hours for him, and my mom stayed at home with the full-time job of caring for and educating several young children. The frequent relocations of military life can make jobs for military spouses and school for military children difficult to maintain. My family adapted to this challenge by containing the lives of Mom and us kids within the home. A homemaker does not have to find a new job every other year. Homeschooled children can take their curriculum with them anywhere, and don’t have a school or teacher, or classmates that must be left behind. And so, that was our life for many years. My family-centered life was mostly happy. Mom had us on a routine: breakfast, morning chores, schoolwork, lunch, playtime, maybe some errands, dinner, evening chores, TV time, and bed. We were all so young and close in age that we were treated like one big group of kids. As an oldest daughter I will always be grateful for this. I was close with my siblings and can still remember the games we made up together. Homeschooling gave us lots of free time during the day. In the evening, Dad would come home from work, and we’d be excited to see him. My parents got along, and our family system stayed stable.
Venturing beyond the home
One significant difference between homeschooling and traditional school is this: as a homeschooler, you don’t have leaving the house built into your schedule in the same way that your traditionally schooled peers do. Every errand, every activity is something extra for mom to accomplish. Until I was thirteen and allowed to stay home alone, leaving the house meant accompanying mom on all her errands. I didn’t mind though. I was a weird kid who liked the grocery store. Mom would usually buy snacks for my siblings and I to eat as we followed her around the grocery store, so our weekly shopping almost felt like a fun outing. It was interesting to look at all the stuff on the shelves, and because we went there so regularly, the grocery store became a comfortable, familiar place. So was our local library (of course), playground, and the church where our co-op met. At eleven, I did a girls’ science class, and the next year I played YMCA soccer. At eight, my speech therapist was a regular part of life, and at twelve, I spent time at the doctor’s office for my mom’s prenatal appointments. Dad liked outdoor activities, so on the weekends we’d go hiking in the Virginia woods or camping in the Montana mountains. This all was my life outside of the home. Besides our house, the stores, parks, libraries, and co-op buildings were the places I missed after every move, and the places that hold my nostalgic childhood memories today.
Friends? Aren’t those just kids you see sometimes?
I always thought that I had enough friends. I did weekly activities, after all, and there would usually be some girls my age I’d talk to. If our moms happened to be friends, we’d even see each other outside of activities. I even got invited to sleepovers and birthday parties. These social events were rare, special occasions. Friends moved, we moved, homeschool groups changed, and social opportunities shifted from year to year. People drifted in and out of my life. Looking back now, I’m not sure if any of my relationships went deeper than friendly acquaintances. I pretty much considered any other kid I saw repeatedly, talked to, or even just did activities near to be my friend. Maybe that made me socially behind, but if it did, I didn’t know that. I was content with my social life. I liked the other people I knew and looked forward to the times I got to see them.
Being homeschooled is my normal
I still didn’t think much about the fact that my siblings and I were homeschooled. We just were. My parents never did or said anything to suggest that attending a traditional school was even within the realm of possibility for me. Sometimes I heard them speak vaguely of possibly putting us in school far in the future, when my dad retired from the military. I wasn’t sure if that would really happen though, and besides, I could do the math. I would be eighteen by then. I continued to enjoy stories where the characters went to school, in the same way you might enjoy a story set in a time and place far away from your own life. I had an idea that no matter what the books and movies said, real-life public school would be bad. Or perhaps I would be too sensitive to handle it. I never thought of going to school. Why would I have? After all, I had a good family, and good life as it was.
Undiagnosed anxiety disorder
As a young child I had always been what my mom called “high-strung”, easily getting overwhelmed and frustrated by my surroundings. However, once I got calmed down, it was over. There was no prolonged underlying anxiety about serious matters. This changed rather abruptly for me around the age of eight. I don’t know where it came from, but I was suddenly absolutely terrified of not being saved. For several months I even convinced myself that I had somehow run out of chances to be saved. The year before, in second grade, my mom had read the Bible out loud to my siblings and I as part of our schooling. I vividly recalled her talking about people running out of chances to get saved and how it is a sad day when that happens. Upon my “confession” several months later, mom was confused that I thought this and had no memory of ever saying such a thing. Maybe I had misunderstood her words that day. We searched in vain for the Bible verse that had worried me. To this day I know of no verses that say people can “run out of chances” to get saved. Mom told me that Satan must have been lying to me, and we said the prayer of salvation together. I finally felt a sense of relief.
Afterwards, the anxiety faded for a little while. But soon, I felt a new desire to read my Bible, my King James Bible with its tiny font that I’d received on my eighth birthday. Not just a little bit, but chapters every day. This might seem like a positive desire for a newly “born again” Christian, but for me it became problematic. My symptoms resembled religious OCD. See, If I didn’t read it, I felt guilty. This guilt ruined my enjoyment of many games and activities. I created elaborate reading plans and had to say my prayers in a specific way for them to be right. I was afraid of hell, demons, not really being saved (still), and the second coming. I also worried about other things like getting sick or dying, but most of my worries were religious. My largest influence by far was the evangelical Christian beliefs my parents taught at home. Our family’s church attendance was sporadic, even at the height of my anxiety. I didn’t have a true faith community for most of my childhood. Like the rest of my life, my religious struggles were something private and home-centered.
Did my parents notice my mental health struggles? Yes, they did, and they actually tried their best to support me. It was never their intention for me to be so anxious over our family’s faith. They bought me children’s books on anxiety and even an entire program on CD called Turnaround. Doing the exercises from this program helped even if they did not cure my anxiety. I still have some of it now, even at the age of 21. However, I was fortunate enough to outgrow the worst of the panic attacks and obsessive-compulsive symptoms in my teen years. Somehow puberty had a stabilizing effect on my moods! I certainly did start to feel different after I became a teenager. Which leads into to the next segment of my story, to be posted soon.
Homeschooled Voices 