Second guessing

I talked to my mother-in-law the other day, and she commented on what unusually nice weather they were having – sunny and in the 60s.  Before I spoke, I caught myself thinking, Wow, that’s really cool for the summer. Oops, I mean warm for winter. What season is it? I’m going to miss Guam.

We still have just over 4 months left. Plenty of time to enjoy island life. But the calendar is filling up.  I’ve been researching schools in California and printing applications. It’s giving me technostress.

I’m considering putting all the kids back in school this move. The boys all wanted to go to school here once they made friends, although, ironically, it seems like several new home schooling families have moved in to the area lately. Nonetheless, even though the past few weeks with just the girls home have gone well, I’ve appreciated the ability of the older kids to take advantage of things like free music lessons, Spanish class, drama class, etc.  The older boys in particular seem to work harder for other teachers than myself, motivated partially by competition, which is perhaps not the best motivation to do well in math, but viable. And the younger boys are being assigned more work and taking more responsibility for it than they did with me. School has been especially good for my youngest son, who needed the routine and structure, as well as the encouragement he receives from his teacher, who is absolutely wonderful.  It’s been a good semester.

Of course, as soon as I feel sort of at home with this decision to send all the kids to school in California, I read something like Jennifer Fulwiler’s post on the dangers of being too detached from your kids, so that they identify more with their peers. Maybe I should reconsider.  Especially since we’re moving to Southern California.  Are my kids going to be pressured by their peers to give up their faith, to smoke pot, to bleach their hair? AHHHH! Peer Culture!

Not only did I start to second guess my inclination to put them in school, but I began to wonder whether my working at the community college and leaving them at home for an hour or so before their dad gets home is abandoning them. I fear we have not given them roots. I fear we should have read them to sleep more often. I should not have let the older ones get ipods.  I began to think of all the compromises I’ve made in my parenting. I let them eat hydrogenated oils and corn syrup. I found out our water has unacceptable levels of trihalomethanes, and we're all going to get cancer because we haven't been drinking filtered water.  I’ve been parenting all wrong.

Fortunately, before this fear crippled me, we received a note in the mail yesterday from a young couple newly arrived on island. My kids have taken a liking to them, and we had them over to dinner last week. They are like a young aunt or uncle or an older set of cousins. Anyway, in the midst of my parenting crisis, we got their thank you note that said “Being in your home, so full of life and love, was a heartening and inspiring experience.” “Full of life” may be a euphemism for “loud and rowdy,” but I was still consoled by this little note. Maybe we’re not doing it all wrong.

Deep breath. Perhaps it's me who needs to detach from peer culture and focus more on what's around me, so that I can see the kids are ok.  This move is going to be another challenge, but also another opportunity to find strength in and from each other. It's one more way our family will grow in our identity as a family. Having lived on an island will give my kids a sense of their uniqueness.  And the last two years have provided multiple opportunities for our family to bond, even though I'm not home schooling everyone. Trust. 

And at least my older boys haven’t caved to peer pressure yet to get a tattoo like 75% of their classmates.