Helping Them Fly is not Enough

Midsummer was a noisy place at our bird feeders. Fledglings screamed and shook in the branches as their parents diligently gathered seed and carried it to them. As they matured, the young birds might fly down and try to pick at seeds themselves, but mom and dad knew they weren't completely ready to be on their own yet. They still fed them, and showed their brood how to find food on their own. I call this time the birds' teenage years: old enough to fly and eat on their own, but still dependent on their parents for food, shelter and protection.

I've had some interesting conversations since Marina started college. Most of the people I've spoken with believe that life gets easier for parents when their children are in college. After all, their now off on their own, living their own life. I've found the opposite is true. I've never felt so busy and tied to a schedule. True, my daughter hasn't learned to drive yet, we're working on that, but even if you take away the transportation issues, there is so much to do as a parent for teens and young adults. Beginning at fifteen, I've walked my teens through filling out various forms, how to dress for an interview, and how to boast. Yes, boast. They tend to feel shy about their accomplishments or don't see them as anything special, but those unique attributes--including homeschooling--can be important when talking to an admissions counselor or interviewing for a job. What can I say? My kids don't like to toot their own horn. They even felt guilty about asking for letters of recommendation from places where they had volunteered. Marina said it made the volunteering seem less genuine if they received something for it. We ended up in a discussion about the service requirement most schools have in our area and how it amounts to involuntary volunteerism. But I digress.

A huge part of the teenage years and young adulthood is support. While some are naturally able to "jump out of the nest" and fly, I believe most young people need some amount of hand holding to successfully meet the challenges of becoming an adult. Apart from the stress of new responsibilities, teens are also dealing with a lot of hormonal changes within their bodies, which can cause emotional stress. Is it a good idea to choose this moment in time to decide to kick the baby bird out of the nest and wish it luck? I don't think so. I will take my cue from the birds and continue to teach them how to survive until they are ready to fly off on their own. Homeschooling doesn't really end. The subject matter just changes.

Carnival at MomSCHOOL

The latest edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling: the Homeschool Makeover edition is happening at MomSCHOOL! Please take a moment to head over and read some of this week's submissions.

Home Spun comic strip #759

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If you enjoy my comics, the first collection, No School Today? is available from these sellers:

CreateSpace
Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble

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Home Spun comic strip #758

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If you enjoy my comics, the first collection, No School Today? is available from these sellers:

CreateSpace
Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble

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Home Spun comic strip #757

 I love workbooks. They have cute cartoon characters in them. The lessons are simple and easy to explain. And they have lots of exercises to work on. Which was always the problem. Sometimes there were too many exercises. My kids like to finish things. They also like to make sure they are right. Sometimes filling in a page of math problems could take hours. Not too fun for any of us. I also felt the need to copy problems out into a notebook for them, so I could reuse the workbook with the next child. And then I would forget where I stored it.

I still love workbooks. I still look at them in the stores. And then I leave them there. After all, I have plenty of old workbooks if anyone wants to use one. 

...Once I find them... 

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If you enjoy my comics, the first collection, No School Today? is available from these sellers:

CreateSpace
Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble

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Not "Write," Just a Rough Sketch Right Now

Sketching is meditative for me. I don't always know what is happening in process. I start with a line and shade in shapes until my sketch develops form and depth. I can feel the depth. I run pencil and shading stomp over areas as I follow the contours of my subject. There is always a point where it is not right. It doesn't look right. At that point I will make the smallest mark with my pencil or erase a dark shadow, and suddenly it becomes the subject. It's a satisfying moment. If I stop at any point during the sketch, I hate the drawing and I might be ready to toss it. It takes patience to keep going, to recognize that it will all work out in the end. Sketching is my contemplative art form.

This is not true for me with writing. Writing is hard. I sometimes wrestle with the words as I try to figure out the best way to say what I mean. I am very aware of what I say through every step of the process. I worry about how it will be understood by others. I can't relax with it and let it flow the way drawing lets me. My mind cannot wander. It demands that I pay attention to every punctuation mark. It insists I stay present or suffer the grammatical consequences. This is why I have my family edit my work. I know I won't spot my homophone confusion or mispellings without their help. I still fear the red pen of my school days. I still see it as a mark of failure. It tells me I'm not good enough.

In the early years, homeschooling was similar to writing for me. I was hyper-aware of my critics. I felt I had to constantly prove I had a right to teach my own. Lucky for me, Marina liked to perform. Every subject excited her. I could look like I knew what I was doing. I made my mistakes with her. It is the plight of the first-born. They are the ones we learn to parent with.

Chase and Sierra have specific interests. They are not as open to me meddling in their learning. I had to teach myself to step back and have faith that the learning was happening. Just as it is when I sketch, it isn't always easy to stop in the middle and love what I see. I panic and want to force education onto them. I worry about what others think. And then I take a deep breath and remember that this is a process. I haven't finished this sketch yet.

The "Alternet" Project

What happens if you give an artist a couple of library card catalog cabinets? She starts thinking about filling the drawers with artwork. But filling the drawers alone can be a daunting task, so she invites other artists to help her. And so, The "Alternet" project began.

Back at the beginning of the year, Marina's art professor and Alternet creator, Carla Rae Johnson, invited her to contribute to the project. We went online to buy catalog cards and Marina diligently started working on her three hundred.

Yes. Three hundred cards. The idea is that you create three hundred cards over the course of a year and at the end of the year the work will be displayed in the drawers of the cabinet. I spent the first few months of the project keeping Marina calm, since she was overwhelmed with coursework and afraid she would never reach the goal. At the beginning of July there would be a get together of the artists, to celebrate the halfway point and see how the cards would look in the drawers. 

It was at this party that I got the itch. Carla Rae mentioned they were still in need of a few artists. I have always specialized in small scale artwork, ever since I was a child and my Grandma would bring me small pads from her office to draw in. I also figured the best way for Marina to see that it could be done was by example. So at the halfway point, I joined the party. I had the option of doing only 150 cards, but I figured I could do the full amount. After all, I used to facepaint at festivals where I would easily knock off fifty designs in a couple of hours. I look at this as a return to sketch journaling, something I haven't done since high school. 

Right now, Marina has a little over two hundred cards. I'm at one hundred fifty. Here are some samples of our work. (Click on any picture for an enlarged view.)

By me. This is one of several I've done in my facepainting style.

Mine. Showing my inspiration from children's books.

A sketch I did of my son.

Can you tell I'm most comfortable with a pencil?

One of Marina's early cards.

Marina's art. She did several cards like this, as if you were dropped into a storybook.

Marina's art. I love this one!

Marina's art. She spent so much time on this one. She's a strong sketch artist.

 If you are interested in seeing more on this project, including what other artists are working on, visit The "Alternet" Facebook page.