Are you considering homeschooling? Caveat Emptor. That’s Latin for I’m Smarter than You. Have you read the fine print about what will happen to your household if you commit to this alternative lifestyle?
I’m not even talking about the Latin snobbery, or what you will spend on bicarbonate soda and vinegar in the early years. It’s far less exciting. I am talking about the mess. It's true that families of all varieties produce mess. But homeschool mess is another category entirely.
In case I need to be explicit - you will end up with your children actually using your home, 24 hours a day, for the outrageous practices of childhood. They don’t, you know, go away, so an Oompa Loompa or Robovac can clean up after them when they’re not present to apply entropy.
And since most 21st century homes are designed as leisure retreats from the outside world where the work and mess-making happens, your ill-equipped 3x2 is going to fare badly. Just warning you.
No 21st century classroom, with full time cleaning staff. No gymnasium, with fancy floor polisher machine. No science lab with up-to-code first aid kit, no industrial home economics kitchen with industrial extractor fan. They will be using YOUR dining room table.
They will also be using your bathroom sink, your cast iron casserole dish that was a wedding gift, your good towels, your vanilla extract from the top back shelf and your French linen quilt back from that brief time you were a dual income couple. None of those things for their intended purposes, either. In their self directed, creative educational pursuits, they will take your coffee table library book on minimalism and use it as a convenient prop in a Rube Goldberg machine, which culminates magnificently in setting fire to your outdoor furniture using your great grandfather's antique magnifying glass. You will be very impressed by this, against your better judgement.
All the blankets will be unpacked, every day. This is not because you didn't ask them not to, or didn’t explain how an orderly living room means Mom's got an orderly mind. No, it's because you stopped mid sentence when you saw what they were up to, and lost confidence that the well organised linen closet was more important than this amazing Spanish caravel they built in the hall using hockey sticks and all the string in the house, and all the string in the actual street because they purloined more from the neighbours. Yes, they left the house without permission and talked to your retired neighbours and you overheard them:
"What did you learn today?" asked doubtfully. "Fractals!" you hiss from inside. "Amerigo Vespucci!" "Nothing", they answer, "Can we borrow your impact driver for our Caravel?"
You didn't stop them from leaving the house because you thought you would get the dishwasher unpacked while no one was talking to you and maybe fold some of the superfluous blankets. You congratulated yourself breathlessly about your confidence in their independence.
But they're back, with the impact driver, and now the toddler has dismantled the caravel, so they are tying him up with the leftover string. You have to stop unpacking the dishwasher to untie him because you’re worried about his circulation. You get distracted on the way by the crushed jumbo chalk bits leading down the passage and by the time you get to him, he's accepted his fate and is singing It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood. You pull out your phone to record this cuteness and send it to your mother.
Yes, she will probably notice he's been in the same clothes since she saw him two days ago, but look, now he's singing the periodic table song and he's only three. That’ll show her.
I haven't yet mentioned the Lego. Doctoral Thesis: Complex Schadenfreude Experienced by Homeschooling Parents when Vacuuming up Lego that they Paid for with their Own Money. We are all addicted to the dopamine. There are worse ways to get your highs.
You put the three year old down for his nap and his existence is scrubbed from your consciousness for the next 90 minutes. You try to find a clear surface for a math lesson, and when you realise there isn't one, you arm-swipe the dining room table clear with your elbow locked.
It feels good.
You call relevant persons in for their math lesson. There are no pencils in their stationery kit so you look in your off-limits stationery box and discover evidence of tampering. There appear to be no pencils anywhere in the house. You stop everything to look for the pencils.
You find a ridiculous pencil stub under a couch cushion and proceed with the math lesson, interspersed with a terse lecture about 'looking after our things'. You realise you need to impose some boundaries about what is on and off limits.
You spend the afternoon imposing prohibitions and making 'COMPLETELY OFF LIMITS TO CHILDREN' signs to stick on cupboard doors with your yet undiscovered stash of washi tape. 'ASK FIRST'. 'MUM'S ONLY'. 'DEATH PENALTY'.
This sends you into a vortex of introspection about encouraging autonomy and self-mastery vs preventing the house from being razed. There’s got to be a middle way, you muse.
It ends at 5pm when you have been asked repeatedly for permission to use the stapler by all the children, on a conspiratorial rotation. You take the 'OFF LIMITS' sticker off the stapler. It is time for everyone to tidy up before dinner.
Certain family members who can adroitly use an impact driver seem genuinely confused about how to sort Playmobil from Lego, but give it their best effort. You thank them enthusiastically.
At six pm the house is adequately tidied and people are ready to eat. It is a merciful act of God, you have no doubt. You thank your middle child for preparing the salad. Your husband arrives and you pile everyone’s plate high and sing the doxology. You find it difficult to explain what was so exhausting but you aren’t unhappy.
Tomorrow you will follow through on your stationery prohibitions. You will grow in your ability to impose order on to chaos, beginning with sending someone to retrieve the broccoli from under the kitchen table.
You will dazzle everyone with pancakes and poetry and wiped noses and consistent spankings. Ora et labora. Ad astra per aspera.