Lighten the Load Part 1:
Dealing with the Burdens of a Homeschool Mom
Have you ever seen the bicycles that have more than one seat? Big families sometimes use them if younger kids need to be able to keep up with the rest of the family.
These bicycles have two, three or even four seats sometimes! All four seats can pedal to help, but often the younger ones in the family get tired before the rest, which is why they are attached to the parent.
The parent bears the burden of pedaling even when the other riders get tired. They have a lot to bear.
That burden is a normal, healthy burden. Now imagine that on that family bike ride, Mom is pulling 3 younger children on her bike. That’s a lot of riders!
Mom has the responsibility to make sure her children can keep up with Dad and her older children. While they are biking though, Mom decides to go up a hill when she could have gone around it. She also decides to move the gears on the bike up, so that the pedaling becomes difficult, and then decides to deflate her tires a little. Would Mom be able to keep up? Would she get tired?
What would you say if you were a part of that family and saw that happening? You would probably say, “What are you doing Mom!? You are making it much harder on yourself than you really need to!”
This is an illustration of how some Homeschool Moms operate while homeschooling. They already have the huge responsibility of making sure that their household runs well and that their children flourish in their education. But those are not the only burdens that Moms tend to bear. There are other things that are added to their plate.
These others burdens that Homeschool Moms experience include:
Perfectionism – Requiring personal perfection when it comes to homeschooling, parenting, or homemaking.
Weariness – Moms have so much to do, and a myriad of demands placed upon them, which means that being exhausted will weigh them down.
Personal Expectations – This goes along with perfectionism. Moms place so many expectations upon themselves that sometimes they can be unreasonable. Moms bear the burden of their own expectations, which so often are not met.
Financial Stress – This is one burden that so many deal with. Money is a large piece of what we stress about. We are often burdened with worries of money.
This is just a short list of what could be weighing you down. If you let some of these things begin to “pile” up on you, then you will burn out very quickly.
There are some things that we need to worry about. There are some things that we need to be responsible for which can lead to worry. But there are also things that we don’t need to burden ourselves with, but we do anyway!
Next time we will talk about putting everything in its proper place. This will allow you to put aside stress and worry that is wearing you down and affecting your ability to be a Homeschool Mom.
