Bonus! | When Mason Feels More Like a Burden
This bonus minisode was first recorded for The Commonplace patrons but is brought to you today by Classical Academic Press. Take 20% off all individual products until April 22nd, which includes our favorite thing: books.
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FOOTNOTES
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READ THE TRANSCRIPT
This bonus minisode was first recorded for The Commonplace patrons but is brought to you today by Classical Academic Press. I don’t know about you, but I always want new books. And right now, Classical Academic Press is having its Homeschool Appreciation Sale. Yes, homeschooling mom, they appreciate you. And they want you to have some books. From now until April 22nd, you are invited to take 20% off all individual products. I’m looking at Sarah Mackenzie’s Teaching From Rest, but maybe you’d like your appreciation in the form of Latin for Children, Writing and Rhetoric, or The Art of Argument. Well, maybe not the last one if you still live with toddlers. Anyway, head on over to classicalacademicpress.com or use the link in the episode notes to experience classical subjects creatively taught with Classical Academic Press. I know books are your love language. Go find a couple.
And, if you enjoy today’s bonus minisode, you can find more resources just like this over at Patreon.
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One common thing that I hear from moms who start listening to The Commonplace is that while everything is beautiful, and they love the sound of it, it completely overwhelms them. Like, they don’t even know where to start. It seems like they need to habit train themselves, and they need to read all these amazing books, and they need to be better Christians, and they need to understand more stuff before they can even dream of teaching their children in this way. And that kind of feeling is a lot for a mom.
Because most moms I know are already working really hard, trying to do their best, filling their days with good things, and there’s just so much to get done that to go and learn all these things Charlotte Mason says you need to do and to do it quickly because your kids needed them like yesterday—it’s just overwhelming. It feels like too much.
So the ends of these messages takes a downward turn. They love the ideas but they can’t handle the burden of them.
And that’s what I want to talk about today: what to do when Charlotte Mason becomes a burden. Because, I think it happens to everyone.
Mason says in her first volume that mothers can work wonders once they’re convinced wonders are demanded of them. It’s one of those quotes that works perfectly for an instagram square or the front of a homeschool planner. But right before she says that, she acknowledges that what she’s encouraging moms toward is not what’s easiest for us, but what’s best for children.
And I believe her. I really do.
But sometimes, when I feel like the habit training is going nowhere and I’m falling asleep during the afternoon read aloud and the idea of bundling three little kids into snow gear to go outside in eighteen degree weather and I still haven’t figured out what’s for dinner, I say to the imaginary Mason in my head: You keep mentioning my governess, my cook, my maid, and my nurse. Where doth one find those?
Because it’s just me.
And it’s most likely just you.
So I have two tips that I keep coming back to in my own life to keep Mason in her rightful place and to help us see how doing what’s best for children is what’s best for us.
First, you can never divorce these things from love. As soon as you do, they become a mountain of a to-do list. We love those little rascalberries who don’t remember to put their shoes in the basket by the door or don’t know how to read or still laugh when they toot. (Okay, I still laugh when they do too so this is not going to be an easy habit to train.) But you know what I mean, we love them. We want what’s best for them. We want them to know God’s world, to be treated like full persons, to see, taste, smell, touch, and hear God’s love through the atmosphere, discipline, and life we lay before them and around them. This is why classical education grabbed our attention. Because we could feel, even before we understood, that this was what was best for our kids. And we love them.
And because we love them, we’re in it with them for the long haul. Motherhood and education are no sprints. This is a long journey, my friend, and one that will be marked by growth: for your kids, yes, but also for you.
As your mind and soul are nourished by things you’re learning, you will continue to grow and change which means how you flesh out the principles of education will grow and deepen. That’s what love does–it continues to shape you and shape those around you.
Take it tick by tick as Mason says when it comes to habits. Choose one thing. Learn slowly. Think deeply. Implement and then stick with it until it feels normal, then add more. Read one book. Listen to one podcast. And trust that your maternal thinking love will continue to help you love and educate your children well.
Second, remember we’re all creatures of habit and we all need help with them. I like to think about my own habits because I desperately need them. There is a big gap between who I am right now and the type of mother-teacher I want to be. It is easy to feel like I’m still missing tools in my box or don’t know how to use them or keep messing them up. There are things Mason says that I don’t understand and some nights I go to bed asking myself if I’m really building that rich atmosphere, discipline, and life for my family?
Then I remember the gift that is the practical side of Mason. She says get outside. So, I go outside. She says read the best of books. So, I only read the best of books. She says keep lessons short, so I watch the clock, keep an eye on the mental effort and attention of my oldest. She says to watch the motivations in my parenting, so I repent when I come at my kids the wrong way.
Mason is insanely practical. She offers a peg or a hook or a ladder rung for you to grab onto when you’re not sure how else to make the philosophical doable.
Does she paint a beautiful, large picture of what home education can be? Yes. Is it both amazing and overwhelming? You bet. But she also breaks things down into action steps, and when you don’t know what to do next, you just grab a peg. One peg will lead to another, and before you realize it, the regular rhythms of your home are crafting a scaffolding of truth, goodness, and beauty.
Don’t forget love. Reach for one peg. It’s in the common places that mothers work wonders.
I’ll double down on that.
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