By Denise Trull
I found myself sitting next to a very exhausted mom of many children at a women’s tea one afternoon. She was a veteran home schooler going on ten years or so. She knew its benefits by experience. She had her schedule down. She juggled toddlers and high schoolers like a pro -- or at least had surrendered to plowing through these hard challenges knowing they were only a season and would not last forever. She knew what she was doing, and in a word, she was already sold.
She hadn’t plopped down next to me asking to be convinced that home schooling was a good that needed to be researched -- a conversation that happened most often for me at these kind of teas. So, I wasn’t quite sure about that look of perplexity on her face. After one, long sip of tea, she collapsed in her chair, stretched out her long legs, clunked her clogs together, and almost sighed the words. “I feel so numb. I am just going through the motions. Just getting through to the end of the day. No joy. What’s wrong with me? I want to give my younger kids that same enthusiasm that I gave the older kids when things were new and fresh. Am I just cheating the younger ones? Should I just send them to school….maybe? Have you ever felt this?”
I had to freely admit, “Yes! Yes I have.” It is called burnout. And at one time, I had it bad. In year thirteen, as a matter of fact. I told her my story.
The thirteen, or twelve, or ten-year itch. It happens. When child number seven is entering, say the 5th grade, and you feel like you are in, well, a stupor. Even more visceral than the stupor, however, is the feeling that you cannot possibly listen to the recitation of Stephen Vincent Benet poems on the founding fathers one more time without going stark raving mad. Enough with “Georgie shinnying up that mast” already!! Nothing against Mr. Benet, mind you. But that good, old, reliable curriculum looks just that....old...and predictable...and reliably tedious.
Burn out feels terrible when you are in it, but there are remedies for it. My remedy in year thirteen was to take a detour. I am very much a follow-the-rules kind of person. Rule based. That’s me. Always. So, setting off on a curriculum tangent at this late stage was, for me, like jumping off the edge of a cliff. But jump I did, somehow, for I knew instinctively that it was going to save my future as a home schooler. In hindsight I can say with jovial certitude, "It was the best thing I ever did!” But back in year thirteen, I froze in terror at thinking of doing it any other way than I had been doing it up to that point.
Enter Sonlight. This program was written by two wonderful moms who were wives of missionaries. They had specific needs and issues being who they were, so they created their own curriculum in order to study the countries in which they lived at any given time. I chanced upon their 5th grade book list once and was fascinated. They studied all the Asian countries that year. They studied silkworms in science, origami in art, Chinese calligraphy with brushes, and some of the best and most unique novels I have ever encountered. Plus, as Protestants, they actually and correctly understood what Catholics believe and were highly respectful of my faith. They included books about Fr. Matteo Ricci, the Jesuit priest missionary to China and also the story of Mother Teresa. This program was so utterly OTHER from mine. And the cultures of Asia, alas, had never come into our view on our home schooling journey. That was a glaring lacuna! So, I took the leap! Asia it was.
We had the best year ever! We memorized completely different poems that year, we read about Japanese puppeteers, young boys and girls facing dangers on the oceans, the beauty and wonder of owning a famed Lhasa terrier in the Himalayan mountains. We read about the terror of tidal waves, overcoming cruel masters, what children did for fun, what they longed for, what they liked to eat. We read great books about young people facing real challenges and coming through braver than before. We had a great time with stories about children and families in India, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Mongolia. We read about their myths, their landscapes, that they loved their countries as much as we loved ours. We journeyed with missionaries like Gladys Aylward, the English scullery maid who made her own way to China and saved hundreds of Chinese children from being murdered in the conflicts before WWII. We read about the joys and the sorrows and the anxieties of being the daughter of missionaries with author Jean Fritz. And also the trials of bringing and teaching the Catholic faith to Asian lands. It brought up many questions during the day.
One very beautiful book that opened my heart and made me think was a small little volume called: The Land I Lost. It is a true story about a young boy who grew up in the highlands of Vietnam, next to a jungle filled with amazing wildlife. His father and he explored it all and he describes his love for this land so beautifully. But his father, who had obtained a college degree himself, wants his son to go to college. He does go, down to the south. And then the Vietnam war happens and he gets badly injured. He is airlifted to the U.S. and never again returns to Vietnam. The book is filled with a sad longing and a great love for home. It moved both me and my kids to the heart.
We tried our hand at Japanese calligraphy, and we made our share of paper cranes. We had tea parties sitting on our heals and sipping out of beautiful Japanese cups. We fell down many a research rabbit hole to learn more about the mountains, towns, and villages that had intrigued us as we read all the novels Sonlight provided. We ended the year at both our local Botanical Garden's fabulous Chinese and Japanese Cultural Festivals and found we knew much of what they were talking about at the demonstration booths. We had truly expanded our minds and hearts. And isn’t that the goal of home schooling?
In the end, we were all refreshed, recharged, and I had conquered my burnout. I returned to our tried and true, regular curriculum the year after that. I was able to jump into the next year without one poem on George Washington in sight. That year we studied Egypt!
I will always thank the wonderful, creative ladies who came to my rescue with their obvious love for the people they served and their interesting, up-close view of each and every Asian country. I saved all the books, all the novels, and the calligraphy brushes. They had helped me to conquer my burn out. I held them as a trophy! My daughter has expressed a desire to have them when I pass them down. That was the year I think she decided that she was going to travel to Korea one day. That dream came true and she was able to teach there for two years and experience the Korean culture up close and personal. Providence meanders in and out in such beautiful ways. Our seemingly impromptu journey through Asia proves this to be so. We still talk about that year sometimes.
I was able to tell this story to my discouraged friend at the home school tea. She resolved to have a year with her children that was new and different for them all, rather like taking a sabbatical to read and rest. Learning happens always. It can take us outside the box sometimes and we find that it didn’t hold us back or waste our time, but enriched a space of life that needed some water at just that moment in time.
Burnout happens, but don’t give up. Take a detour. It doesn’t have to be what we did. There are all kinds of places to go and explore for a year. Don’t be afraid. I have lived to tell you this tale, and, reader, there WAS a year fourteen!
Denise Trull is the editor in chief of Sostenuto, an online journal for writers and thinkers of every kind to share their work with each other. Her own writing is also featured regularly at Theology of Home, and has appeared in Dappled Things. She also can be found at her Substack, The Inscapist. Denise is the mother of seven grown, adventurous children and has acquired the illustrious title of grandmother. She lives with her husband Tony in St. Louis, Missouri.