<anacarol.francisco@...>

Hello everybody,

I am new to the concept of unschooling (started researching about 3 months ago) but so far I'm in love with it. It all seems so natural, great really.

Only from what I've been reading it seems to me that one of the parents needs to stay at home if the kids are going to be unschooled. Is there anyone that unschools their kids and also has a job outside the house? I would like to hear how that works, so I can plan for my son to be unschooled when the time comes (he's only 1 y.o.).

Thanks in advance,
Carol

Sandra Dodd

-=-Only from what I've been reading it seems to me that one of the parents needs to stay at home if the kids are going to be unschooled. Is there anyone that unschools their kids and also has a job outside the house? I would like to hear how that works, so I can plan for my son to be unschooled when the time comes (he's only 1 y.o.).-=-

Are you home with him now?

Is there another parent?

Pam Sorooshian

Parents need to be very involved and available and attentive. How you make that happen can vary a lot. I worked part time and my husband full time. Some single parents manage to unschool and work. People can be very ingenious in working things out.

Your baby is only a year old though. What are you going to do with him for the next 4 years before he is school age? 

-pam

On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 9:22 AM, <anacarol.francisco@...> wrote:
Only from what I've been reading it seems to me that one of the parents needs to stay at home if the kids are going to be unschooled. Is there anyone that unschools their kids and also has a job outside the house? I would like to hear how that works, so I can plan for my son to be unschooled when the time comes (he's only 1 y.o.).


Joyce Fetteroll

On Oct 14, 2013, at 12:22 PM, <anacarol.francisco@...> <anacarol.francisco@...> wrote:

> Do I have to stay at home to unschool?

I'm hearing a child say "Do I haaaaave to?" A respectful mom will then ask, "What do you want to do?"

What do you want to do?

Do you have feelings of unschooling making you stay home? Or your child? Or other unschoolers?

You may be thinking, "No, I meant ...." but because you've worded it as you did, you've wrapped feelings of unschooling (and your child) not letting you have a choice about staying home.

Unschooling itself is a choice. It's a choice to put as a priority your child's innate needs to grow up at home with her family as she learns about the world. And then you fit everything else around that including how you bring in enough money to live on. Some families pare back to the point where they can live on one person's income. Some split the work hours so one spouse works days the other nights. Some work from home. The possibilities are limited only by imagination (and then a bit by what's possible ;-))

If your priority is to work outside the home and fit unschooling into that, unschooling won't flow as well as it does for families who make unschooling their priority and fit everything else around unschooling.

Joyce

<kaitlinw123@...>

I just wanted to second this question. If anyone doesn't mind sharing examples of how they fit work around unschooling, I'd love to hear them. Everyday I'm thinking about how important it is to me to unschool my 1-year-old, and right now I'm mostly home with her--experimenting with saying yes more!--and working in the mornings and weekends. But working in my "spare" time has gotten exhausting, and our family is on the cusp of several different options. My husband has a job that almost supports us, but we live in an incredibly expensive area so he is looking at other jobs. I am also looking at jobs as a professor, but with half my heart in it because I only want one of us to be working and I am more excited about the idea of unschooling and staying at home than he is. Still, a huge part of me is afraid of dropping my career in academics, and right now I can tell it's too hard to maintain these intellectual projects in my "spare" time, especially if I have another kid. I have been reading and searching, and because of all these big changes in our lives it would be really helpful to me to see more examples and hear stories of work and unschooling from experienced parents (when they have time!).


Kaitlin



---In [email protected], <jfetteroll@...> wrote:

On Oct 14, 2013, at 12:22 PM, <anacarol.francisco@...> <anacarol.francisco@...> wrote:

> Do I have to stay at home to unschool?

I'm hearing a child say "Do I haaaaave to?" A respectful mom will then ask, "What do you want to do?"

What do you want to do?

Do you have feelings of unschooling making you stay home? Or your child? Or other unschoolers?

You may be thinking, "No, I meant ...." but because you've worded it as you did, you've wrapped feelings of unschooling (and your child) not letting you have a choice about staying home.

Unschooling itself is a choice. It's a choice to put as a priority your child's innate needs to grow up at home with her family as she learns about the world. And then you fit everything else around that including how you bring in enough money to live on. Some families pare back to the point where they can live on one person's income. Some split the work hours so one spouse works days the other nights. Some work from home. The possibilities are limited only by imagination (and then a bit by what's possible ;-))

If your priority is to work outside the home and fit unschooling into that, unschooling won't flow as well as it does for families who make unschooling their priority and fit everything else around unschooling.

Joyce

Jennifer Smith

You can do anything that works for you and your family. Maybe your little one would enjoy spending time with Grammy or uncle or friends while your away for a bit. Maybe he/she will hate it and you will have to work something else out. Be perceptive as to what works for your family.

Some of my kids would be fine, some would most certainly not. So, I stay home. At one point it involved having only one car. But the kids completely enjoyed walking, being pulled in a wagon, riding the bus or bikes until we could afford a second car. We gave up certain purchases and became very creative in our free to low cost entertainment.

Just more thoughts to roll around.

~Jen

<anacarol.francisco@...>

Hey guys thanks for the answers so far. Sorry I may have come out as "the crazy mom worrying about things years ahead of time" but I understand unschooling is a process I have to go through too. So I may as well start now. 


Semantics can be tricky. What I am asking when I say "do I have to stay home" is really "is it possible to unschool (give your child the attention to unschool) even if I don't stay at home the whole day?". I understand it is all about choices but apart from that I really want to hear more about experiences from parents who don't stay at home all the time, if there are any.


Carol



---In [email protected], <jfetteroll@...> wrote:

On Oct 14, 2013, at 12:22 PM, <anacarol.francisco@...> <anacarol.francisco@...> wrote:

> Do I have to stay at home to unschool?

I'm hearing a child say "Do I haaaaave to?" A respectful mom will then ask, "What do you want to do?"

What do you want to do?

Do you have feelings of unschooling making you stay home? Or your child? Or other unschoolers?

You may be thinking, "No, I meant ...." but because you've worded it as you did, you've wrapped feelings of unschooling (and your child) not letting you have a choice about staying home.

Unschooling itself is a choice. It's a choice to put as a priority your child's innate needs to grow up at home with her family as she learns about the world. And then you fit everything else around that including how you bring in enough money to live on. Some families pare back to the point where they can live on one person's income. Some split the work hours so one spouse works days the other nights. Some work from home. The possibilities are limited only by imagination (and then a bit by what's possible ;-))

If your priority is to work outside the home and fit unschooling into that, unschooling won't flow as well as it does for families who make unschooling their priority and fit everything else around unschooling.

Joyce

Pam Sorooshian

I worked in several different jobs and worked sometimes from home during all of our years of unschooling. I worked part time almost all of that time, but full-time from home during just a bit of it.

Here are the ways I handled it:

Sometimes I worked in the evenings. I'd be standing on the porch with a baby in my arms waiting for my husband to pull up and make the switch!

Sometimes I worked weekends - Friday nights and all day Saturday and Sunday.

Sometimes I worked where I could take a kid or two with me.

Sometimes I worked from home. (Picture me at the desktop computer with kids playing on a nearby computer and me nursing a baby while typing up a report.)

Sometimes I traded off with friends - they took my kids while I worked and I took their kids other times.

Sometimes I signed up all three kids for one activity that would give me a few hours on a regular schedule to work.

I hired a mother's helper for a while - she came and played with the kids and took care of their needs while I was in the other room working from home.

When the kids were old enough to be home without me, I worked early in the mornings. They'd sleep while I was at work. I'd get home around 11 or noon and we'd still have plenty of daytime hours together. 

I believe I pretty much always was a little low on sleep and I know for sure I didn't do a whole lot of housework. I also gave up on the idea of offering regular home-cooked meals to my family and gave in to eating out and eating take-out a whole lot more than I would have otherwise.

-pam

-pam

On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 7:55 AM, <kaitlinw123@...> wrote:
I just wanted to second this question. If anyone doesn't mind sharing examples of how they fit work around unschooling, I'd love to hear them.


Shelly

Hi! I have two boys, 9 and 11 years old. My husband and I both work jobs that are technically "full time",  although we are able to take extra days off and work shortened shifts regularly. We have worked different shifts over the years.  We have always chosen jobs/ shifts that enabled one of us to be home with the kids during the day.

 We are currently both on swing shifts (6pm-2am). My husband is off Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. I am off Wednesday and Thursday, so we only require childcare on Friday and Saturday nights. Because they are older now, they can get up and get breakfast while my husband and I sleep a bit longer. When they were younger, my husband and I worked opposite shifts so that somebody was able to be up early with them in the morning.

The best part of unschooling has been the sheer time that we are able to spend with our kids! If they were in a traditional school, they would be gone all day, come home, eat and do homework, and I would be leaving for work. Instead, we have all day to play computer and video games, ride bikes, read, hike, build cool stuff, go to park days with the local unschoolers group, meet ups and classes with local homeschool groups, and attend fun events and visit places around our city! Most events and meet ups are during the day.

Even though we have great people that we trust to care for our kids, they are not us. We speak with them extensively about our philosophy, but they don't have the relationships with our kids that we do and thus handle things differently. 

I think the key things that make unschooling work in our household with both of us having employment outside the home is: 
1.). Both my husband and I are equally enthusiast, informed, and committed to unschooling.
2.)  We are the primary caregivers for our children and are with them the majority of the time.

With Appreciation,

Shelly 



Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 14, 2013, at 9:22 AM, <anacarol.francisco@...> wrote:

 

Hello everybody,

I am new to the concept of unschooling (started researching about 3 months ago) but so far I'm in love with it. It all seems so natural, great really.

Only from what I've been reading it seems to me that one of the parents needs to stay at home if the kids are going to be unschooled. Is there anyone that unschools their kids and also has a job outside the house? I would like to hear how that works, so I can plan for my son to be unschooled when the time comes (he's only 1 y.o.).

Thanks in advance,
Carol

Jo Isaac


I have been very lucky that i'm able to work from home part-time, and am the primary 'at home' parent unschooling our son - I work as a freelance science writer and science communicator.  My husband works is a post-doc researcher at a Uni, and so that is fairly flexible also - on the odd occasions when I go away for work for a few days, it's fairly easy for him to stay home.

There are plenty of options though, as Pam outlined - i've considered working at night to make some extra cash in addition to working from home. Places like supermarkets, gas stations, etc, all offer evening work, and weekend work is also an option. I expect things will change for us over the years, our son is only 7.5 at the moment. We will just do what ever we can to make it work for unschooling.

Cheers
Jo 






CC: [email protected]
From: shellylm2003@...
To: [email protected]
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 13:39:50 -0700
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] Do I have to stay at home to unschool?

 

Hi! I have two boys, 9 and 11 years old. My husband and I both work jobs that are technically "full time",  although we are able to take extra days off and work shortened shifts regularly. We have worked different shifts over the years.  We have always chosen jobs/ shifts that enabled one of us to be home with the kids during the day.

 We are currently both on swing shifts (6pm-2am). My husband is off Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. I am off Wednesday and Thursday, so we only require childcare on Friday and Saturday nights. Because they are older now, they can get up and get breakfast while my husband and I sleep a bit longer. When they were younger, my husband and I worked opposite shifts so that somebody was able to be up early with them in the morning.

The best part of unschooling has been the sheer time that we are able to spend with our kids! If they were in a traditional school, they would be gone all day, come home, eat and do homework, and I would be leaving for work. Instead, we have all day to play computer and video games, ride bikes, read, hike, build cool stuff, go to park days with the local unschoolers group, meet ups and classes with local homeschool groups, and attend fun events and visit places around our city! Most events and meet ups are during the day.

Even though we have great people that we trust to care for our kids, they are not us. We speak with them extensively about our philosophy, but they don't have the relationships with our kids that we do and thus handle things differently. 

I think the key things that make unschooling work in our household with both of us having employment outside the home is: 
1.). Both my husband and I are equally enthusiast, informed, and committed to unschooling.
2.)  We are the primary caregivers for our children and are with them the majority of the time.

With Appreciation,

Shelly 



Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 14, 2013, at 9:22 AM, <anacarol.francisco@...> wrote:

 
Hello everybody,

I am new to the concept of unschooling (started researching about 3 months ago) but so far I'm in love with it. It all seems so natural, great really.

Only from what I've been reading it seems to me that one of the parents needs to stay at home if the kids are going to be unschooled. Is there anyone that unschools their kids and also has a job outside the house? I would like to hear how that works, so I can plan for my son to be unschooled when the time comes (he's only 1 y.o.).

Thanks in advance,
Carol

Robin Stevenson

I've worked part time since my son was born (he's nine now). We've done a few different things over the years:

-When our son was born, and until he was six, my partner reduced her hours to four days per week, so she could have more time at home with our son and I could have a work day. 
-I've taught at the university most years, and always asked for an evening class, so I could work when my partner was home.
-I've got an awesome mother who currently spends two days a week  with my son. She's fully in support of unschooling and they have a lovely relationship. I schedule any outside the home work for those two days.
-I work from home, mostly, as a writer. My hours are very flexible. When my son was younger and needed me to be doing stuff with him all the time, I got up early and wrote before he woke up. Now that he is nine, I can often write while he has a friend over or is deeply absorbed in an activity that doesn't involve me. 
-When my son was 6 or 7, and I had deadlines or had got myself into a situation where I'd taken on more work than I had time for, I hired a mother's helper (lovely 12 year old homeschooler) for a couple hours so that my son had someone to play with while I frantically typed away in the corner of the living room. He enjoyed his time with her. Later on we hired a university student one morning a week to do some Minecraft related programming with my son, which he loved, and which gave me some extra time to work. 

Overall, I'd say I've mostly worked anywhere from 12- 20 hours a week since he was a toddler, and while there have been stretches in which I could have used a bit more sleep, it's generally been great. I love having so much time with my son, and unschooling has made all of our lives happier and more relaxed and peaceful. And I love my work, and my son enjoys discussing the books I write and giving me ideas and celebrating at book launches... and I think it's good that he sees me pursuing a passion and making money doing something I love. 

<vijendranmarie@...>

 >>> What I am asking when I say "do I have to stay home" is really "is it possible to unschool (give your child the attention to unschool) even if I don't stay at home the whole day?". 


As an example of looking at things another way....


I sometimes stay 'at home' whilst my children are out and about with other people. Currently on Mondays a 70 year old wonderful lady who describes herself as their 'Dutch Grandma' comes and takes the children out for six hours. They go to museums, the swimming pool, the beach, her house and have a truly wonderful time. She is totally on board with 'being enthusiastic and sharing passions and speaking and playing in Dutch with the children' which was the only job description I gave her.


Does this mean that we are not to be described as unschoolers because I am not there with them during this time?


I believe they are having a wonderful, authentic, enriching life experience which I can't give them (if I was there, they would not speak Dutch). As they get older I hope that we will come across other people who will provide experiences that I cannot. Currently this is a language. Soon, for one child, it may well be work-shadowing an architect. 


The side benefit for me is that I am able to do small-time bits of work translating or admin related work for my very small business. 


So what I'm saying is, in a similar way to Joyce pointing out the many possibilities, family jigsaws evolve and come together in so many different ways. I believe there are no firm definitions that preclude an ability to work either inside or outside the home. And it is rarely about 'whether you stay at home the whole day'. 


The answer as so often, is 'it depends'.




Sherri Kirkpatrick

I started out working full-time for a family business where I was able to take my children with me occasionally if they wanted to go. Then I worked from home for a while but wasn't being paid enough to make ends meet so I got a part-time job which I've been at for four years this November. I should mention that I'm a single mom. 

My oldest two children are 20 & 18. The 20 year old lives on her own but the 18 year old along with my 11 year old still live at home. My oldest two children's father passed away about 5 1/2 years ago so I was getting Social Security benefits for both of them until they turned 18. I get child support for my youngest child. None of these were enough to live on so I still chose to work part-time to make ends meet. I would love to stay home full-time. 

Once I lost the SS benefits for my 18 year old, things got really tough. I discussed working full-time with my children asking them if they'd rather have me work full-time so we could stay in our rental home or would they rather have me continue working part-time and see what other options were available for me to do so. I talked to my mother who works full-time. We discussed getting a place together so that we could both help each other out. My aunt & uncle had a rental home that the renters were moving out of. It was perfect timing. My mom, my son, my youngest daughter, and I all moved in together. The rent is more than what both of us were paying but since we split the rent and all the utilities, it is cheaper in the long run. The house is also bigger than both of our two old homes put together so we have plenty of space for when we need our alone time or have friends over.

 It has helped me financially so that I can continue to work part-time and spend the majority of time with my children. It's helped my mom financially and also because my son helps by mowing the yard and with yard work as well as any other handyman job that needs done. I help with cooking dinner, dishes, laundry, and other cleaning so that my mom doesn't have to worry about those things. It's worked out really well for us. I work Mondays from 8am to 5pm, Fridays from 8am to 3pm, and then every other Saturday from 8am to 3pm. So, I'm only gone 2 to 3 days per week. Either my son or my mom are with my youngest daughter while I'm at work depending on their work schedules. However, I can also bring my youngest daughter with me on days that the doctor isn't in and we don't have patients. 

I work for a dental office. My daughter comes with me at least once a week on a day that it's just me in the office. She brings our laptop, notebook paper, pencils, crayons, and any other items that she wants. Those days are great because we can still be together even while I'm working. I still have time to spend with her in between my job duties. So, that is how we made it work in the beginning and how we make it work now. It may change again someday but that's what works for now. Well, my daughter just came in the room so I'm going to go spend time with her which is my favorite thing in the world to do. :-)

Brynna Rafferty-Brown

Our daughter is 1.5 years old and I've been doing bits and pieces of work and study since she was about 10 months old. My husband and I both work as researchers / tutors in the humanities at universities and I started back doing one subject a semester of my Masters when our daughter turned one.

Because both of our work arrangements are pretty flexible my husband has always come to my university class once a week with me and our daughter (uni is an hour drive away and class goes for three hours... way too long to go without a feed when she was little, she likes her milk!). If needs be, my husband would then make up a few extra hours on a Saturday. A couple of times when my husband had something on we brought some toys and she happily (in the main) sat through class with me.

One thing I loved (and still do!) about have uni readings to do and work that I can do on a laptop is that it means I have something to work on when our daughter naps during the day. As a result I have found it super easy to lie down with her for 1-3 hours while she naps without feeling like I wanted/needed to get up to do something. When I have time, I sometimes read a good book, but most of the time naps are a great chance to get some reading and/or work done while cuddling a beautiful sleeping bub :-) (I don't imagine it will work quite the same if/when number two comes along, but has been wonderful with our first!) I still manage to get some housework done, but that's almost always something I've done when my daughter has been awake (it sometimes takes a lot longer, but most of the time she loves being involved).

We also spend two days a week around at my parent's house when our daughter gets to play with her grandma. When she was smaller grandma would always stay at home with our daughter while I worked in my parent's study so I could see her regularly through the day. Now that she's a bit older and happy to go without a breastfeed for much longer they often go out to play somewhere and also visit my grandparents (her great grandparents) once a week. I also do some work at night and sometimes on the weekend.

My husband asked me the other day if I would still choose to work if he earnt twice as much as he currently does. I said that I might not do paid work, but would probably still be involved in something. The reasoning for me is not that I don't like the idea of spending almost all of my time with my daughter, but because I love the opportunities she has to spend time with her dad, grandma and great grandparents. As a result, she has a very close bond with all of them (and other family members) - something we've always wanted to let her have without feeling like she was ever forced to be away from me if she didn't want to be (in the early days I'd be lucky to get 2-3 hours of work done a day). Her dad and I are both committed to learning more about unschooling and her grandma is also interested and interacts with our daughter in a very similar way to us.

Neither of us know exactly what we'll end up doing further down the track (once our daughter is school age and/or we have more children) but I'm very comfortable with sticking to a 'bits and pieces' approach to work for the time being and always have an eye out for anything that looks flexible enough to fit in with our lifestyle. Another factor for us is that my husband may need to spend a few years overseas for work at some point, which is another reason I gravitate towards work that can be done from home / remotely.

--
Lombok Kids    www.iced.org.au/lombok-kids

Sandra Dodd

-=-My husband asked me the other day if I would still choose to work if he earnt twice as much as he currently does. I said that I might not do paid work, but would probably still be involved in something. The reasoning for me is not that I don't like the idea of spending almost all of my time with my daughter, but because I love the opportunities she has to spend time with her dad, grandma and great grandparents. As a result, she has a very close bond with all of them (and other family members) - something we've always wanted to let her have without feeling like she was ever forced to be away from me if she didn't want to be-=-

I was jealous, reading that. :-)

My mom was pretty worthless, with my children.  My sister's house was fun sometimes, but problematical 20 years ago in ways relating to safety and legality.  My husband's mother was critical and belittling and those were the only relatives in the state.   I would LOVE for my kids to have had safe, loving relatives outside our family.  There were other families in town we trusted and liked and knew, and we had a network of friends our kids knew too, but your account was sweet.

Sandra

<plaidpanties666@...>

 >>"is it possible to unschool (give your child the attention to unschool) even if I don't stay at home the whole day?"<<

It's going to depend on the specific needs of your child - and those are going to change a lot over time. Generally speaking, little kids need more direct attention than they will when they're older - if your little one isn't all that mobile yet, this may still be very theoretical for you ;) but toddlers, in particular, can take up a whole lot of time and attention because they're hugely interested in everything, can get to a lot of things, but still don't have the awareness to keep themselves safe. That doesn't necessarily mean staying home all the time - some kids like to be out and about, especially as toddlers, but others find outings stressful even when they're enjoyable. And many kids go through a stage where transitions are rough. Those are factors to take into consideration - sometimes it's better to mostly be at home, other times it can be better to mostly be out and about. 

 As they get older and better able to meet some of their own needs, they won't need as much attention - there's a handy chart here:
http://sandradodd.com/howto/precisely

Older kids and teens can take up a surprising amount of time if they have a lot of out-of-home interests, too! They don't need quite so much direct attention, but they'll need transportation and help figuring out how to do the things they want to do. 

Both my kids needed someone to be right there with them every waking moment for a few years, so during those years I was home with the kids. As they've gotten older and circumstances have changed, I've gone back to work and now my partner is home and self-employed, but finding ways to spend time with my daughter is still one of my priorities. 


---Meredith



---In [email protected], <[email protected]> wrote:

Hey guys thanks for the answers so far. Sorry I may have come out as "the crazy mom worrying about things years ahead of time" but I understand unschooling is a process I have to go through too. So I may as well start now. 


Semantics can be tricky. What I am asking when I say "do I have to stay home" is really "is it possible to unschool (give your child the attention to unschool) even if I don't stay at home the whole day?". I understand it is all about choices but apart from that I really want to hear more about experiences from parents who don't stay at home all the time, if there are any.


Carol



---In [email protected], <jfetteroll@...> wrote:

On Oct 14, 2013, at 12:22 PM, <anacarol.francisco@...> <anacarol.francisco@...> wrote:

> Do I have to stay at home to unschool?

I'm hearing a child say "Do I haaaaave to?" A respectful mom will then ask, "What do you want to do?"

What do you want to do?

Do you have feelings of unschooling making you stay home? Or your child? Or other unschoolers?

You may be thinking, "No, I meant ...." but because you've worded it as you did, you've wrapped feelings of unschooling (and your child) not letting you have a choice about staying home.

Unschooling itself is a choice. It's a choice to put as a priority your child's innate needs to grow up at home with her family as she learns about the world. And then you fit everything else around that including how you bring in enough money to live on. Some families pare back to the point where they can live on one person's income. Some split the work hours so one spouse works days the other nights. Some work from home. The possibilities are limited only by imagination (and then a bit by what's possible ;-))

If your priority is to work outside the home and fit unschooling into that, unschooling won't flow as well as it does for families who make unschooling their priority and fit everything else around unschooling.

Joyce

Jenny Cyphers

***What I am asking when I say "do I have to stay home" is really "is it possible to unschool (give your child the attention to unschool) even if I don't stay at home the whole day?". ***

I guess it greatly depends on the child.  I was young when I had my first child and she was easy going.  I worked part time for most of her life with times when I was the stay at home parent.  It would have been extremely difficult for my younger child, for me to work outside of the home, even part time.  

Fortunately my stay at home time coincided with her young childhood.  My kids are 19 and 12 and I've been working for the last 4 yrs.  For 8 yrs, I didn't have any outside the home work that was time consuming.  I've taught a few dance classes over that time, very part time to keep up with that skill set.

Unschooling has been the priority all along, so that has remained the constant.  It has been the compass in which we've made decisions.  

Needing to work to make ends meet sometimes has to happen for both parents, if there are 2.  If you can find a way to stay at home, it's definitely easier, even if you work from home!  That's my experience.  

For Unschooling to work, needs need to be met.  Sometimes kids NEED to have a parent home, sometimes kids are more flexible.  Sometimes families need more income than one person can provide.


Sandra Dodd

-=- The reasoning for me is not that I don't like the idea of spending almost all of my time with my daughter, -=-

If that's your priority, it will help you decide what to do.

If you want unschooling to work, and to be the best kind of parent you can be, it would probably help if you look at WHY you "don't like the idea" of spending almost all your time with your daughter.

-=-Another factor for us is that my husband may need to spend a few years overseas for work at some point, which is another reason I gravitate towards work that can be done from home / remotely.-=-

If he's going to be making twice as much as he makes now and you could afford to be a fulltime parent, especially in a different country, it could be really wonderful.  If you're overseas, the grandparents won't be as readily available.

Your question is a big one, in that it's far reaching and nebulous, but I want to focus on a seminal bit:  "Do I have to stay at home..."

"Do I have to?"


Anything you feel you "have to" do is entrapping and stiffling.
Something you *choose* to do can be empowering and enlivening.

Sandra

P.S....  going to lift that last big for a Just Add Light and Stir. :-)
Anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, here: http://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/


<braff16@...>

=- The reasoning for me is not that I don't like the idea of spending almost all of my time with my daughter, -=-

>> If you want unschooling to work, and to be the best kind of parent you can be, it would probably help if you >> look at WHY you "don't like the idea" of spending almost all your time with your daughter. 


I agree that someone who didn't like spending almost all their time with their daughter should reflect on that if they want to unschool. My original point was that that's *not* my reasoning... I would happily spend almost all my time with my daughter, but I really value the opportunities she has to spend time with other family members. If we didn't have that opportunity, I would happily be with my daughter every day, but I feel like she grows and learns in different ways by being able to spend time one-on-one with people other than me as well.


>> If he's going to be making twice as much as he makes now and you could afford to be a fulltime parent, 

>> especially in a different country, it could be really wonderful. If you're overseas, the grandparents won't 

>> be as readily available.


It would be lovely if he was going to be making twice as much money as he is now, but unfortunately that was just a hypothetical! If we do end up going overseas it will be for my husband to complete a PhD, so chances are he'll be making a lot less money than he is now. We don't yet know which country we're likely to end up in or for exactly how long, but the chances of a PhD at all are fairly high. So keeping my eye out for flexible, can-travel kind of work now is my way of building up links and connections with people and work places that I can draw on when we move. We both know we want to unschool our daughter, we both know we're likely to be more nomadic and poorer in a couple of years time and that grandparents are much less likely to be around to help us out. Rather than waiting for all of that to happen we're both trying to think of ways we can do little things now that will hopefully make things easier and more do-able then.



---In [email protected], <Sandra@...> wrote:

-=- The reasoning for me is not that I don't like the idea of spending almost all of my time with my daughter, -=-

If that's your priority, it will help you decide what to do.

If you want unschooling to work, and to be the best kind of parent you can be, it would probably help if you look at WHY you "don't like the idea" of spending almost all your time with your daughter.

-=-Another factor for us is that my husband may need to spend a few years overseas for work at some point, which is another reason I gravitate towards work that can be done from home / remotely.-=-

If he's going to be making twice as much as he makes now and you could afford to be a fulltime parent, especially in a different country, it could be really wonderful.  If you're overseas, the grandparents won't be as readily available.

Your question is a big one, in that it's far reaching and nebulous, but I want to focus on a seminal bit:  "Do I have to stay at home..."

"Do I have to?"


Anything you feel you "have to" do is entrapping and stiffling.
Something you *choose* to do can be empowering and enlivening.

Sandra

P.S....  going to lift that last big for a Just Add Light and Stir. :-)
Anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, here: http://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/


Meredith Novak

<< I would happily spend almost all my time with my daughter, but I really value the opportunities she has to spend time with other family members. If we didn't have that opportunity, I would happily be with my daughter every day, but I feel like she grows and learns in different ways by being able to spend time one-on-one with people other than me as well.<<
What does your daughter want? If she's happy spending time with you, and you're happy being with her, that's great. If she's happy also doing things with other people and there are other people around who want to hang out with her, that's great, too. It doesn't have to be all one thing or all the other, and it will very likely change over time. Don't get so bogged down trying to second-guess what's going to work for your kid in a year, two years, five years! It's not possible to do that much advance planning - you don't, Can't know how and when your child is going to change and grow, what's going to be interesting or important to her in the future.  
>>We both know we want to unschool our daughter, we both know we're likely to be more nomadic and poorer in a couple of years time and that grandparents are much less likely to be around to help us out. Rather than waiting for all of that to happen we're both trying to think of ways we can do little things now that will hopefully make things easier and more do-able then.<<
If you know you want to home/unschool, plan to be available to your kid. Make that part non-negotiable. How it actually works out might change a whole lot over time - in the past decade my family has been through a number of different arrangements in terms of who's home and/or working at home, and when and how much - full time, full time packed into three days, part time, multiple part-time jobs, assorted ways of working from home, self-employment... it keeps changing as our lives and the world around us change, It helps to have a really solid sense of what's most important to you and be really flexible around that. 

Planning different kinds of work may or may not work out - and there's no way to predict that because you can't predict what kind of time and energy your child will need from you as she grows. She may need lots of attention some times. Or lots of running around to different activities. Or lots of time to socialize with other people. Or lots of regularity and predictability. Or a lot of help with transitions. Or a lot of time to focus. Any of those things can put a kink in your plans if you're trying to fit her needs in around your work - that's why it's important to be really solid about your priorities, so when what you imagine your life will be doesn't match up to the reality of your child's needs, you know where to put your energy. 
---Meredith

Sandra Dodd

-=- Don't get so bogged down trying to second-guess what's going to work for your kid in a year, two years, five years! It's not possible to do that much advance planning - you don't, Can't know how and when your child is going to change and grow, what's going to be interesting or important to her in the future.  -=-

(a little bit of new writing)