One muggy July evening my eleven-year old son surprised me with a question. “Is Santa real, Mommy?” he asked, with saucer-big eyes. The question itself wasn’t all that surprising. I’d known for quite a while that he was getting ready to say goodbye to that magical part of his childhood. The previous Christmas, his letter […]
The Santa Secret
Last year. Christmastime. My oldest son, nearly 11, was wavering in his beliefs about Santa. Dear Santa, he wrote, It’s getting harder to believe, but I’m trying to have faith. I was pretty sure this was the last Christmas he’d be able to hang on to the magic of Santa. But what then? How would […]
Parenting: A Sky-Diving Kind of Adventure
Several years back, when my youngest was still an infant, we had a mother’s helper with a thrill-seeking streak. Her dearest wish was to experience sky diving. One morning, she practically floated in the door. “I’m doing it! I’m going skydiving this weekend!” she announced. My pint-sized compatriots couldn’t wait to hear how it went. […]
An Open Letter to the Schoolchildren in my Homeschooled Kids’ Lives
My children have been unschooling for five years now. In many ways, our experience has been quite different from those who take a more traditional homeschooling approach. But there’s one thing that homeschoolers of every sort have in common… being misunderstood by the mainstream From the age-old socialization question to worries about how our kids […]
On Unschooling and Math
My oldest, Thomas, has just entered sixth grade – at least, according to the public school that oversees our unschooling adventure. The last time he had anything remotely resembling a formal math lesson was when he was five years old, and I was still in my “we’re doing things exactly like school, but in a […]