Welcoming Wisdom as a Homeschooler

The leaves are turning and there’s a bit of chill in the air. The days are slowly shortening – in the early morning, when I get up to make coffee, I light a candle or two to brighten up my counter. While some kids are hopping on the bus to head off to school, my own kids are settling into cozy nooks at home with their books all around them. We started our homeschool year at the beginning of September with plenty of reading, hot cups of tea, and long, rambling lectures on medieval heroes.

Homeschooling is one of the great joys of motherhood for me. Not only because while doing it I get to spend so much time with my favorite people, but also because it gives me an opportunity to point them towards the wisdom of my elders. It’s a glorious opportunity to introduce my children to their grandparents in a whole new way.

Generations in Community

Talking to my mom recently, she mentioned that she gets a lot of questions from her friends about homeschooling and homeschooled kids. Since she didn’t homeschool, she’s actually in a great position to answer these questions. Parents who have homeschooled sometimes get a little defensive – we expect to get a little pushback from society. But as a grandma, she can let them know exactly what she sees in our schooling and what she thinks about it.

My kids love inviting their grandparents to join them at riding lessons, holiday parties, or after-Mass socials. Last year they were able to come along to our community’s Halloween party. My mom spent the whole time holding babies for new moms, while my dad talked trucks and politics with middle-aged dads. It’s that multi-generational aspect of homeschooling that shows my kids the value and deep understanding their grandparents have for the world at large.

Of course, families who send their kids to school can include grandparents as well! But – at least in our community – it feels more natural than it ever did when I went to school. Because we are in control of our schedule, it can change to prioritize family.

Homeschoolers can also exclude their older relatives, just like everyone else. Sometimes, especially when homeschooling parents don’t feel supported by their own parents, it’s easy to try to shut them out. But even parents who do have reservations about your schooling choices have a lot to offer. Give them a chance to spend time during the typical school day with your children, invite them to tell stories or share information from their own experience.

A Wealth of Experience

One of my favorite memories from childhood is my father’s trunk. He had a big, black trunk upstairs. Most of the time it was locked, but every now and then he would gather us around him and open the trunk. There were photos from his childhood, newspaper clippings, his stamp collection, coins from around the world, and other treasures.

Each time we opened the trunk, we would notice something different: a photo of my dad riding a camel in Egypt, a picture of him in his student-uprising days, a traditional, Latin Missal from his time in Minor-Seminary.

Each item had a story. I learned about the history of my family from that trunk. I learned about life in the 1950s and ’60s. I heard stories that later helped me understand my history and theology classes. Most importantly, I learned to see people as rich and nuanced individuals – full of beautiful surprises.

When I include my parents in our schooling, my primary goal is to inspire this view of them in my own children. I like to tell stories in which their grandparents shine, and encourage time doing puzzles, making crafts, or listening to the stories my parents like to tell. My parents and in-laws have taken the kids to museums, out fishing, or worked alongside them on our homestead.

Not all grandparents are a wealth of wisdom, it’s true, but all of them are a wealth of experience. It’s a joy to give my kids an opportunity to learn from that wealth, and to give my parents an opportunity to see themselves bearing “fruit in old age … fresh and flourishing” (Psalm 92:14–15) among their children and grandchildren.

A Few Ideas

Of course, not all parents are homeschooling, and not all grandparents have the freedom to spend a lot of time with their grandchildren. Whether your children are learning with you, or going off to school, you can still find ways to build a relationship of respect and inspiration between them and their grandparents.

Respecting our elders isn’t about saying “yes sir” or caving to family pressure. It’s about respecting the person himself – flaws and all. No one is perfect, and adult children often have an easier time seeing our parents’ failings than we do their virtues. If that’s all our kids hear from us about their grandparents, they’ll focus on the failings too.

Often, the culture and media encourage this negative view of our parents. But if we give our children the opportunity to know “grandpa” or “grandma” as a person, not just as another baby boomer, they’ll learn that lumping people into labels is the worst way to honor their human dignity. And they’ll learn that history is simply a collection of individual lives woven together into a tapestry of Salvation.