Knowing What We’re About

Photo by Kévin et Laurianne Langlais on Unsplash

We are waking up to our duties, and in proportion as mothers become more highly educated and efficient, they will doubtless feel the more strongly that the education of their children during the first six years of life is an undertaking hardly to be entrusted to any hands but their own. And they will take it up as their profession–that is, with the diligence, regularity, and punctuality which men bestow on their professional labors. 

That a mother may know what she’s about, may come thoroughly furnished to her work, she should have something more than a hearsay acquaintance with the theory of education, and with those conditions of the child’s nature upon which such theory rests. (Vol.1, pp. 2-3)

Have you ever heard a seasoned homeschool mom talk about homeschooling? Or maybe you’ve seen something she’s shared on social media, read something she’s written in a previous issue of Common Place Quarterly, or asked her a question about homeschooling your small children and you wonder at or covet her confidence? Recently I had a younger mom ask me to come to her home monthly during her children’s naptime. She told me that while her kids are still young, she does want to homeschool them and said “I just feel like I could learn so much from you.”  

I had to glance over my shoulder to make sure she wasn’t talking to someone else. So much to learn from me? This middle place is funny, as I know I’ve learned a good deal—but I am also very much aware of the fact that I’m still learning far more.

Confidence is defined as, “the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust,” and “the state of feeling certain about the truth of something,” and “a feeling of self-assurance arising from one's appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities.” I will venture to say that seasoned homeschool moms don’t necessarily have confidence in themselves. I certainly wouldn’t use the word “confident” to describe myself. We have confidence in the method of education we are using, we know we can rely on the principles, and we feel certain that both Christ and the Holy Spirit can guide us.

What does it take for a mother to know what she’s about? Charlotte Mason tells us that it’s understanding an educational philosophy and knowing your “born-persons.” This is work only we can do ourselves. We can be inspired by others, get a vision for what that can look like for us by coming alongside others, but the work is ours to do. In George MacDonald’s short story, The Wise Woman, we can pick up a few key points of advice that I think might also be the “secrets” of a seasoned homeschool mom: 1) Think of others, 2) Learn to work, and 3) Come to the end of yourself. We can spend years learning about Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy, we can know ourselves and our children pretty well, but all this will eventually lead us to humility when we come to the end of ourselves. 

Humility maybe looks like confidence in a mother who knows how to carry it.

When my oldest started high school, I found myself prereading The Betrothed between hospital visits due to my ruptured appendix. I roll my eyes at myself now, considering the pain meds I was on. I don’t think I remembered much of what I read, but I was holding my place. My daughter needed me. I was a critical ingredient to her learning—only I wasn’t. Everytime I came home from a hospital stay (and there were many), she carried on. She didn’t need me, not like that, anyway. She had taken ownership of her education. In my absence—maybe because of it—she grew.

As my next child is ready for high school, I’m reminded of my place in his education and the shift that is coming. “There is no education but self-education,” Mason says, and these are the years in which we begin to experience this truth. The upper years have nothing to do with me in many ways. A mother who knows what she’s about, who has put in the work to know the principles of an educational philosophy and her born-persons, will undoubtedly produce children who also know what they are about. That is not to say they won’t have struggles or have things they must wrestle through, but they will know how to learn—they will know of the feast.

In many ways, our roles as guide, philosopher, and friend remain the same; they expand and contract at the same time. It’s a paradox, no doubt. A mother who knows what she’s about will doubtless feel her duties are not over after the first six years of her children’s lives, nor are they done in the upper years, nor after they graduate. Waking up to our duties, it turns out, is a continual process of loving, grieving (for if you love, you grieve), helping, letting go, and leaning on the One with Whom our confidence rests.

Mariah Kochis 2024