The Homeschooling Matryoshka Doll

When I think about packing, I realize that I am not only leaving behind furniture, clothes, and decorations.  I’m going to leave behind my identity as a homeschooling mom. This is no small identity to wave goodbye to. I began when my eldest was a little kindergartener during the 2020 pandemic, when he tried to do online schooling.  My preschool closed, and I chose a path my heart had secretly been dying to try.

I loved taking hours to explore curriculum options, create project based learning units, tie Magic Treehouse Books into history lessons, field trips to museums and zoos and many, many hours at libraries. I was witness to them both learning to read, conducting science experiments, and mastering multiplication. My boys were able to have this gorgeous, slower paced childhood. They had more time each day to figure out what they enjoyed doing and learning about, even if they never realized it.  

When I allowed them time and space to ‘be bored’, Will ventured to juggling and playing soccer, and Colin usually ended up building Legos or crafting some type of contraption. They pursued sports at a high level with enough rest time in their days to recover. They both enjoyed making messy art and listening to audiobooks.  I have their stories narrated into typed google docs, photo books of our snack fueled nature hikes, and poems I wrote dockside while they played by the lakehouse in Virginia. 

We met wonderful homeschooling families in Virginia and in Colorado. I pulled strength and inspiration from so many of the homeschool moms I’ve met over the years.  There were weekly park days, field trips together, swapping curriculum ideas, helping each other break out of ruts. We led nature classes, tried new hobbies, and spent summers exploring things like woodworking, blacksmithing, and sword camps.

I will miss the extended time with my children that I was gifted by homeschooling. It truly is a gift that I hold so close to my heart.  I get teary eyed thinking of how lucky I am, and how genuinely happy I was to spend so much time together with my boys. 

And yet- I am choosing a new identity now. One that cannot quite coexist with homeschooling mom Maggie. When I imagine packing our bags for Barcelona and stepping into this new chapter, I know she can’t come along exactly as she is. Like any living creature, we all continue to grow and change. It means we are alive.  And for me to feel fully alive, I feel a pull to say goodbye to this younger version of myself. 

Or perhaps it’s not a goodbye. Perhaps we carry all of the versions of ourselves, like a Matryoshka doll. She will exist in my memories, and hopefully in the hearts of my sons. She will shine on weekends when we explore museums, or visit nearby countries and learn about the history of Europe in person. We can appreciate architecture and art history in Barcelona. She will still read aloud chapter books during downtime, and continue musical education of the 1990s. But in some aspects, I’ve outgrown her. 

I’m ready for so much new personal growth.  I want to learn a new language. I want to assimilate. I want to experience a more relaxed nervous system induced by a slower pace of life. I have experienced different environments in the past decade of moving from Northern Virginia, to rural southern Virginia, and then to Boulder, Colorado. I’ve learned that my nervous system is absolutely affected by the people and places I place myself near.  Nature and access to beautiful outdoor areas greatly improves my mood.  Being close to water is even better.  Barcelona has both! 

The idea of time to myself during the day is very alluring. I have been a stay at home mom, often part-time teaching preschool, and always full time homeschooling, for the past 11 years. There is no alone time, and no off hours. For the first time ever, I can imagine the kids going to school and feel something other than gut-wrenching guilt and sadness.  They will gain not only a solid education, but also a second language and an entirely new cultural perspective. They will grow up realizing that the American Dream is not the only dream.  Maybe they’ll learn something I’ve slowly come to believe about parenting, school choice, and life: there are many good ways to live, not just one right path for everyone.

So with a slightly broken schoolteacher’s heart, I admit that very little curriculum will be packed for this move. I’m sure I’ll sneak in some math fact spinners and a few absolute favorite books. I will share my packing lists another day, since I know many people are curious about what we will choose to bring.