This is a major concern.
Living in squalor is DEPRESSING.
A couple of thoughts on this. If you would like to homeschool, but keeping some order and tidiness in your life has been the primary reason to NOT homeschool, I think there are some possibilties to look at.
Firstly, private education is expensive. There's a reason for that. It's expensive to run a school, maintenance, staffing, resources. I'm grateful that we have the freedom to choose how we educate our kids, and education, whatever we decide for our family, is going to have a price tag attached to it, whether it's through taxes, treasure, time or talent.
Consider the cost: a minimum of $300 per child per month on private education - there is some serious hired help available for that kind of monthly expense. We don't need to feel guilty about getting support for whatever we need in our home life.
Paying for support isn't always an option. Home education necessitates a parent being at home...so in that case there are two ideas that, in my opinion, both need to be in place to make household order a reality. The first is streamlining our homes, our schedules and our workload. The primary deterrent to getting anything done around the house is simply the amount of STUFF we are drowning in.
We actually don't need all the stuff. Even if you aren't for a moment considering homeschooling, you will benefit from culling anything you don't use or that doesn't bring you joy - out of your life.
It's possible to do this without cracking up, even if you have a bunch of little kids. Read "Sink Reflections" by Marla Cilley. It will change your life. One little step at a time.
The second idea is getting support for what we do. Support takes on a lot of different forms, and while addressing all these concerns, I'll also address the forms of support and how we can get it. In the case of housework, sometimes that means as a couple, when you sit down and make some decisions about your children's education, an honest conversation about what that looks like and what you might need to make it work is vital.
When our kids were small, my request was pretty simple. I needed to have a shower and an empty dishwasher before he left for work. Sometimes it's something completely different, but reflection and discussion of what our basic needs are can make a big difference when we make the decision to homeschool our kids.
Living in squalor is DEPRESSING.
A couple of thoughts on this. If you would like to homeschool, but keeping some order and tidiness in your life has been the primary reason to NOT homeschool, I think there are some possibilties to look at.
Firstly, private education is expensive. There's a reason for that. It's expensive to run a school, maintenance, staffing, resources. I'm grateful that we have the freedom to choose how we educate our kids, and education, whatever we decide for our family, is going to have a price tag attached to it, whether it's through taxes, treasure, time or talent.
Consider the cost: a minimum of $300 per child per month on private education - there is some serious hired help available for that kind of monthly expense. We don't need to feel guilty about getting support for whatever we need in our home life.
Paying for support isn't always an option. Home education necessitates a parent being at home...so in that case there are two ideas that, in my opinion, both need to be in place to make household order a reality. The first is streamlining our homes, our schedules and our workload. The primary deterrent to getting anything done around the house is simply the amount of STUFF we are drowning in.
We actually don't need all the stuff. Even if you aren't for a moment considering homeschooling, you will benefit from culling anything you don't use or that doesn't bring you joy - out of your life.
It's possible to do this without cracking up, even if you have a bunch of little kids. Read "Sink Reflections" by Marla Cilley. It will change your life. One little step at a time.
The second idea is getting support for what we do. Support takes on a lot of different forms, and while addressing all these concerns, I'll also address the forms of support and how we can get it. In the case of housework, sometimes that means as a couple, when you sit down and make some decisions about your children's education, an honest conversation about what that looks like and what you might need to make it work is vital.
When our kids were small, my request was pretty simple. I needed to have a shower and an empty dishwasher before he left for work. Sometimes it's something completely different, but reflection and discussion of what our basic needs are can make a big difference when we make the decision to homeschool our kids.