My kids don’t grow up with the internet, because the internet is a tool and you don’t always need it. We do have a computer, but we’re more likely to consult an encyclopedia than Google.
There’s three of them, and they all have names like Willow or River or Peter. It’s easier for me to come up with girls’ names, but there’s a chance that two of them are boys.
And they’re homeschooled, at least until middle school.
I still abide by the things I learned about Early Childhood Education as an undergrad: Children need individual attention, and they need a teacher who can be intentional about developing curriculum that meets their specific needs. I can’t expect anyone else to give that to my children better than I can.
And children learn by play. They learn by exploration and discovery, not instruction. They learn by touching things and making messes. I believe in that Montessori idea that kids need real materials. Kids learn by being alive and making sense of life. So I want my kids to have real, dirty, exhilarating lives.
We live in a farmhouse at the top of a hill, and our back porch overlooks the hills that might become mountains somewhere in the distance. They’re probably the Allegheny or Appalachians, but could be the Rockies. During summer nights, we watch the sunset from here. The sky turns peach and then lavender and then mellows into a deep and starry darkness. River runs barefoot and catches fireflies.
Our land stretches across a grassy field from the farmhouse to a creek, where the kids frolic during the summertime and watch tadpoles turn into frogs. Our land is surrounded by the forest, where the kids build tree forts and identify bugs and make up adventures.
We have chickens and possibly goats but probably not horses, and a garden large enough that we rarely buy produce. We grow most of our own food and sew our own clothes. My babies don’t just learn “red” and “round,” they learn tomatoes. They learn chicken feathers and sewing needles and tree bark. They learn fractions and adjectives. They learn constellations and mountain ranges and world history. They learn what happens to eggs between the henhouse and the breakfast table. My kids don’t learn arbitrary concepts, they just understand being alive.
And I’m not solely responsible for their education, because education is part of life and life is done best in community. My husband is a pastor, and he leads his family first. Sometimes I tear up when I see the way he loves our kids, because that’s the way that God loves me.
We both wake up with the sun and write in the office, which is a big octagonal room on the corner of the house with a thick red carpet and a bay window with tulle curtains that billow softly in the breeze. He’s working on a sermon, I’m just journaling.
Anyway—he’s home a couple days a week, so he can take the kids. It seems like he spends more time watching them do silly things he can use as sermon illustrations than he does actually writing his sermons.
And most of the other families in the area homeschool, and we often get our kids together for a lesson or a learning experience. A few of the other families have older kids who need me as a writing tutor. After class the kids run outside and the moms and I sit on the porch drinking tea and debating about Rousseau and W.E.B. DuBois and Paulo Freire.
And I only have the energy to homeschool because I’m living a secret life.
My husband and I met in the city, when I was 24, and had a job in a big building with lots of glass. I did something involving buildings and a lot of paper. We got married when I was 25 or 26, and I had Willow when I was almost 28. But by then the city was taking its toll on both of us, and when he was called to pastor a church in this shockingly intellectual and diverse little town we were both happy to raise our kids somewhere simpler.
But part of me still craves the city. I still want skyscrapers and headlights and high heels and crosswalks. I still want boardroom meetings. My life in the farmhouse is perfect, but sometimes I crave chaos. I’m restless without the city, and I’m not a good mother when part of me still aches for something more.
It’s a good thing that somehow, by the time my husband and I got married, I was acclaimed enough that I could have a career in journalism or academia on my own terms. I can do my writing and thinking at the farmhouse where my thoughts are like the still water of the creek or the wind through the forest, crisp and beautiful and true. I can write everything by hand, and then use a typewriter for my final drafts. Editors hate me, but I’m powerful enough that they learn to live with it.
And then, a few days a week, I drive back into the city to do research or meet with editors or attend (or give?) lectures. I might keep my own last name. I don’t make as much as I would if I worked full-time, but we joke that I’m the breadwinner and he’s the bread-of-life-winner.
When Willow turns eight, I start bringing her into the city with me for gymnastics or cello or dance. She’ll either be a human rights activist or study something pretentious at Swarthmore—so I guess we’ll have to move back to the city someday. I need her to live an imperfect life so that she learns to be tough enough to stand for something. Struggle is just as real as paradise. And I don’t want self-absorbed kids.
But we’re not there yet. We’re still sitting on the back porch of the farmhouse as the sun sets. My husband and I are still alone in the front room. The kids are still reading in the woods and doing math at the kitchen table. We’re still counting eggs and writing novels and outlining sermons. It’s still 2037 and always will be.