Homeschooling and Career

[Montessortof]

Hi everyone,

I've been lurking here off and on for a while, but this is my first post. I have a son who is two and a half years old, and he goes to Montessori school. I really love the idea of homeschooling, and I have several friends who homeschool, but I am not certain whether it can really work for our family situation. I'm trying to look ahead to the kindergarten or first grade stage and gather ideas at this point.

There are two reasons I'm not a SAHM right now. The main one is that I just don't have the personality to spend my whole day with an infant or toddler. I love my son, and I hope to have more children, but I just cannot cope with the monotony of full-time care for very young children. I am significantly happier spending time with kids age five and up, though.

The second reason is that I really love my career, and am still in the getting-it-off-the-ground stages. I don't want to be too specific, but I am on a career path that is very unfriendly to long gaps in the early stages of the career. If I went away for more than a few months, it would be basically impossible for me to ever come back to this career. I would have to find something different.

At the same time, my career is extremely flexible with day-to-day scheduling. There are very few things that I have to be in the office for, a total of maybe 10 hours a week spread over different days. Aside from that, I can do all my work at whatever time I please, on whatever days I please, from home or in the office. Nobody will check up on me, or care where I am.

I should add that my husband has the same career as me, with the same flexibility and constraints, and he is equally on-board with the homeschooling idea.

What I'm interested in right now is whether you, or anyone you know, has managed to combine homeschooling with full-time careers/jobs for both parents. How has that worked out? What kind of support is necessary? Do you hire full-time or part-time childcare and/or tutors? Do the parents ever have time for each other, despite essentially working two jobs each (the paid one and the childcare/teacher role)? Does work tend to fall by the wayside? Does school tend to fall by the wayside?

I appreciate any personal experiences you'd like to share, or suggestions.

Thanks so much!

Hanah

[Forsanda]

I can't answer all of your questions, but I know that there are lots of parents who homeschool at "unconventional" times of the day or days of the week. Hopefully, they will chime in.

I think that if your career is flexible, then you can still homeschool and be successful. You don't have to spend your entire day teaching and/or entertaining your son. There is sooooo much out there in terms of activities and programs. Check around your city.

HTH.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

[Mere]

I am guessing that perhaps you are in the same career track as I am .  All I have to say is YES you can do it.  Having flexibility is the absolute key here; if you have two parents who have such flexibility, well, you are set.  I have a very wonderful babysitter who is somewhat flexible, but does have regular hours with us during the day.  She was homeschooled herself, so she totally gets it.  She takes the kids to the library, hikes with other homeschoolers, whatever.  She works for us two full days a week, and then my mother-in-law fills in for another half to full day.  Also, as the kids get older they are easier to hand off to friends if there are activities scheduled for a time when I need to work.  I generally work from home, so I'm around to orchestrate things on the days the sitter works.  Some days I don't get as much done as I need to, so I finish up at night.  No big deal. 

Anyhow, I don't know if I answered your questions or not, but I can just assure you that homeschooling and working a flexible job is no problem!

[MommaCrystal]

I'd say we are doing it.  My husband has a full time career in IT and works from home 3 days a week.  I run a business that I THOUGHT would be part-time... but really, when you run your own business you run it full time plus.  I'm a photographer.  My shoots take place out of the house and very in length.  A wedding can drag me away for 10 hours or so while a portrait session is more like 3.  I shoot in the early afternoon and on weekends.

During the week I get up at 5 and work until about 7 when the kids get up.  Then my husband and I tag team getting the day rolling, cleaning, chores, breakfast, etc.  We get our school work out of the way by lunch and then the kids usually go outside for an hour or an hour and a half.  I tidy up, answer emails, edit, etc.  They then take a 45 minute rest and I continue working.  Of course I have an infant too so this is all interrupted for nursing, napping on me, etc.  Then the older two are up and running and I just keep right on going with the housework and the business stuff. Lots of days we are off to activities like Karate or Soccer. Then dinner comes, bath, bed... all of that.  Unless I have a deadline I try not to work after dinner.  That's family time.  Once the kids are in bed that is hubby time. 

This is my routine more or less 6 days a week.  Though we don't usually do school work on the weekends.  Some days I have to work less because we have activities or field trips or whatever.

We make it work!  It's rough sometimes.  I make rules for myself.  If my child needs me or wants my attention I will stop working and give it to them.  I tell them that if they need mommy to stop working I will do my best to make that happen.  They really appreciate that. 

It's crazy!  I couldn't do it with the absolute support of my husband.  He helps me with the back end of my business a lot!  He does my books and keeps my website, blog, and galleries running - all the technical stuff.  That helps me so much because that can be

[phathui5]

My husband works conventional hours, 8am to 5pm. My doula/midwifery student deal has (naturally) unconventional hours which mostly work themselves around his hours. For the times that our work overlaps, we have a list of babysitters.

We make time for each other and our marriage has stayed strong.