But had to blog again 😉
Just got back from Reading Group and wanted to enthuse again about how much I’m enjoying it really. Ironically given how many of my old pleasures I have recently given up and forgone I am very happy right now. I had my low period a couple of weeks ago but have reevaluated and am feeling very positive and in love with my life again.
The children seem to have shifted slightly again – and as I touched on in a post yesterday much though I would never wish their lives away and each phase and stage has brought with it great joys and new experiences when I pictured myself as a mother when I was a child it was never with baby at breast or small helpless crawling individuals, it was always with a ‘family’ of older children. I like people, I am fascinated by getting to know others, finding out about them, their history, what makes them tick, what their thoughts and motivations are. I think that is why Home Ed and specifically autonomous Home Ed suit me so well actually. Much though it is a joke subject the A level I found most enjoyable was Sociology – and I was bloody good at it too. And being at home with two ‘people’ rather than feeling like a child carer suits me way better than the pureeing carrots and clapping whilst three building block towers were made. I am finally feeling like I might be coming into my own with this whole thing rather than feeling like an amateur who is ‘coping well’.
I am also really enjoying the CV work I’m getting. Obviously the money is very welcome, as is the pyschology of feeling I am financially contributing something to the home again (as opposed to my track record of spending it! 😉 ) and the feeling of usefulness and ability over and above being Mummy that it brings, but it also appears to be something I am really rather good at too. And not surprisingly given my past working life and my love of marketing, interest in people and ability to spin doctor / talk bullshit / write copious amounts about really very little! Match made in heaven really!
And for the first time ever I have an interest and life not just outside of my relationship with Ady but also outside of the rest of the family. I love my friendships with HE mates – local and national, I love my friendships with people like Julie and Lucy but I am really enjoying going along to Reading Group once a month and sitting with people who know nothing about me other than what they see in that couple of hours. They know I am married with children but they are just peripheral cast members who are not seen, they do not know I Home Educate, I write CVs, I am hugely in debt etc etc. They are judging me purely on what I say and do in regard to the books we have been reading and with every month that passes I grow more confident and articulate in what I bring to the group. It has achieved exactly what I wanted it to in terms of broadening my reading horizons – both in the books I have read for group and in the books I have chosen independantly, it has changed the way I read things too and brought back one of the things I recall enjoying in English lessons at school which was reading something and then debating it, finding out how others interpreted the words, what conclusions and pictures they drew from it and so on.
So tonight it was only 5 of us there – Mike, who normally comes with his wife Rose (the English Teacher) but she was ill today, Sandy the cool Canadian, The blonde accountant who squashed reading group inbetween the gym and parents evening for one of her children, the retired lady who normally reads Chick-lit, and me. We discussed Brian Keenan’s An Evil Cradling in a lively and debating manner and came away with the book for next month which is by a local author who is coming along to Reading Group in a couple of months time – Simon Brett – so it seemed only right that we’d at least read one of his books before he arrived.
Anyway, that sort of ran out of steam as my dinner was ready and I reiterated it all to Ady and got real life nods and hurrahs in the right places, but what the hell, I’ll press publish anyway! 🙂
Oi! The social sciences are far from a joke!
Nothing could encourage me back to the world of small babies, toddlers, pregnancy, breastfeeding and all that. Nothing.
Comment by Heather — 19 April 2006 @ 8:35 am
Very similar feelings here, both in terms of finally becoming the thinking/talking/loving parent I imagined I might be, not just some kind of nursemaid. Also the interests for myself outside the family. Feels like the balance has shifted in a good way over the last 6 months or so.
Comment by Ali — 19 April 2006 @ 8:35 am