Rachel Starr Thomson

Anita Mellott is a homeschooling mother and a regular columnist for Home School Enrichment, an excellent magazine which I’ve been copyediting for the last five or six years. Anita’s columns are always encouraging, authentic, and marked by devotion to the Lord first and foremost. When she contacted me about permission to include some of my homeschool grad experience in her upcoming book, I was excited to hear that she was making the leap from “columnist” to “author.”

Anita’s book, School Is Where the Home Is: 180 Devotions for Parents (Judson Press, 2011) is a devotional book specifically designed for homeschool parents, especially mothers. It’s written in the familiar devotional style with a line of Scripture, a short, personal story from Anita’s homeschooling experience that applies the Scripture, and a “digging deeper” follow-up question and Scripture.

The stories Anita tells deal with issues of teaching, character, parent-child and husband-wife relationships, and especially keeping Jesus Christ at the center of our homeschools, as well as the rest of our lives. The book is delivered with Anita’s trademark authenticity, encouraging tone, and smooth writing.

One thing I did pick up while reading the book is that the stories and lessons will be most applicable in families where homeschooling is on the formal side of the spectrum, with the mother or father actively involved in teaching, reviewing, and grading. For families like mine, where education was much more informal and student-led, there are fewer spot-on insights—but the overall principles of exalting the Lord, gaining our vision from him, and using homeschooling as in-home discipleship hold true for everyone.

Once upon a time, a blonde and blue-eyed family of girls (three, to be exact, all with names starting with “N”) left old ways behind and lined up at the foot of the stairs for their first school picture as a homeschooling family. They had desks, organized bookshelves, maps and pictures on the walls, and a placard proclaiming “School Room.”

Well, most of us homeschoolers know how that goes. The Wickham family soon gave up trying to be like a school and got more focused on being a home that teaches, and Pajama School — Natalie Wickham’s memoir of homeschooling, getting to know God, and learning to lead — was born.

I came away from Pajama School feeling like I’d gotten to know Natalie, who is just a little older than I am and has had a journey in some ways like mine and in other ways very different. The book is steeped in the perspective not just of a homeschooler, but of a homeschooler who grew up connected to ATI (Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute), which is a subculture all its own. In many ways I enjoyed that aspect, which reminded me of dear friends who were also brought up in ATI and who, like Natalie, found places of service within that ministry as young adults.

In fact, Pajama School focuses far more on those experiences of service as a young adult — with ATI in Children’s Institutes and at the beginning stages of the Character First! program, in politics, in running a tea shop, and in teaching — than it does on the childhood experiences I expected from the title. This is less a homeschooling book and more the record of one homeschooler’s spiritual journey. More than anything, Pajama School is a memoir of Natalie’s walk with God — a memoir that is honest, humorous, and insightful.

Natalie has spent many of her years as a young adult teaching, whether in public-school classrooms as part of the Character First! program, in assemblies at big homeschool conferences, or in her own piano studio. I found her emphasis on teaching methods and experimentation slightly ironic for a “homeschooling book,” but also very inspiring. She’s implemented some fantastic ideas, and anyone who works with children will find something to encourage them here! In fact, I passed the book on to my partner in Soli Deo Gloria Ballet, as we’re developing summer camp ideas.

For homeschool grads and older teens, parents who want to see how homeschooling can play out in their student’s life, and anyone who enjoys good, clean, thought-provoking memoir, Pajama School is well worth reading.

Aaaaand, if you want to read it, Natalie has provided me with a special coupon code for my readers who order directly from SibroPublishing (www.sibropublishing.com). Just enter the coupon code “inklings” when you’re checking out, and you’ll receive a 20% discount. Go for it! This is a great deal for a book that’s well worth reading.

On a side note, Natalie self-published Pajama School. A self-publisher myself, I have some idea of the effort that goes into this — and I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of self-published books. Natalie and her team have produced an attractive book, professional both in presentation and in content. Way to go, girls!

When Natalie Wickham graduated from high school, she wrestled with the question of whether or not to attend college. She had been homeschooled for nine years of her education, but the prevailing expectation was that she would pursue further schooling from some accredited institution. However, rather than follow some pre-designed plan just because everyone around her did, Wickham decided to keep her options open and trust God to provide the educational experiences and opportunities she needed.

Since graduating in 1999, Wickham has had uncountable experiences and opportunities that she never would have gained through a traditional college education. This included earning her National Certification as a Teacher of Music, and launching her own thriving private music studio. Despite having never even taken the ACT, let alone pursued a college degree, Wickham’s expertise and hands-on experience landed her in front of a graduate class at a local university. There she discovered that years of classroom lectures and hours spent studying for tests hadn’t prepared these students for the real world of teaching and running a studio.

My fellow homeschool grad Natalie Wickham has written an article called “Rethinking College” that gives several financial, social, and education reasons NOT to take the road most traveled after high school. I thought you’d enjoy reading it, so you can download it from the link below:

http://pajamaschool.com/files/HomeschoolGraduateEncouragesOtherGradsToRethinkCollege.pdf

Natalie is also the author of Pajama School, a look back on her own homeschooling years. (Review by yours truly forthcoming once I get that far down the reading pile — I am about a year behind!) Check it out here.

Four years ago, on a beautiful night in late June, my sister Tabithah was born. (I assume it was a beautiful night. Chances are it was humid and very warm, but I know it was green, and it wasn’t raining. In any case, the event made it beautiful.) I was twenty years old.

Taba and I will always have lockstep birthdays. She’s four; I’m twenty-four. When she’s twenty, I’ll be forty. Recently she was playing at getting married. She wedding-walked into the living room, humming a wedding march to herself. Suddenly she stopped, turned, and with a twinkly-eyed little smile waved at me.

“Who are you getting married to?” I asked.

She named some fellow from a video she likes.

“And who are you waving at?”

She laughed at me. Little ones never bother to pretend they’re not laughing at you. “You-oo!” she said.

I hope, when she does get married, that she waves at me on the way down the aisle.

Twenty years is a big spread between siblings, even if there are ten others to fill in the gap. Not many girls my age have a baby sister who’s still well under four feet tall. It’s a privilege–a gladsome joy–to have a small one in my life.

As I was working yesterday she came in and looked up at me with earnest blue eyes.

“Rachel, you know that song you teached me? Can you teach me again?”

So I did. Picked her up, set her on my lap, and sang the old spiritual “Down to the River to Pray” with her. My favourite verse is the one that highlights her lisp: “Oh sisters, let’s go down/Down to the river to pray.”

Sometimes I overlook the privilege I have–the chance to be a part of small ones’ lives, to pick them up, to teach them, to be their “big girl.” God give me grace to make the most of these years. Someday I hope we’ll go down to the river of God’s grace together, that we’ll drink of His overflowing Spirit in a sisterhood that’s deeper than any we can experience in purely earthly places. When we go, I want our quiver of memories to be already full. I want our attachment to be deep and real. I know I’m weaving the future now.

God honours small ones. God help me do the same.

Read “Family Business: Pros to Embrace” first.

These days, family business is the new homeschooling. More and more families are realizing that a business of their own can be a tremendous asset. I’ve been involved in family businesses for most of my life, and I’m all in favour of them.

However, family business has a way of eating people alive if it’s not kept under control. A 9-5 job can be left at the office, but a home-based business, like death and taxes, is with us always. Here are some ideas for combating this.

1. Set limits and be realistic. Crunch times happen, in which you must abandon all semblance of sanity and work your hardest and longest to make a thing happen. That’s okay, but try to plan in such a way that tasks stay manageable. For example, Mom and my sisters try to space our fudge-making over three days before we hit craft shows on the weekend, rather than doing it all at the last minute.

2. Take a break. Sabbath is important. Most of our business happens on weekend craft shows, so many of us work Sundays. When this happens, we try to take Monday as a day to relax. Burning yourself out may feel responsible, but it will cripple you eventually… don’t do it.

3. Give rewards. Another way to avoid burn-out–especially in young people who work with their parents–is to make sure that work is rewarded. When we’re on the road, Dad will stretch our budget in order to take the family out for dinner somewhere nice. It’s more than worth it. We always enjoy eating out together, and these times are both great motivation and great memories. Morale doesn’t have to expensive, but it must be maintained.

4. Fit round pegs into round holes. As much as possible, involve your family members in ways that mesh with their natural gifts. In our family, my artistic sister Deborah has created many of the lovely designs you’ll see on our candy; Becky, who has mad skills with the computer and graphic design, built our Web site and designs signs and labels.

Like most things, a family business should be a flexible endeavour. See what works for you; take note of things that are not working. Work hard, have fun, and God bless you!

Mama Squirrel of Dewey’s Treehouse has posted this week’s edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling. She’s focusing on the many positive attitude submissions received this time around, and chose to use quotes from my Yes and Amen article to tie the whole thing together! I’m honoured… and she did a marvelous job. Have a look!

“Sweet Somethings is a family affair—in the beginning, fudge making was the hobby of one of our ten daughters. At the time, our family was traveling with another product to craft and trade shows around the country, and she decided to try her hand at peddling a particularly good fudge recipe she liked to make. We decided to give it a try, so in March of 2003, we set up shop at our first show with only three flavors of fudge and a lot of fresh cut flowers. We did pretty well, and our imaginations immediately went into overdrive.”

Four years ago, my family started Sweet Somethings, a traveling chocolate company that has been a financial staple for us ever since. The above words were written by my sister Becky on the Web site she recently designed for us.

My father has ever been an entrepreneur. He is what Debi Pearl calls “a Visionary.” In fact, when I first read her “Three Kinds of Men” chapter in No Greater Joy’s monthly newsletter, I ran into our kitchen (where Mom and three of the older girls were busy preparing fudge for an upcoming trade show) to read it out loud. We laughed so hard that fudge production ground to a momentary halt. Surely, we thought, Debi had been following us all these years and taking notes. Dad’s visionary nature has driven our family into many ventures with varying levels of stability, normality, and success.

If you’re starting a family business of your own, here are some of the pros you can look forward to:

1. Time together. Sweet Somethings has meant long hours working–and joking, talking, even complaining–in the kitchen. It’s meant hours in the van, packed in amidst boxes of fudge, collapsible tables and fake flowers for decoration, swigging Coke from a two-liter bottle and seeing the world together. It’s meant long work days that are a treasure-trove of memories now. The family that works together spends time together–and in a world where it’s increasingly hard to do so, that is high praise for a family business.

2. Experience! Families are ever in search of ways to give their children experiences that will benefit them in life. Business is an excellent way to do this. In a business that involves sales, as ours does, our kids have had umpteen opportunities to interact with people from all walks of life, to learn graciousness and salesmanship, to get over their shy tendencies, to work with money, to make chocolate (an invaluable skill, I assure you) and to see the world. Business brings us all face to face with reality in a way that few other things do.

3. Hardship. Yes, this is a good thing. We’re not talking desperate privation here, just a good working knowledge of life when it isn’t comfortable. I’m extremely grateful for the presence of some hardship in my life. Its salt has heightened the flavour of everything else.

4. Personal growth. This ties into each area above, but I want to highlight it here. Sweet Somethings has developed confidence in the shyest of us; savviness in the dreamiest of us; persistence in those of us most likely to quit. We have learned to sacrifice for each other and to work together as a team.

Our chocolate company has been reasonably successful, so it’s helped us financially. Greater than the financial benefits, though, have been the rewards reaped in family solidarity. As you launch your own family business, keep these things before you.

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Wild tales of the Thomsons’ adventures in trade shows shall be shared in the unnamed book-to-be-published next year, an entertaining collection of stories and essays that examine life in a big, homeschooled family. Subscribe or check back at this blog for updates!

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Coming soon: “Family Business: Cons to Beware.”

… is up. Heather of Sprittibee has done a marvelous job. Says she:

“So, what’s a carnival?” you ask. A carnival is a place where bloggers of a like-mind or a similar group can showcase their most important, funny, interesting, or otherwise groovy posts so that YOU will go seek them out and read them. Each link is a teaser to lead you on your merry way through the internet to the blog where it originated.

As usual, there’s a fine collection of reading material… and all interspersed with pictures and lessons on Heather’s favourite pollen-collectors. Enjoy!

This post presents the flipside to a previous one, entitled “Thou Shalt Not: The Staggering Importance of ‘No’“

Parents must tell their children “no.” To say ourselves nay sets us apart from every rabid coyote in the world. It makes us human.

Equally important, equally stunningly important, is “yes.” If no makes us human, yes makes us like God.

Witness God’s first recorded words: “And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light.” From God’s “let there be”–His first, incredible yes–we have come. Our earth has come. The heavens have come. “Yes” is creative power: it is all possibility, all adventure, all life.

The power to say yes is an oft-overlooked part of parenting. I am not a parent, and I see how this principle applies to every relationship in life. We all, sometimes, exercise this power in the lives of others. Yes, come in. Yes, talk with me. Yes, I’ll hire you. Yes, I’ll help you. Yes.

Still, it is parents who speak the first and most important yes’s in the lives of their children. If most of us have done anything unusual or wonderful in our lives, chances are it was the yes of our parents that got the ball rolling. I wish I could help everyone see how amazing this is, what creative power we have in shaping lives. I wish we all understood the explosive joy, the growth, the energy latent in this word.

Don’t misunderstand. I am not at all saying that you should say yes to everything. That’s why parents are so important. They’re older than their children; they have a bigger picture. Theirs is a yes of discernment. But when they give it, it opens such doors.

My brother wants to build a house when he’s nineteen. (He’s almost fifteen right now.) Maybe that goal will change. But we think it a worthy goal. A goal fit for a young man. If he works for it, he’ll develop work habits and character and skills. Someday it will help him provide for a family. My parents have heard this goal, and they have said “yes.” They’ll help him however they can. Perhaps he can apprentice somewhere; perhaps he can get onto a construction crew in a couple of years. Right now he’s got a paper route, so Mom and Dad encourage him to work hard at it, to be diligent and responsible no matter the weather or his feelings at the time, and even though on the surface Pennysavers don’t have much to do with houses, the character he builds now will be there when he’s nineteen. Attaining this yes means a lot of no’s in the meantime–no, you can’t quit; no, you can’t be lazy; no, you can’t allow yourself to be distracted. But as long as he knows where he’s going, he’ll take the no’s for the stepping stones they are.

“Yes” can mean so many things. It can mean the formation of relationships that will impact generations. It can mean the difference between daydreaming and pursuit. The difference between excuses and passion. The difference between a life of fear and a life of adventure.

I don’t know why we withhold “yes” sometimes. It’s not always because we’ve discerned that yes would be a bad thing. Sometimes we do it because we’re skeptical, or lazy, or just plain negative, or irritated over something. But it’s such an important thing to say, especially if you have influence in someone’s life. A life without “yes” will never be lived. Don’t be the one who withholds it.

It’s spring. Go outside and feel the sun and think “Let there be light.”

Do something incredible today.

Say “yes.”

My cousin Carolyn has a major ballet exam coming up in May–on my birthday, as it happens–and yesterday we put our heads together to write a quick bio for the program.

Well. ‘Twasn’t your usual bio. Homeschooled all her life, Carolyn just hasn’t done the things they want to see. No started-ballet-at-the-age-of-two, no acceptance into a company, no awards or scholarships. Does this sound familiar at all? We homeschool grads often sound like ne’er do wells when we try to list our achievements. Nope, no honour roll, no scholarships… didn’t go to school, actually. No, I don’t have a degree. Applied to Harvard? No, I haven’t. Leader of the Drama Club, class president, Chess Club champ, high school quarterback… ummm, no. Sorry. And you want to know about my what? My love life? You mean the journal I’ve been keeping since I was seventeen with thoughts on becoming a better wife and the regular breakfasts I take with my dad to discuss courtship? (That’s not what they meant.)

“So,” I asked Carolyn, “what have you done with your life?”

She’s done what a lot of us homeschool grads have done.

She’s stayed at home. She’s studied things she’s passionate about. She’s been involved in the raising of seven younger siblings. She’s read hundreds–nay, thousands–of books. She’s translated Psalms into Elvish. She’s baked like a madwoman. She’s fallen deeply in love with God. She’s witnessed. She’s choreographed and directed church musicals, performed with Christian singers at festivals, churches, and benefit concerts. She’s run her own studio since she was fourteen, starting with teaching her siblings. She became a registered teacher with the Royal Academy of Dance at the age of nineteen. She’s crossed Canada five times. She’s lived.

We’re in the same boat. I have few world-approved laurels to show for it, but I have lived more in my twenty-four years than I think some people ever do.

The temptation is strong to feel like a failure if we don’t meet the world’s expectations, but it’s a feeling that we need to shred. Frankly, as long as we live for God we will never win the world’s full applause. Measure not your life–or your children’s lives–in SAT scores and resumes. Measure it, instead, in the fulness with which you have walked God’s path for you. Measure it in relationships, in family, in joy, in passion, in true learning.

At its heart, homeschooling is about going back to the basics so we can thrive the way God meant us to thrive. Don’t succumb to the temptation to shuck the basics now that you’re through your “school years.” Keep focused. Keep living.

And write a bio you’ll be happy to lay at God’s feet.