The Power of Trust

One of the “luxuries” of having a baby is beautiful sleep deprivation. It’s something I forgot after having my fourth child. At night, proceeding every feeding, my daughter would wake up after two hours. As the newborn weeks continued, it felt like getting more than two hours seemed impossible, especially because with my last three kids I supplemented with formula. Doing this allowed me to sleep for 3-4 hours. However, with a formula shortage…

Yeah.

But three months later, I’m still breastfeeding and my baby is sleeping 5 to 6 hours at night. I trusted the process. 

So what does this have to with homeschool and motherhood?

Well, I’ve been reflecting over my journey as a mother and homeschooler these last few years. I would be lying if I didn’t say that among other things, the experience taken away my ability to trust. Trust in humanity, trust in certain relationships, trust in myself, but more importantly trust the process. 

This distrust has manifested in my homeschool because homeschool in our world isn’t normal. When our kids were going to a brick and mortar, I knew my role as a parent while expecting someone else to know how to educate my children. But with the lack of resources and a pandemic, I decided we would try homeschooling for two years. Now, with this being my third year, I realize how important it is to have trust. 

A common thread I see in the homeschool community is if something is hard, or our kids don’t instantly take to a curriculum, we immediately toss it. The homeschool motto seems to me to foster the joy of learning, but what if that joy can only be attained through consistency? Not to mention that just as we need to give things time, so do our children. How often do we forget to distinguish their frustration as just a normal human response to being a kid who doesn’t want to learn or try new things in the moment?

The same can be said in motherhood. It’s hard, but when we continue to doubt our abilities, we open our homes up to no longer being a place of comfort but one of tasks and work. Motherhood can be beautiful, but it can also be riddled with hard moments. I realize those hard moments only define us if we let them. But if we look at it as only a bump in the road, the growth achieve allows us to excel.

So what is the hold up? If I can wait for a skin regimen to work and make me look 25 again, then I should be able to trust that my children can do hard things- we just have to give it time and trust the process.