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Older Women Wanted
By Mary Pride
Printed in Practical Homeschooling #40, 2001.
Sixteen years ago, I wrote a book called The Way Home. An exposition of Titus 2:3-5, it made these points among others:
- A mother's role in the home is not socially irrelevant; rather, it is the antidote to socialism
- We depend far too much on credentialed experts for schooling and child training advice
- Homeschooling is biblically sound, and may be necessary in the light of what is happening to the schools
- Children are a blessing
Many young, college-educated women read The Way Home. Like most of my generation, they hardly knew how to boil water (let alone cook) or change a diaper (let alone handle a large family). Convinced by the Bible's reasoning that motherhood was a ministry to be embraced, they nonetheless felt deeply uncertain about their mothering, homeschooling, and homeworking abilities.
I received hundreds of letters, all saying the same thing:
Titus 2 the Apostle Paul tells the older women to teach the younger women: "To be sober [serious], to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed."
Up by Our Bootstraps
The younger women who responded to this call in 1985 found to their distress that few older women were available to serve as mentors and role models. Our parents' generation had followed the model of a planned family of just a few kids, who were sent to public school. Our own mothers knew nothing about homeschooling; in fact, they were likely to be hostile to the notion. Far from supporting large families, older women in the church were more likely to treat any woman pregnant with her third or fourth child like she was mildly demented. Any women who wanted to stay at home and raise her own kids was automatically treated as a second-class citizen.
But those young women were hardy. They dug in and started learning what they could, where they could. For a while, the newsletter HELP For Growing Families served as a forum where we could all share our questions and answers on child training, family life, and home business. Meanwhile, homeschooling support groups had been forming; court cases were fought to establish our right to homeschool; some of us researched homeschool materials and published how-to books.
Years passed. Our families grew older. The complexion of homeschooling changed. Many more books were published. Credentialed experts began taking an interest in homeschooling and appearing at homeschool conferences. Secular publishers began thinking about the "homeschool market" and how to penetrate it by repositioning their products. Educational software bloomed. The Internet blossomed.
A Farewell to Arms?
And now I'm getting letters like this:
"Years ago I read The Way Home and it changed my life! I've had a large family, all of them homeschooled. Your books and publications have been such a big help - thank you! My youngest just graduated homeschool and has been accepted at a good college, and now I want to cancel my subscription, since we are no longer homeschooling."
When I got the first such letter, I said, "Hmm." When I got the second, I began to wonder. After a while, I finally figured out what was bothering me. It was not the subscription cancellations - they aren't exactly a flood, and in fact at first I was trying to convince myself that they were a proof of our success. After all, hadn't we succeeded in "working ourselves out of a job," which all along had been our goal?
Here's what was bothering me. None of those letters said the writer intended to help new homeschooling parents. It sounded like the opposite: "Now that my children are grown, I can forget all about keeping up with homeschooling." Yet these are the exact same ladies who years ago were writing and calling me, practically in tears, begging me to find them older women who could serve as mentors!
Admittedly, homeschooling is much easier and more socially acceptable now than it was 16 years ago. But that does not mean new homeschooling parents don't need help. In a way, they need more help, because they are often not as rock-solid in their educational philosophy and reasons for homeschooling as the first generation, whose convictions were forged in the fires of persecution.
You're Still Needed
If you are one of those "older women" who has been homeschooling for a while, I beg you to consider this. You started homeschooling, not just for the sake of homeschooling, but to serve the Lord. You spent five, ten, fifteen, or twenty years in the school of Hard Knocks learning just what works, just what doesn't, and what effect it all has on a child's heart and soul. Your ministry has been certified and approved by the results in the lives of your growing and grown children. Is now the time to drop out of the homeschooling community - just when you are finally able to serve the parents?
You asked where the older women were.
Thou art the woman.
Nancy
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I'm one of the "older women" whose youngest home educated child is in college. I appreciate the article you've written here about the role of older moms who are no longer homeschooling and certainly know the importance of the Scriptual admonition for the older women to teach the younger women. But you can't just walk up to someone and say, "Here, let me help you." Most young women give the appearance of being quite self-assured and confident in their home schooling role. Besides, years of experience does not an expert make! I'm a veteran, perhaps, but certainly no expert. How does an older woman find younger women who might be interested in some kind of mentoring relationship?
I enjoy browsing your site.
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| Sat Feb 3, 2007 5:06 PM |
su
Oregon |
| As someone who has wished for a mentoring relationship for years, I would say one way to start up such a relationship would be to simply show interest in the woman and her life. Though we may look like we are confident, it doesn't mean we are (who wants to look clueless?). We know that your experience doesn't mean perfection, but you have learned a lot, I'm sure! I love to glean from other's knowledge.
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| Mon Mar 12, 2007 12:04 AM |
mdsmomct
CT |
| ditto
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| Mon Mar 12, 2007 12:40 PM |
Classic Mama
Kansas |
As my children are getting older and graduating I've noticed that when I go to things like a "Moms Night Out" or a homeschooling information session, I'm usually the oldest mom there! The room will be full of young women in the middle of choosing the first curriculum they will use for their 4 year old, or women dealing with teaching 1st graders while trying to entertain toddlers, while I'm busy trying to figure out how to teach my 10th grader to write an analytical essay! Where are the mothers like me?
But one thing God has led me to decide in just the last year is that I need to stay involved in homeschooling after my children graduate. I need to volunteer to teach in the local co-op. I need to remain active in the Moms groups. I need to post often on the e-mail loops I belong to. I need to offer the vast library I've collected over the years as a lending library to the other families in town. I need to attend, and offer to carpool to, our homeschool conventions. In other words, I need to make myself available - just as I longed for someone to make themselves available to me 15 years ago!
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| Fri Jun 27, 2008 12:54 PM |
Tansy
Great Lakes Region |
I'm with Classic Mama. I'm finding that there's a wealth of information and support for up to 8th grade, and then I can't seem to find the same kind of thing for highschool level.
Perhaps one thing is (and we haven't graduated any children yet) is because the work level ramps up at about grade 7-8. I've been much busier with the older children being at that level, and, I find, have had less flexibility. I don't want to use that as an excuse not to help someone else, but it is definitely a deterring factor. I feel torn between wanting to help someone else, but at the same time, being especially needed at home right now.
This is a season that will pass, and like everything in our children's lives, I'll wish it back, but for now, I'm trying to stay focused...and balanced.
Like Classic Mama, my husband and I want to make ourselves available, too. For us, that time will be forthcoming, we trust, even if right now it doesn't look like we originally pictured.
Krista
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| Fri Jun 27, 2008 3:26 PM |
elliemaejune
The Fireswamp |
I'm an older woman, too. We started homeschooling in 1982; I jokingly say that I helped invent homeschooling 
It isn't easy to continue being involved with homeschoolers once your own children are grown. Even your support group members begin to look at you oddly when you keep coming to park days or Moms' Nights Out. I was able to stay involved for many years because I started an umbrella school in 1988; however, I moved to another state where the umbrella school concept just doesn't exist, and I have no venue for meeting homeschoolers locally.
But then there's the Internet. Although some people took exception to my wanting to participate on a couple of forums, I have managed to hold my own, and have become a regular member on several forums. I suppose the Internet will have to be the place where my experience will be found useful to young homeschoolers.
ETA: Once I was not permitted to attend an informational get-together for some folks at our church. We had been hsing for about 5 or 6 years at that time. I called the hostess and asked if I could come, and she said no, because she didn't want any "professional" homeschoolers at the meeting. So much for appreciating the experienced hsers!
Last edited by elliemaejune on Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:52 PM; edited 1 time in total |
| Fri Jun 27, 2008 4:20 PM |
eHomebody
USA |
I have been convicted about this very issue for about three or four years now. We have only one child left in our home school, and I have been able to minister through a blog, website, and e-newsletter. However, I feel the need to branch out locally. I just need to take the first step and go visit a local home school support group or two and see where I am needed most.
Thank you for reminding us.
Last edited by elliemaejune on Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:52 PM; edited 1 time in total |
| Fri Jun 27, 2008 9:41 PM |
Elei
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Well I always love reading stories about the "experienced" moms who write that they have children graduating, who explain how and what they did.
It gives me ideas, and specially it makes me feel sure that it can be done, others have done it so I can do it, and reading their stories and experience will help me get through this.
So "older women", please don't forget about us who are just starting now, we (at least me) need all the advice we can get, and I really think that no matter how sure I am about what I am doing I can always learn from somebody who has done it before me.
Elei.
Last edited by elliemaejune on Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:52 PM; edited 1 time in total |
| Sat Jun 28, 2008 6:09 AM |
Mark'sGirl
United States of America |
Me too! I don't have any children yet, as I just got married, and so will not be homeschooling for several years. My husband and I plan to leave as missionaries for the country of India in the summer of 2009. The only homeschooling support I will receive will be on the Internet. So, please, "professional homeschoolers", I NEED you  ! My mother homeschooled my 8 sisters and brothers and I all the way through (we were the pioneer ones, the ones who had to hide in the house until 3 pm every day, lest someone call and report us  ) so she has lots of experience. But I love to learn everything I can. My goal is to raise many children "as arrows in the hand of a mighty man", and I welcome all advice!
Last edited by elliemaejune on Mon Jun 30, 2008 1:52 PM; edited 1 time in total |
| Tue Jul 22, 2008 4:44 PM |
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