19/12/2024
O en hoe lief is mense en ander kinders nie om tuisskolers te bestook met wiskunde somme nie. Sommige wat hulle self nie eers kan beantwoord nie.
You know the questions are coming.
“Don’t you worry they’re missing out?”
“You’ll send them back to school when they get older though, won’t you?”
“Are you sure you're qualified to teach them math?"
It might be over presents, or Christmas lunch. Or during the afternoon spent playing and hanging out, or while you’re cleaning up after dinner. But you know, eventually, they’ll come.
You can already hear the tone. See the raised eyebrows. The glances between relatives.
You'll feel it in your chest. A tightness when someone starts talking about their child’s reading levels. Their stellar test results. Their end of year awards.
You’ll feel it when someone starts quizzing your child on their times tables, trying to make a point. In the careful breath you take when someone asks - again - how they’ll go about getting a job without qualifications, or learn to socialise with others, or cope in the real world.
You'll watch as your child's shoulders tense, knowing they're being evaluated. See them search your face for reassurance as they’re asked questions. Feel that flicker of doubt when they can’t answer whatever they’ve been put on the spot with. On demand. In front of an audience.
But please, please understand the doubt is not actually yours. It's theirs.
Because their questions aren't really about where your child is at. They're about their own uncertainty, their own fears. They're carrying generations of anxiety about achievement, and success, and keeping up, and finding their way in this world. What you’re hearing is just a big bundle of their own conditioning being projected onto your choice to do things differently.
So yes, these conversations will happen. The questions will come. The comparisons will be made. But just remember that none of them matter, because they don’t relate to the worth of childhood in any way. They don’t predict future success or happiness or fulfilment in *any way*.
Enjoy all the good of the season, and know the rest will pass.
And when it does, you can get back to doing exactly what all those worried adults so desperately needed in their own childhood.
