We had lunch with some friends over the weekend, and in conversation, a couple we came to know initially because they'd read "Crunchy Cons" and liked it. I mentioned that Julie and I had the experience from time to time of going to dinner at the home of people who had read my book, or were at least familiar with it, and who clearly felt guilty in our presence over the size of their house or the non-organic quality of the food they were serving. I always feel bad about this, and do what I can to let them know that we are hardly paragons of good living ourselves, and that we have no interest at all in judging them.
My friend said that indeed, when he and his wife first read "Crunchy Cons," they thought Julie and I were this ideal uber-crunchy couple -- and then they got to know us. I told him that before we had our third child, we cooked a lot more interestingly, but there just aren't enough hours in the day now to live as we'd like. We don't buy all our food from Whole Foods, never have and wouldn't if we were millionaires. I've mentioned before on this blog how certain things we've learned about our oldest son Matthew, and the challenges he faces, caused us to reluctantly abandon homeschooling, even as my book was still fairly fresh on the Borders' shelves. We live in a small house, but if we were ever to come into money, we'd make this old house bigger, and at the very least add a second bathroom. Sometimes, with five of us living here in a small space, the idea of a 5,000+ square foot house sounds awfully attractive. It is easy to be against McMansions when you aren't in a position to buy one.
The point is that we've found that raising children in the real world really puts one's principles to the test. Few, if any, of us can afford to live the way we'd like to live. We all make trade-offs as we try to realize our ideals in a world of limitation and imperfection. That it is impossible to always and everywhere live up to those ideals does not mean that it isn't important to try, or that the ideals aren't important guides to our behavior and the choices we make. I've said before that I think it's more important to buy locally raised meat and produce than it is to buy organic, and it's more important to buy Costco stuff if the savings makes it possible for mom to stay home with the kids (and homeschool, even) rather than be out of the home.
One of the things that makes this blog interesting and informative to me is reading in the comboxes how different people work to incorporate the crunchy-con principles into their lives, given what they have to work with. I was talking with our friends at lunch about how much I hate about the way we all live today. Most of the young families in our church circle live far away from each other, spread out all over the Dallas-Fort Worth area. All of us, I think, feel the loss of community, but none of us are in a position, economic or otherwise, to move closer to each other. As I said at the beginning of this blog entry, Julie and I don't cook as much as we used to, because the baby takes so much more out of us, and because I work extra hours doing freelance work that pays tuition at Matthew's school -- which, in turn, makes me feel guilty for spending that much less time with the family. You see how it goes.
What I'm trying to get at is this: I'm always surprised, and embarrassed, when people think we hold ourselves out as holier-than-thou examples. We're just an ordinary middle-class family, culturally and religiously conservative, who are trying to figure out how to live out lives of responsible stewardship and ethical integrity, putting faith and family first in a society whose structures make it difficult to be traditionalists. We're struggling right along with everybody else. We make the same trade-offs most people make, and worry that we've made the wrong decisions. We hold ourselves to high standards, but know how hard it is to live up to those standards. As with the Christian walk, we are all destined to fall short of our ideals -- the sincere and thoughtful effort toward living up to what we profess to be right and true, is the point. All the rest is grace.
Anyway, I'd like to hear from readers of the book who identify with its principles, but who have struggled to live them out -- and especially the modifications you have made, why you did so, and how it's working for you.
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Maclin Horton, thank you very much, it was nothing special indeed. You'd better change it in more literate way and correct mistakes
"homeschooling is teaching your own kids at home, or more accurately, at home and in the wider community"
Naturalmom, we have no such practice here. It is very interesting, but it must require a big luck to live near good educated community which includes good teachers of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology etc. and also one parent free of work. To organise and control separate studies for more than 3 children must be a very hard work, imho, isn't it?
Here we have one novelty in education for children of believers -that is Orthodox Gymnasiums, i've recently learned about one of them- children are taken there early in the morning and return home only after 9 p.m. And all that time they study, study, study, with several breaks for meals (they have a type of farm near school) and physical exercises. Apart from ordinary school lessons such as mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, literature, english or french etc. , they study catechism, history of religions, church singing, and 4(!) ancient languages -Greek, Latin, Ancient Slavonic and Sanscrit. On one hand -poor children to study so much, but on the other they would easily pass any entering exam at colledge or university, as proverb says- hard in study - easy in battle.
(Remembering schooling of me and my brother, it was not at home, and i can say that our school education helped us a lot in life, although we both studied worse than average, it taught us to be more disciplined, to get up very early, to be afraid not to prepare lessons. When child is taught at home and didn't prepare lesson he knows that mother will be angry but that isn't so scary as when some other persons (teachers) are angry when pupil is not prepared. Some pupils at our school had a tradition to give to parents their homework to check before giving it to teachers, or even doing homework together with parents, parents explained to them what they didn't understand in class, so it was partly a home schooling and partly a school schooling- the golden mean, imho. (Our mother hadn't time to check homework, but she always aked if it was prepared, and we had to do it all before going to bed or at least pretend that it was done:) And she also didn't allow us to turn on TV without permission, appr. before the age of 10-11 -we looked throgh schedule and asked if we can watch this or that movie or programm, but that was not so much for moral reasons, she thought that watching it for more than an hour is bad for child's health - precisely for eyes which are tired from study. She said: Do you want to wear glasses?))
Rod,
Could you comment a bit more on what led you and Julie to decide against homeschooling Matthew? We are debating homeschool vs. private school for our 7 yo. We homeschooled last year and it was a real struggle in a lot of ways, but I am not excited about our private school choices here, unfortunately.
Thanks.
We have two kids in public high school and one in college, and have tried a plethora of school situations - home school, private school, and public. I'm not convinced one school situation is "crunchier" than another. As the commenters have shown, each has its ups and downs, and every family has to find their own particular balance.
That said, I've found that everyone here is happier when we live in a more "European" way. First and foremost, that means cooking. Unfortunately we don't live within walking distance of a daily market. We do try to shop for as much fresh food as possible, from a local store that's *not* a chain (and also has relatively low prices.)
Housing is a problem for many, but it's a buyer's market now. One thing I would say to anyone buying a house for the first time is *buy one with a mortgage you can pay on one income.* I can't stress this enough. Even if you have no children and two incomes, but want children someday, *get a cheaper house.* Don't be fooled by realtors and lenders, who will try to sell you the moon and stars for that commission.
Corollary to that: if you have no kids and two incomes, spend the larger and *bank the smaller.* If you can't live on the larger income, then you're spending too much.
Finding lower-cost housing takes a lot of time and market knowledge. There really are lower-cost houses out there, in many cities, but it will mean some compromise: more sweat-equity required; not the best neighborhood; smaller. Where I live, you can find an 1800 sf ranch house, three bedrooms, two baths, for under $200,000 - not in the best school districts, but not in the worst either. A family can get by for a long time on 3 BDRs and 2 BAs, especially if they're not accumulating mostly-useless commercial kitsch.
I hate shopping at the big box stores, but we do for some items - because sometimes you just have to cut corners. We will buy clothes at the "big boxes" but not shoes. I insist on good-quality, long-lasting, sensible shoes. For instance, one kid has a pair of hiking boots that he wears everywhere - which he bought 3-4 years ago, and which we have repaired, because they're actually designed to be repaired, and they're worth it.
We have done this from the beginning of our marriage, when both of us were working full-time. It has enabled me to stay home (with some occasional part-time work) for 20 years.
I think these postings really show that it's not just about individuals. Social networks and arrangements have a profound impact on our choices. It does take a village to live more humane lives. That does not take away from the role individuals and families have in creating society.
We are profoundly molded, shaped and restrained by a capitalistic, consumer culture. If enough people become aware maybe ( that's a big maybe) we can reach a critical mass for change.
With all the talk and longing for community, realistically there is very little of it, or we wouldn't be here chatting on line.
Very true, amazona, very true.
Natalie: Could you comment a bit more on what led you and Julie to decide against homeschooling Matthew? We are debating homeschool vs. private school for our 7 yo. We homeschooled last year and it was a real struggle in a lot of ways, but I am not excited about our private school choices here, unfortunately.
Not a lot to say, really. It has to do with a complicated learning disability, a part of which makes Matthew respond very well to a structured classroom setting, but which makes educating him at home extremely frustrating because he can't pay attention like he should.
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