The Pages of Old Books
Childhood is fleeting; embrace and enjoy it.
Last week, I headed to the dining room table to prepare for my daughter’s homeschooling work. Today, I thought, we would talk about reducing fractions, check on her spelling, and read about Paul Revere (did you know he had 16 children?). But upon passing her bedroom, I couldn’t ignore the disaster within. How does a room blow up into a giant mess within 24 hours?!
I sat on my daughter’s bed while she tidied up her room. It seems that every child I have goes through this stage: their bedroom floor contracts until there is no floor at all, just a mess of books, clothing, papers, Lego, and more than enough stuffed animals to populate the next ferry across the Puget Sound. So I made a deal: I will read aloud, and she will clean. I admit I didn’t want to, I’d have preferred to vacuum the rest of the house. But, I decided that reading aloud is better than skipping schoolwork completely today. Fractions could wait, slow schooling and all.
Soon enough we were following four siblings running through the dark, away from crafty bakers, and settling into their own boxcar home using found goods in the woods. Even though my voice was attentive to the words on the pages, my mind was full of images of my eldest three children, inspired by the same book and creating their own worlds in the fields and woods behind the big house we eventually left. All are in their 20’s now; how can that be?
I read chapter after chapter, trying to keep ridiculous tears at bay, trying to stay present with my ten year old, recognizing that she is halfway to twenty. If slow schooling has taught me anything, it’s taught me to embrace the minute amount of time I really have with my children, and to balance their life skills (such as keeping a tidy room) with their academic endeavors. Teaching habits of lifestyle, including taking the time to be educated, isn’t completed in one weekend push or even one September-June season. It’s done little by little, layer by layer: an afternoon of cleaning, a morning of practicing handwriting and math facts, a week—and then years—filled of learning to serve other people and to persist in the interests God allows. Yes, you can learn math by baking. You can also take advanced calculus in a textbook. Methods of learning and growing are as varied as fingerprints.
Twenty-five years later, I still don’t have a magic formula for how and what to teach in my homeschool. But also, twenty-five years later, I now have adult children who are making their way in the world: raising a family, completing a Biology degree, advancing their music, working jobs and serving and loving the people they come across. They love Jesus, and it shows. I am humbled by the work of God.
And then, just as fast as those years went by, thirty minutes later my daughter’s room was pristine. “See what only thirty minutes can do?” I said to her. But then I thought to myself, “See what reading aloud instead of vacuuming can do?”
Childhood is fleeting; savor it before it takes wing to the wind, before all of today’s messes are only memories liberated from the pages of old books.