Stress and the Home School Mom - Comparison

     I sat in the doctor’s office last week because I have a broken toe. How I got the broken toe is another story for another day. But being that I hadn’t been in for a doctor visit since my family’s move from out of state nearly two years ago, I also needed to “get established” at my new clinic of choice. “Getting established” involves an overall, but fairly light, introduction and overview of health history. You probably knew that already. I actually don’t go to the doctor all that often—for myself.  I usually am taking one (or all) of my four children to the pediatrician to manage their care. Let’s face it, what time is there for a stay-at-home, homeschooling, mom of four children—three of those children with “additional needs” due to what I call an “alphabet soup” of diagnoses—to be able to go in for routine physicals and dental cleanings for herself? (Yet another story—er, rather stories—for another day.)

     The doctor asked me typical questions, such as: if/when/how I exercise. My answer to those questions: I have kids. Very, very active kids. Kids with lots of demands. Lots and lots of demands. He also wanted to know what I do to relieve stress. Ah, that is a loaded question, isn’t it? For the longest time, my stress relief was hiding and eating chocolate--not all that much different than the mom in Mom's Night Out when the mom says she's Stressed Paralyzed. 

Stress

     I’m willing to bet that you are no stranger to stress. As home educating moms, we have many opportunities for stress to consume us. The number, ages, and personalities of our children; their gifts and abilities, weaknesses, strengths; making curriculum choices; their learning disabilities, therapies; current circumstances, health, meals, baggage from our pasts, disabilities, jobs, husbands, neighbors, churches, activities, vehicle maintenance and repairs, house maintenance and repairs, moving, finances, friendships, pets, politics, keeping up with our favorite shows, nutrition, sleep… And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of stress. Each day has the potential to overwhelm us with all the stress. Admittedly, I’ve allowed the tidal wave of stress to consume me more than I’d like to admit. But denying it just bottles it up and adds more stress for me.

     I want to begin a little chat with you about some things that can negatively or positively affect stress’s power on us home schooling mommas.  This will likely be the beginning of a series on Stress and the Home School Mom.

Comparison

     Comparison is a big contributor to stress. In my experience, nothing good has come out of comparing myself with others. Years ago, I was trapped in the grief of secondary infertility. It blindsided my husband and I that we were struggling to conceive and carry a healthy second child when we had absolutely no problems with our first child. Oh, that comparison really got a hold of me and crippled me. Everywhere I looked I saw pregnant bellies and newborns. I was stressed about my health. I was stressed about where I lived. I was stressed about all the things I imagined could be wrong with me. But even worse, I allowed myself to compare myself to every woman I saw with a baby. Either I believed she must be better than me in some way, or I thought I was better than her and she had no right to have a baby while I was longing for another. Ladies, that was a very dark time for me.

Freedom

     But, by God’s grace, I was not stuck there. A wise woman shared John 21 with me. (Well actually, she shared it with an entire adult Sunday School class—but it may as well have been just me she was talking to because what she shared, transformed me that day). I had read the passage before, heard it preached about before; and I wondered what more I could possibly get from it by studying it again.

     Want to know what I got from it? I got freed from the bondage of comparing my life with every other woman on the planet. (Mini lesson here: never doubt God’s ability to use familiar Scripture to teach you amazing things.)

One of my personal times with Jesus, while I was walking
along the beach of the Mediterranean Sea near Antalya, Turkey, 2008.

      See, a large part of John 21 is about Peter walking on the beach with Jesus. Jesus keeps asking Peter if he loves Him and gives him commands to feed and tend His lambs and sheep. Peter gets a little frustrated with Jesus. Exasperated, Peter asks, “what about him?” referring to John—the one whom Jesus loves. (Sometimes I read that part like one of my kids is snidely asking why their sibling doesn’t have a chore to do—yet. Oh! the irony.) And you know what Jesus responds with? He responds with, “…what is that to you?” (And I may or may not have used that response with my kids… But I probably didn’t say it in the holy, truly righteous, and loving way that Jesus did…) And suddenly, I saw myself as Peter. Here I had been walking down the road of self-pity, selfishly comparing my sadness with other people’s joys. I had been comparing their callings with my own and deeming theirs amazing and mine table scraps.

     Jesus’ words began a major surgery on my heart that morning.

     Yeah, that’s right. I said, “Began.” Because ever since then, my eyes have been opened to the vice of comparing myself to others. And I had (have) to have that comparison cancer removed as I’ve become aware of it in other areas of my life as well.

     If we are not careful, sisters, comparison can rob us of our blessing to home educate our children and it will create a stress monster bigger than Mount Everest. There are so many approaches to home education: classical, traditional, unschooling, road-schooling, game-schooling, eclectic and so many more. Additionally, there are activities, co-ops, and curricula to compare. Truth is, each family needs to figure out what works best for them, taking into consideration that God has given each of us a unique set of talents, abilities, challenges, and responsibilities.

This is a mountain in the beautiful countryside of my former home in Eurasia. Even though it is not Mount Everest, I still would not want a heap of stress this large. Besides, stress never looks beautiful like this.

No Room to Compare

     Ten years ago, my only child was 7 years old. My daughter and I were at a home school park play-date. The moms were sitting on the grass, chatting, while the kids were running around and playing on the equipment. Someone was lamenting about how difficult it is to home school and parent several children and how wonderful it must be to parent and home school just one or two. I was shocked that the mom-of-eight sitting next to me jumped in to say, “Oh no! Don’t go there! A mom to one child is not just the teacher and mom, but also the child’s playmate. She’s got a different set of demands on her time with different responsibilities than those of us with more children.” She said more than that, but it all boiled down to: We each have different roles, responsibilities, challenges, stresses. There’s no room for comparison.

Comparing isn't always as easy as comparing apples to oranges...
Sometimes it's more like comparing apples to skyscrapers, or an ear with a toe. In the body of Christ,
we can easily get stuck comparing different parts of the same body, to our detriment.
It would be pointless to say that my toe is faulty because it cannot hear, would it not?

     My stress is different than your stress. No matter what those stresses are, or how many there are, let’s respect that we all have stress and that we are meant to encourage and exhort each other and help relieve that stress. Who are we to compare ourselves with one another, anyway? The Word of God tells us to encourage one another, love one another, exhort one another, and many other “one another’s.”  When we fall into the comparison trap, we begin second guessing ourselves, including our abilities to educate our children. But when we encourage, exhort, and love one another, we can face the stresses of all that encompasses our home educating lives. And that, my friends, relieves stress.

     In the comments, let me know some things that can negatively or positively affect stress’s power on you and that you’d like me to write about in the “Stress and the Home School Mom” series.