We live across the street from Swarthmore college, which I thought would be amazing, but most things at the university are not open to the community. Still, I walk past the art gallery each week to see if there’s anything new, I always check fliers to find interesting things for the kids. Which the kids always do not want to go to.
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My kids are old enough to have opinions on our socioeconomic status, and they don’t care that cello lessons and SAT tutors are accoutrements of the upper middle class. They see we live in a very small two-bedroom apartment. I tell them our apartment is nicer than some peoples’ houses. “We have Limoges china! We have crystal chandeliers!”
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Boy cellist going through puberty: “Mom! Listen! I woke up today and my voice was a B-flat!”‬

The deeper my son’s voice goes, the more hours a day he practices. And the more hours he practices, the more I worry about what he’ll do in a world where no one pays to hear a cellist play live.

The homeschooler in me believes my job is to create a loving, joyful childhood for my kids. And in that sense I am so happy to have cello music as the soundtrack to our lives. But the career coach in me thinks it’s a disservice to send a kid into the adult world with no marketable skill. I’ve seen what happens to those kids and it’s not good.
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Someone just called child services on me because I am not properly educating my kids. So here’s a pictures of my kids playing video games. At the time I took the picture because it was so nice to spend the evening with the boys sitting in the living room together. Looking so grown up. Now I’m using the picture to let everyone know I’m not backing down from the education I’m committed to giving my kids. And let me tell you: they are awesome at video games.
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When my kids were young and I was new to homeschooling, self-directed learning was so easy for them. They played video games, had fist fights, and set things on fire.
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I love writing on this blog, but if I’m being honest with myself, I’m not sure I’d write here if I didn’t need to support my family. It’s true that I started writing about education because I wanted to figure out what to do with education for my own family. But it’s also true that writing a blog is a lot of work.
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When we started homeschooling I realized that the real issue with self-directed learning is kids choose video games. Especially boys. And that scares parents.
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As I wrote this title, I realize it’s not just parent routine that’s important for homeschool success, it’s parent self-care. 
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Ever since we started homeschooling, I am always trying to keep my eye on the ball. I’ve had spreadsheets that showed me what my older son needed to accomplish each year so that he could take all the tests that he needs to take. I’ve had spreadsheets that showed me which cello competitions my younger son needed to go to each year so that he could get all the performance experience he needed to get.
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This is a guest post from Elizabeth, who comments here as YesMyKidsAreSocialized. She is the mother to three girls.

We lost our education network in the move. While we were still in Southern California, we had everything we needed for homeschooling the kids — from mentors and teachers all the way to support from local businesses, which offered opportunities during the day for homeschoolers, when other kids are in school. The charter school even gave us approximately $3,000 per kid (that’s $9,000 a year!) to help with paying for all our classes, lessons, books, art supplies, field trips, and more.
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