I went to a meeting of homeschoolers. In rural Wisconsin, of course. Because that’s where I live.

We talked about that the group is a safe place to talk about the things we’re having trouble with. A leader pointed out, “If you go to church and tell someone you are having trouble teaching algebra, the person will say, then put your kid in school.”

Everyone nodded.

Then no one told about any problems they have.

Instead we talked about what there is to do. Where you can take your kids: The zoo. The children’s museum. The science fair at the local college.

I expected to talk about educational theories. Does project-based learning make workbooks irrelevant? Does child-driven learning mean no algebra for dancers? Who among us would qualify as an unschooler?

But here people are proud that they can teach their kids to national standards. They talk about Algebra 1 and they worry about getting the right answer when someone asks what grade their child is learning at, saying only “between 8th and 9th.” And I think, “Really? At that age, who cares? What does she like to do? Where does she want to go?”

There is a pattern in my life. Where I try my best to do what is right. I go with my intuition and follow my heart. And I realized that, once again, I have driven myself to the fringe of the fringe.

When my son realized I had his dance class music on my iPod, he started asking for it all the time.

Then he started asking about the lyrics.

“Are they saying shit?”

“Yes.”

“Can we say that?”

“When we are singing the song.”

“Really? Let’s go back to that spot in the song. I want to sing it.”

I explained that in other parts of the world, saying shit is not the huge deal that it is in the country.

“Everyone says it?”

“Well. Not six-year-olds.”

“When I can drive?”

“Yeah. When you can drive and you’re in that area of the country.”

“How will I know if we’re in that area?”

“Someone will say, ‘Yo yo bro, how’s your shit goin’?'”

The kids die laughing.

We listen to the song more.

They ask what it means to say, “Beats so big I’m steppin’ on Leprechauns.”

And they point out the song sheds light on Lucky Charms.

And I’m starting to think the car might be more educational than I realized.

We do a lot of driving. The largest city within four hours of us is Madison, WI, so we drive there three days a week for swimming, soccer, violin , dance and social skills lessons for my kids. We drive to Chicago once a week for cello lessons. So one of my biggest worries is that the kids are wasting their lives away in the car.

This is not the worry I expected to have when I signed away my high-flying CEO position in favor of  life on a farm.

We listen to lots of classical music in the car. The Suzuki method espouses the idea that listening to a piece of music is akin to practicing it, so I tell myself that we are really practicing a lot.

But it’s hard to know where reality ends and my rationalizations begin. Is is good to take the kids to Madison? Do all kids need to try new stuff or can they hang out on the farm all day?

Don’t tell me the farm is a great place to grow up. Because it’s isolated. And one kid, for sure, is a city kid. And I feel that I owe it to him to show him more of the world. But I’m not sure: at what cost?

Before I knew how to write, I would dictate stories about my life to my dad. Then, slowly, I started writing myself.

I remember when I learned how to spell the word S-A-I-D. I remember saying to my dad, “Really? Really that’s the way?” I remember feeling a sense of excitement that the spelling was so unexpected. Like, now anything could happen with language.

I thought about that moment while my sons were at my brother’s chemistry lab.

My brother’s co-worker showed us cancer cells under a microscope. I have to tell you that my six-year-old son did not really care.

Here is a list of things he would have rather been doing:

Soccer

Grocery shopping

Anything with another kid who is not his brother

Regardless, we each learned something there at the microscope.

I learned that the biggest learning moments are not when you have the oportunity to do something very important and special. Rather, the big learning moments are when you do something that stirs excitement inside you.

The cover article for last week’s Time Magazine was about sibling rivalry. Specifically, how parents favor one kid over the others. According to Jeffrey Kluger, who just published a book on this topic, all parents have favorites.

To illustrate this fact, he talks about how researchers went into a home specifically to observe if they could tell the parent’s favorite. So parents knew what was going on, and still, within a few hours researchers could tell in roughly 70% of the cases. And here’s more damning evidence for parents: grown siblings seldom disagree on who was the favorite.

Of course, favoritism is damaging to the non-favorite. But the favorite suffers as well, because the siblings resent the favorite.

Psychologists say the best solution is for parents to hide favoritism as much as possible. Which means I will not write about my own situation in this regard. But I will say that my nine-year-old was drawn to the title of the cover, which read: Mom Likes You Best.

He picked up the magazine and started reading. I thought: This is good. My kid is reading the science section of Time magazine. I helped him divide the article into manageable sections. But I’ll tell you, his reading level miraculously went up five grades in order to figure out who is the favorite in our family, which strikes me as evidence that kids are hugely motivated to learn when the topic interests them.