A Family Rule of Life

We are in the last week of our “official” school year this week, which means our summer break (with some minor school things through the next few months) is just around the corner! During the summer months, I like to focus on a specific topic on my blog and explore it more throughout the season. This summer, I want to explore the concept of a rule of life and how it can be used in a family. This is something I looked into quite a bit last summer, worked on implementing into our own family, and later spoke about at this year’s Charlotte Mason Educational Retreat, so I’ve been able to see firsthand just how beneficial it can be!

As with most things in my life over the last decade or so, my interest in implementing a family rule of life was influenced by Charlotte Mason. I was fortunate enough to have been introduced to her in 2013 when my oldest was two, so I had a good three or four years before we started more formal schooling to get to know her better. I used this time to immerse myself in her ideas, and everything I read resonated with me deeply.

During this time of research and learning, one of the quotes that I kept coming across is probably one you’ve seen if you’ve ever done an internet search for “Charlotte Mason.” A few specific phrases usually come up in the first ten results, one of them being, “I am I can. I ought. I will.” which was also the motto of her schools. But the one that I think is more encompassing of her philosophies as a whole is this one:

Education is an atmosphere a discipline and a life.

This was another motto of the PNEU schools and is part of her 20 principles, the foundation of her educational philosophy. In that list, this phrase is number five, but then is expanded upon in numbers six through eight.

When I read this the first time, as I was immersing myself in her ideas and agreeing with everything she wrote, I of course agreed with this as well. At the time, I pictured this in my mind as lifelong learning and wanted to emphasize to my kids that their education doesn’t end when they’re “done” with school. And for myself, I appreciated the idea of continuing my own education throughout my life as well.

I also agreed with the second part of the phrase: education is a discipline. Yes, education is certainly a discipline because I’m discipling my children. I’m guiding them and introducing them to these great ideas, and showing them how God has shown us the best way to live.

However, it all begins with the first phrase, which offers the idea that education is an atmosphere. I interpreted this at the time as being about the space in which we were learning and agreed that I needed a comfortable, cozy homeschooling space. I needed good books on the shelves. I needed fine art on the walls. I needed high-quality supplies in our homeschool area. And I wanted this to extend to my whole home. I wanted the atmosphere of our living space—how things looked, the types of things we used—to be beneficial to their education.

So, in 2016, I had these ideas behind me. I knew her 20 principles. I was in a Charlotte Mason book group. I was ready to dive into the world of homeschooling!

Fast-forward seven years. We had homeschooled the entire time, and by this point, both my husband and I had started our own businesses. The kids were older, so they had more activities. I was trying to do the things that parents do, like get good meals on the table, maintain relationships with my family members, keep my house relatively clean, and do All of the Things.

And I was completely overwhelmed.

I felt like I could never get ahead. I felt like I could never get anything done. If I focused on one aspect of our lives, like trying to keep my house clean, then we fell behind in our homeschool readings, or I fell behind in my business. If we focused on getting the school things done, then the house was a disaster, or the idea of cooking was a joke. So there were all of these different plates in my life that I was trying to spin, and I was failing at spinning any of them well.

I remember a particular morning when this feeling of overwhelm was acute. We were nearing the end of our school time, and I realized that we had 15 extra minutes! I began scanning my planner, thinking, “Okay, what could we cram into these fifteen minutes? What else can I check off my to-do list for school?” (Sidenote: This is not a very Charlotte Mason way of approaching school.)

I flipped back and forth through my planner a few times while the kids just looked at me and waited… for a little while, anyway. But then, when nothing happened, they started to get antsy and meandered into that distracted state that I knew I’d have to pull them back from. But I just needed a few more seconds to figure out what we could do! Why couldn’t I figure this out more quickly? And why wasn’t I more organized? And why was this feeling of overwhelm always so present?

So I snapped at them. I asked them why they couldn’t sit still and be quiet for just a minute so I could figure this out. And because I used The Voice, they immediately stopped moving and got very quiet, just kind of looking at me. Which, I guess, is what I wanted?

But in that moment, it hit me that this was not how it was supposed to be. This was not what I wanted our homeschool to look like. I thought back to those years before we started homeschooling, when I was absorbing Charlotte Mason’s ideas, and I had a clear picture in my head of not only what our homeschool would be like, but also of our entire family atmosphere. And I thought about where we were in that moment after I had just snapped at my kids, and I knew that this was so far from that vision. I didn’t want to be frantic all the time. I didn’t want to be snapping at my kids or my husband. I didn’t want to feel like I could never catch up, and I didn’t want this to be the atmosphere of our home. 

I realized, going back to that idea of “atmosphere,” that I hadn’t fully understood it in those early days. It wasn’t just about throw pillows or nice art on the walls or living books in the bookshelves. It was about the feeling of our home. The space in which we lived. The tone of our home. Was this the tone or the feeling that I had imagined all those years ago?

And in that moment, I thought, “This has to change.”

I just wasn’t sure how to change it. What could I do? What steps could I take? Was it changeable? I really didn’t know what to do next, so I did the only thing I could, which was the best thing I could, and I prayed. I offered God my overwhelm and asked, “What do I do with this? How do I figure out how to deal with this? And how do I change this?”

A few months later, while I continued to live in that chaotic state, my friend, Joy Cherrick, wrote a post about her plans for “A Masterly Summer” and mentioned that she was listening to the talks from the 2018 CMEC retreat. Specifically, she wrote about how the talks helped her review her school year and make plans for the new year, which was very appealing to me as I felt like my school year-end reflections needed to be more thorough. So I purchased the talks, downloaded them, and spent the next week or so listening, taking notes, and implementing the things I learned. It honestly was such a great way to start the summer that I’m planning to do it again with the 2019 talks this year.

In addition to the talks and presentation downloads, they also offered a list of recommended resources, one of which was A Mother’s Rule of Life by Holly Pierlot. I was looking for something to listen to while I cooked supper, so I found the audiobook and dove in one night. And suddenly, I felt like I had an answer for HOW to change my overwhelm. It was exactly what I was looking for in terms of how to figure out how to juggle all the things, what things to get rid of, and how to get closer to that vision of what I wanted our life to look like.

So over the next few months, I’m going to be talking about this idea of a rule of life, but I’m not limiting it to just mothers. I’m going to be talking about a family rule of life. In some ways, they could even be considered the same thing, because the mother often sets the tone and rhythm of the family. However, with a family rule, we keep in mind everyone’s needs and wants. We’re deciding what we want our family culture to look like and our family atmosphere to be like. This idea is really all-encompassing as it involves every member of the family.

I’ll be writing more about this next week!

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