It’s been a chaotic few months, hasn’t it? Really, the whole year has been, and the memes get better every time something new pops up.
I know that I joined a bunch of Pagan Homeschooling groups back in March (and a few Indigenous/Decolonizing homeschool groups, and some special needs homeschooling groups) – I’m one of those people whose backup plans have backup plans, and with two kids with substantial challenges and book-length IEPs, we were suspecting that virtual schooling was not going to go well (spoiler alert: it was worse than I expected). We have had numerous decisions about what this fall will look like, and what our lines in the sand are in terms of them going back to school – and not all of them are pandemic related.
In that time, too, we’ve had protests, civil unrest, and more (which has been an interesting time to be a Native American parent on top of all the rest of this), and talking about that has been an ongoing discussion.
Since I started working “remotely” full time back in March, we’ve tried to build new routines into our daily lives – a daily devotional has been high on my list, but actually getting it done has been really hard. This was supposed to be our year to actually attend festivals with the kids – one local event offered to figure out how to include my kids in their children’s programming. That’s a huge thing for me – it’s usually either, “we can’t deal with your kids” or “we can include them if you show up and spend the whole time supervising them.” I’ve been writing about what an inclusive children’s program might look like over on Patreon, and will eventually be publishing materials that I’m developing, but in the meanwhile, the whole idea of being at events has become fraught with challenges…if there are even events to go to.
All in all, for us it’s been a good time to connect and focus on what’s important to us, even as things outside our home have been unstable. I’m hoping that you’re finding some stability somewhere too.
