Homeschooling high schoolers is hard. “They can work more independently,” I hear, as though the difficult days are behind. While they often get through lessons without help from me, the new skills they must learn: writing research papers, meeting deadlines, stretches them, and me, in new ways. And if they do need help on a question – there goes an hour of our day. It’s not predictable. I’m on call for when they face a problem they have not yet encountered. 

Gone are the days of homeschooling as freeing. Now, there’s the pressure of preparing my boys for adulthood. And it reveals my own gaps, skills I wish I could pass to them. 

And then there’s my daughter, helping her is still easy, it’s making time that’s the challenge. I can get swallowed up by a question, and leave her waiting. I have to force myself to sit by her side while she does her math, so I’m there when she needs help. Often, while I sit, my mind wanders to pressing matters or unmet longings.  

I’m tempted to wish away such moments that don’t mirror my dreams. But these moments make hours, the hours days, and I could miss out on months.

This time when my daughter called me for math I grabbed a sketchbook and sat by her side, satisfied. I created a sketch I liked so much that later, during a pocket of freedom, I turned it into an ink drawing. 

It captures, I believe, not only the monotony I can feel during homeschool, but also the intimacy.

And reminds me the moments, the hours, the days and months of guiding my kids in their studies are worthwhile, because I’m giving to the ones I love.