Dealing With Self-Doubt as a Mom: The Big Yellow Bus

I can't explain why this picture can in the same moment make me both envy the classroom for my child and be thankful that he doesn't have to go through it

"With great power comes great responsibility."

You want to know a secret?

I struggle with self doubt as a mom. A lot. Often multiple times a day, every day of my life.

I wonder if I am doing enough, if I am being enough, or doing too much, or doing something when I should be doing something else.

I don't know why. Because deep down, I know I'm doing ok. I know my kids are ok. Maybe not perfect. But I know that at least most of the time I am a "good" mom.

Even still, I just can't ever seem to shake it. I can't ever seem to stop questioning myself.
This time of year for one reason or another always brings some intense internal struggles. I get on my computer and am bombarded with pictures of all my friends' kids on their first day of school. The backpacks. The bus. The desks. The new teachers.

And I can't figure out why it bothers me so much.
Maybe it's because I feel some sort of isolation. Alone. Different. Out of place.

No one in my circle of friends home schools.

And certainly no one I know home schools the way I do. Teaching a few grade levels above age.

Teaching young. A lifestyle of learning many useful and interesting things.



So some silly thought process repeats over and over again in my head.

Feeling that maybe if all of these people that I respect and care about are choosing a certain thing for their kids, then, well, I don't know. Maybe they're onto something? Maybe I really am crazy? Maybe I am going to mess up my kids, somehow, someway?

The thoughts aren't so much on an intellectual level as they are on an emotional level.

Because I know in my head that what I am doing is, in the very least, the best thing for my kids. For my family. For this time in our lives.

Intellectually I can clearly and concisely tell you a thousand reasons why I am doing what I'm doing. Why I choose to do things differently. Why it benefits our lives, and makes us a better family, and individually better people.

But on an emotional level, that picture of your kid in his third grade classroom makes me question myself in a way that just doesn't make any sense.



Do you ever struggle with self-doubt as a parent, whether you home school or not, even if it doesn't always make sense?

“For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.”Romans 14:8

My boys are currently 7 years, 4 months old and 1 year, 2 months old