Why Do I Seek Outside Community?
As my children grew older and became interested in different extra curricula activities, I found myself turning into the “chauffeur” mom. You’ve all met her, or maybe you are her. She is probably one of the busiest moms you know. Every day of the week she has to stop whatever she’s doing to drive one, two or more kids to practice, lesson, tutoring or any other such activity. How do you get anything done knowing that you must pack up your children and leave in 45 minutes to bring kids to violin and then pickup groceries and finally arrive home at 5pm just in time to try to cook something for dinner?
When I found that I was driving someone somewhere every day of the week, I started to panic. I don’t want to be that mom. Driving my children around was never on my dream list.
Some moms relish in this. They love meeting all of the other moms at practices and watching their children flourish within the community activity. To some extent, we all love this, because we all work so hard to see our children develop character and skills. These group activities seem to cater to this desire and they deliver. They don’t deliver your child, mind you, that’s your job. They give your child a chance to learn, develop, struggle, and conquer within a community of people. We were created to live in commune with each other. God didn’t create one person, he created a couple and told them to create a family.
While some moms glorify in this hullabaloo of community, I struggle. I am an introvert. One day a week outside of the home is enough for me. I found that myself and many of my children were exhausted after spending a day with a large community. Most of you know that the day after a large meeting is considered a recovery day. Thankfully, I had done a good job protecting my children from needing to be a part of my runaround. I waited until my oldest could play babysitter for the littles so that only the child needed for the activity would need to leave the house. This had a double blessing, as it also gave me one on one time with various children. However, I was still leaving the house every single day of the week.
I started to evaluate the activities that we were involved in. Why were we joining an orchestra for violin? What was the purpose of meeting every Friday for a science group? Is it necessary for my son to attend trumpet lessons twice a week? And what about that group that had us out of the house for an entire day? What is the purpose of all of these activities?
In all of my searching, I discovered that we seek outside community for two main reasons. You can probably guess them. The first one comes from the child himself. He approaches you one day and expresses an interest in the piano, and not just in banging on your family piano, but actually wanting to study and learn the instrument. He wants to know how it works, why it works, and how he can master the great art of piano. The only problem is, you’ve never progressed past piano 1 yourself. How do you teach your child a skill that you don’t have? You can buy books, or watch youtube videos, but without the accountability and direction of a mentor he won’t progress consistently. Thus, starts your search for a piano teacher, who may or may not be within a 10 minute drive of your house. You discover his only time available is on Tuesday afternoon, and there goes your normal Tuesday activity. It’s gone. If you used to clean the house then, you will have to find another time. If you used to read with your children, then that will need to be moved, because you are now working as a chauffeur on Tuesday afternoons.
The second reason we seek outside community, is for the sake of the community itself. We notice within our growing children that like Adam, they need a helper. They are ready to breach the barriers of the home and look beyond. They are ready to see how others view the world. This mostly shows itself in literature, history, and books. It’s really hard to think about both sides of an issue when everyone discussing such issue is from the same perspective. It is for the perspective of others that we seek to discuss with them. Who better to discuss World War 2 with than a veteran? Unless you are a veteran, then you will need to find someone elsewhere. In short, we seek community to give us what only a community of people can give us, themselves. Their ideas, struggles, passions, we all grow when we learn to view the world from different viewpoints.
From these two reasons developed my crazy schedule. So I asked myself, which groups, classes, or events require a community of ideas and which require a mentor? Out of the answers to this question, I can decide, for my family, what needs to be accomplished in a community and what could be accomplished at home.
How do you bring the mentor into the home? How do you create a way for the student to receive the master without having to leave the house? If we are already leaving the house every day of the week, and we continue to leave the house to live in community for that which requires community, why not strive to bring the mentor into the home? Why not work to eliminate the need to leave the home for anything besides community?
That’s what I’m trying to do. Bring the mentor into the home so that the parent can be home with the family. So that the family is together and, when they are out, they are actively working in community and not just meeting random people.