The Real Job Description for a Homeschooling Mom

There are so many demands on us homeschooling moms. How could we even begin to write a job description for mother, wife, teacher, and homemaker?

Nonetheless, you might consider putting together a job description. Show it to your children; they will be amazed as they consider your long list of duties. Of course, it might give you a boost to see in writing just how much you accomplish every day.

We mothers, and now some of us grandmothers, need to recognize how vital we are to the peace, the Faith, and the continuing success of the family.

In recognizing this, we might begin to see how important it is for us to stay mentally and emotionally healthy.

While we all have high ideals, and should have high ideals, at the same time, we must not let our “failures” or “disappointments” make us “sick” or slow us down with continuing to try to achieve our daily goals.

The foundation of our mental and emotional health is a solid spiritual life that nourishes our hearts, and gives us the strength to accomplish all we have to do as homeschooling mothers.

Our Daily Graces

Jesus is so pleased with the decision that homeschooling families have made to trust in Him and to depend on Him for daily help in achieving our God-given goal of raising our children in the Catholic Faith, in the truths taught by Jesus.

We should remind ourselves frequently of the special gifts we received in the sacrament of matrimony. These gifts are given to us on a daily basis; they are not just something that was given once years ago. As you teach your children every day, hour by hour, you are receiving special graces from Jesus, and from His Blessed Mother.

Many saints, such as St. Bernadette and the three children of Fatima, revealed the overpowering happiness they experienced because of the strong love and care flowing from the heart of the Blessed Mother. That overpowering love and care exists for you and comes to you every single day you teach your children, and passes through you to your children with every school assignment.

The graces that Jesus sends us, often through the outstretched hands of His mother, are countless. I sometimes think of the innumerable spiritual graces for us mothers as I look out my window and see the countless leaves on the countless trees covering the rolling hills of the Appalachian Mountains.

Some Spiritual Gems

Elizabeth Ann Seton took on the responsibility of teaching her own children long before she took on the responsibility of helping other children. When Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton began her teaching order, she took time to write spiritual gems for mothers. Perhaps the few I’ve included here will inspire you at the beginning of a new academic year because they come from a fellow homeschooling mother.

“Give some time every day, [even] if it is only half an hour, to devotional reading, which is as necessary to the well-ordering of the mind as the hand of the gardener to prevent the weeds from destroying your favorite plants.”

“Pray, pray incessantly, pray with fervor and with confidence. Be sincere in your wish to know the truth, and firm in your resolution to follow it.”

“If we would please Him and be found among His children, we must learn what our duty is, pray to Him for the grace to do it, and then set our whole heart and soul to perform it.”

“Patience and perseverance are the only ways to gain the blessings of Heaven.”

“Blessed Guardians [Angels]… Help us to use well the grace of the moment in the care and instruction of the little ones under our charge. Watch over them with us.”

Elizabeth Ann Seton, Homeschooling Mother, Pray for us.