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I have odd parents, and that is what I love about them.

My father was a Texan geologist turned yacht salesman, and also a professional classical musician. He was the type of man who told the same jokes over and over again, and no one seemed to get them. My mother I’ve given the nickname ‘posh Brit’ because that is exactly what she is: an English woman with a love of the designer clothing and jewelry, as well as great food. However eccentric they were when I was growing up, they still had facets of being very conservative. They were Catholic and my mom has a thing with being super, super clean. She can cook almost anything, and all of us delight in the feasts she spends hours preparing.

I, on the other hand, have never been conservative. I sleep in late, can’t clean to save my life, and never pictured myself being a parent. I had taken on my father’s love of the arts but didn’t want to have the rigidity that the school system pushed. I wanted freedom and choice. And for some reason, I believed that family was a ‘cop out’ and not something that interested me. Indeed, boarding school had made me believe that an academic career was the most important thing I could achieve.

Now that I am a mother, I look back on that image I had and feel saddened. I went off to school in the 8^th grade and basically grew up 24/7 with other kids, in a very strict academic world. We all felt suffocated and on top of each other, with no privacy. Kids were scared to emote for fear of being ridiculed. It had its perks, but the downside was very apparent.

I loved reading, and still do, but eventually that environment lead me to where I am today: an unschooling mother and family activist.

When I was just twenty and had moved to the States, I met my husband and was engaged by twenty one. This was something I had never envisioned, that I could have such intimacy and trust with someone so soon. I pictured myself as a rogue archaeologist, living in a tent somewhere. Instead, I had moved to LA and gotten married soon afterwards. It was the best surprise I could have asked for! We’re inspired by travel and living outside the box and yet we value the traditional family model, in the sense that family is first.

We don’t schedule it in, we schedule everything else around it.

Nowadays, to have such a view is indeed rogue. To not send one’s kids off to day care and then school and pursue a career is almost frowned upon.  Kids have become used to spending little time with mom and dad, and as one homeschooling  mum put it ‘ home is like a hotel, where kids check in and out’.

But things are changing.

Old school family values are becoming trendier (really!!) with mom blogs popping up all over the place, sharing their day to day routine with the world. One blog in particular infuses the radical notion of actually enjoying motherhood above all other pleasures, and it attracts readers who are not only single, but also hard core feminists who for one reason or another find themselves attracted to the image of a happy, smiling, and religious family.

Because of the internet, blogging, and social media, people can connect with eachother like never before, and learn from one another’s preferences. Magazines like Bust interview women who ( gasp) love their arranged marriage, despite catering to a feminist, women’s lib loving crowd. We are hungry to learn about other lifestyles, in order to properly discern what is right for our own, instead of shutting the door on anything outside of our comfort zone.

Nie Nie Dialogues is an inspirational read to check out, showing how a maman of 5 balances her desires and her family’s needs, as well as being an airplane crash survivor and burn victim. Her book Heaven Is Here is out of April 4^th and shows her heroic journey of recovery to physical and mental wellbeing, after having been in a coma for 3 months. I feel uplifted reading about her daily life and how she views the role of motherhood, and it certainly drives me to complain less about my own life and responsibilities.

The Wiegands is another motivational blog about a young artistic family of 4 living in Texas. Casey Leigh chronicles her life and the losses and hardships she has encountered on her journey in parenthood. Readers comment on how she makes the ups (her new pregnancy) and downs ( her miscarriage, her son’s asthma) so touching and real. Her writing is accessible and her story shows how we all struggle, but how we deal with it is what matters.

Are you unconventional yet drawn to the traditional? Where do those two ideas collide in your family and how do you make it work? Where do you find your inspiration?

This article was written by Elizabeth Kelsey: Wife to William, Mama to Kaya, currently writing from Phuket, Thailand where her family is living and learning together.

My husband and I always knew that one day we would be homeschooling our children as we have been working towards the goal of long term family travel since before they were even born. We didn’t know, however, that we would decide to forgo public education entirely!

Our oldest son was due to start Kindergarten in September of 2010. Our estimated departure date for our travels was for sometime in 2011. We had the discussion about whether we should put him into Kindergarten and then take him out when we were ready to leave or if we should just keep him out and homeschool him.

After many difficult discussions and soul searching we decided to enroll him in our local public school. This was a very hard decision for me, one that I really wrestled with and even after it was made I was never entirely comfortable with it.

Then something happened that made us change our minds: Our Ministry of Education changed the laws so that Kindergarten was no longer a half day program; it would be a full day one.

Call me the crazy, but I could not bear the thought of having my son away from me for so long! I wasn’t ready for it and I don’t think he was either. Homeschooling was back on the table, we just had to figure out what kind of homeschooling we would be doing. (more…)

Awhile ago I had the great fortune to run across the website of a very interesting mother and son team: Raising Miro.

I read their blog, watched their podcasts and fell in love!

Hopefully you’ll be as inspired by their journey as we were: (more…)

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Education is very important and is another of those things that should not be left to chance, mindlessly delegated to “authorities” or wandered through by default. What is the formation of a human person, the raising of a tiny baby into an able adult, but one long process of education?

Happily, there are many ways to accomplish the same goal of producing an intellectually educated, socially contributing and capable person. There need not be a “one size fit’s all” approach.

For us, one of the great joys of family life is the ability to create an individualized education for each of our children, building on their weaknesses, capitalizing on their strengths and helping them discover who they were made to be. (more…)