I don't have slow living kids, I have wild raccoons

there is a version of my life that I daydream about mostly when I’m no where near my children. and it goes a little something like this, I daydream about fully committing to the slow living lifestyle. I daydream about homeschooling my kids, everyone wakes up whenever, they come down sleepy-eyed and ask for breakfast half awake. I ask them if they want a quick breakfast like toast or cereal or if we want to all make breakfast together because we have time for that.

we make our own schedule every day and we’re free to do what we want. the kids help choose their own curriculum so that we’re learning about things they’re actually interested in. we visit nature reserve parks mid morning or even just go to the playground around the corner. after lunch everyone goes to read on their own or find a coloring or a puzzle to play with quietly so everyone can have an afternoon reset. once quiet time is over, I make tea and an afternoon snack plate for us to all come together again.

spending so much time together is easy and wonderful, not perfect but peaceful most days. I get to learn new things alongside the kids and there’s so much connection. we get to travel whenever we want and we can book trips on off times to get great deals. instead of learning about Ancient China we fly to Beijing and go see the Great Wall and take a whole month exploring the country.

we also regularly do house swaps with families all over the world making it even easier to travel abroad. our kids make friends with kids all over the world and stay in touch. we have so much extra free time maybe the kids even start dreaming up businesses they want to start. they can spend more time doing dance, theater and sports because they aren’t at school all day long.

in this dream I am always calm and patient and wearing my hair in a perfect french twist, which should be a bigger red flag to me because most days I don’t even get a hairbrush through it.

because the truth is, I don’t have slow living children.

I have wild, feral raccoon children.

I never wonder when they are awake, I know the second they’re up because it sounds like we’re being robbed with all the crash bang like noise. there are no sleepy-eyed children in my house slowly coming down the stairs to ask about breakfast. my children come down like they were shot out of a cannon and they have about 25 questions each they need to ask me right now, at the same time, so they yell over one another.

if we tried to make breakfast together, the older two would fight so hard about who got to measure what, we’d end up covered in flour and starving because we’d never actually end up making anything for breakfast.

if I tried to sit my children down to teach them about Ancient China they’d tell me I’m wrong about the Great Wall even if I read it directly from a textbook. I’d ask them to do what I thought was a fun assignment and they’d negotiate doing something completely off topic.

I’d plan a fun coordinating craft and half of it would end up on the ceiling. and every small detail would end up in a “that’s not fair!” battle between sisters. (I lovingly call them my two queens at war after a couple years ago while they were fighting I said “I wonder if we can find a way for you to play together instead of fighting” and my middle child yelled “I know! let’s play we’re two queens at war!!”)

everyone talks about how their oldest child is so easy and eager to please and follows direction but nope, I didn’t even get that one token cooperative kid. all my kids are so strong willed they could win awards for it. even my two year old, who can’t fully communicate yet, will stand his ground with me and force himself so hard on the ground it’s difficult to peel him off to change his diaper.

my children question everything. they know they aren’t allowed to wear certain things to school and yet twice a week without fail they come down in it, just to test the boundary again. just to say “oh yeah, what about now?” like little punk raccoons.

my oldest is the same way about cardboard boxes. any box that comes into this house, she swoops it up and makes some new invention with it. and she always needs the adult scissors. she’ll ask me while I’m mid-diaper-change with her brother, and I’ll say “sure, when I’m done with this.” by the time I get downstairs, she’s already pulled a kitchen stool over to the counter and gotten the scissors herself — from the spot we keep them, on purpose, out of her reach.

and no, they’re not teenagers, they’re 7 and almost 5 years old. and yes, my girls have been arguing and negotiating with me since they could speak at 18 and 15 months old.

now honestly, I love this for them. I love that they aren’t taking anything at surface level, they need to fully investigate everything for themselves, they always need to know more and want to peel back every layer of every onion. I love for them that they have confidence questioning authority figures when a rule feels worthy of being changed. I love that they have no filters in our home because they know their voice is always heard.

but if I’m being honest, I don’t love all this for me. it’s one thing to raise independent, strong willed daughters but it’s another to live with them every single day and experience it.

and yet, this is the part I don’t say out loud, if I don’t have cooperative kids, aren’t I totally failing at parenting? if we can’t live the slow life I daydream about, doesn’t that mean I’m failing as the leader of my children? I must be doing something wrong if our house is a constant state of chaos.

and of course all the homeschool Instagram moms showing us their beautiful slow living lives and cooperative children doesn’t help. it feels impossible to not compare myself some days and not feeling like I must be missing something. I must just be one system or sticker chart away from slow living kids, right?

who knows, maybe one day when they’re older, all this practice of being strong willed, inquisitive and wildly resourceful will lead to a great homeschool experience for us. I hope it does, even if just for a few years.

but I’ve stopped waiting for the sticker chart that fixes it. some nights I still scroll past the slow living moms and feel that familiar daydream kick in, but then I think about my daughter, hauling a kitchen stool across the kitchen for scissors she wasn’t supposed to have, so committed to her cardboard box invention that she’d risk the consequences to get there.

that’s not a cooperative kid. that’s not a calm morning. but it is a kid who knows exactly what she wants and goes and gets it, rules or no rules, and some days that looks a lot less like failure and a lot more like exactly who I hoped she’d be.

xo, Casey

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Apr 23

This is a free preview paid content on That Mom. That Mom is a paid community for mothers who are done waiting to enjoy their lives. For $8/month, you get every essay, guide, and reflection — plus a room full of women who get it. No sponsors. No noise. No guilt.