Schedules

About a year ago Equuschick and I visited the Library of Congress. I wanted to look at some bound copies of the Parents' Review. Within each issue of the PR there were letters from members of the Parents' Union, and these letters were what interested me most. These letters sound so much like many of the emails on some homeschooling email lists- how do you do this, can you suggest a book about... what would you do for a child who...? Mothers were not so very different in the Victorian age.

Mothers may not have been so very different, but certain manners and customs were. One mother wrote in asking how others got everything done and for suggested schedules. I took notes on some of the replies to her, but unfortunately, the page in my notes where I wrote down what volume of the PR I was reading is now missing. I only know it was one of the earliest volumes. At any rate, here is some of the advice she received:

'In these busy days, no one gets through all they intend.'

Read that again. Isn't that priceless advice? We think we are so very busy, busier than anybody has been before, and maybe we are. Maybe we're just busy with different things. She was also advised to make sure that she trained her younger children to help her with the daily tasks, and to get up early. How early? 7:30 a.m. That doesn't seem all that early, but in the gaslight days of living by the sun instead of by Congressional ordering of the sun, it was reasonably early.

Another mother wrote to commiserate, explaining that she had four children ages 1-7, and her only help was a nurse. She said in the morning she arranged the meals with the cook (aha, so the nurse was not her only helper!), dusted the drawing room and attended to the plants. Then she took charge of her children while the nurse tidied the night nursery. Then she taught lessons to her two eldest children (she doesn't say how long) and there was a music lesson.

After dinner (meaning the afternoon meal) the children played for 2 hours under the supervision of the nurse while mother had time to herself. At some point she and the nurse traded duties, one eating while the other took care of the children, and then switching places.

At 5:30 she began putting the babies to bed. Of my seven babies not a single one has ever been ready for bed at 5:30, not at any time for any price, although the HeadGirl came close, if we mean 5:30 in the morning. In addition, this mother breezily explains, she still has time to make all their clothing, reads to keep herself abreast of current events and to keep her mind sharp, and has time for her social duties.

I must have missed the part where she mops floors, cleans toilets, scrubs sinks, does the dishes, takes care of the family laundry, bakes bread from scratch, cleans windows, walls, and mirrors, pays the bills, balances the checkbook, does the grocery shopping, runs the car down to the shop, picks up milk when they run out, and teaches Sunday School. Maybe, just maybe, that's because she didn't do any of those things! Some of them she couldn't do (no car), some of them she wouldn't do (teach a Sunday School class while her own children were so young), and some of them nobody had to do (say what you will about outhouses, nobody scrubbed the toilet).

And the point of all this is to say that the next time you read Charlotte Mason, one of her many disciples, or some other book representative of a previous age and feel discouraged because you can't seem to do it all, please, dears, don't.