Ms. Bauer makes quite a few good points in this article.  Maybe as time rolls on  I will address them in future articles.  The one point she did make that resonated deeply within me dealt with finding the time to read.

    "Activities that produce an immediate result are always more satisfying than activities that don't.... In many ways, it's more rewarding to get up in the morning and clean the kitchen than to get up and read.  After all, if your husband or your mother walks in, you can say, "I am a useful human being.  I am a useful member of society. Look at my kitchen."  But if your house is filthy, the baby is screaming, and you have a book in your hand, you won't feel at all rewarded." 

That tiny little paragraph has summed up how I have been feeling for the last five years.   I read those words and I started to cry.  I have been feeling torn between  working like a crazy woman to have a clean house (if I have a clean house then this means I am a good wife and mother) and being able to have some time to myself  to challenge my thinking through good books.  I have realized that I have become a Martha.  I have morphed into a woman who works constantly all day so that her house is clean and her yard  is weedless. 

Please don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with having a clean house, but there needs to be a balance, at least for me there does.   I am not a happy person when I am working all day long.  I soon become grouchy and bitter.  I need to have some down time so that I can read, think, and ponder.  My soul needs that.   My problem is that I have quite a few people in my life that do not see things the same way that Ms. Bauer and I do.   They consider  reading a book  the height of laziness.  Their warped thinking has been interjected into my way of thinking.   After reading Ms. Bauer's article, I can see where I am doing my children a disservice in not spending time teaching myself.

If I spend a bit of time each day reading, learning, and stretching my brain muscles, then I will be able to have intelligent conversations with my children about  philosphy,  history, literature, spirtual issues, etc.   Even more, if I become well-read, I will be able to participate in The Great Conversation with my children.  My understanding of the Great Conversation is to discuss the Great Ideas (truth, love, beauty, justice, goodness,  to name a few)  in relation to all that I have read, as well as to the world.  I will be able to have this kind of conversation with my children.   According to Plato, this is the best kind of discussion to have with another human being.  This kind of discussion fills the soul  as well as challenges the brain.  This is my goal for my children. If I am busy  cleaning my sink, though,  that discussion will only be a far flung dream.  I want it to be a reality for me and my children.

After reading Ms. Bauer's  article, I am determined to ignore the voices of those  anti-readers and plunge ahead in the journey of my self-education.  This does not mean that my house will now lay in squalor,  as I am still planning to clean my house (I can hear my family  breathing a sigh of relief.)   It just means that I will be carving  more time out for my own education.   My reward won't be as immediate as a clean kitchen.  It will be far in the future when my children and I are sitting in the living room discussing what is truth  while reading Plato.  This reward  will be a long time in coming, but I can wait.

Julia lives on the Canadian Prairies with her husband, homeschooling her 3 children (10,8,6) and attempting to give them a Classical Education.  You can read more at herblog.

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