Okay so this is fairly new to me. Reading for myself! My own education! Whoever would have thought? Now I absolutely love reading aloud to my children and definitely see the benefits in them reading, but I didn’t really see the benefit of reading for myself until recently.
I was not a reader when I was a child, I mean I could read, but why would I when there is so much else to do. It wasn’t until I was a young wife that I started reading Christian help books on marriage as I wanted to be the best wife I could, that I found reading to be a relaxing hobby that I wanted to incorporate into my daily life. I was learning so much from these books, about what the Bible says regarding a Christian marriage, and all the practicalities of being a wife and managing a home. I use to commute for two hours on public transport to and from work most days, so I used this time for reading.
Then when I had my first baby, I was totally besotted by her and I had a hard time trying to fit in my bible reading and personal devotions. I didn’t think anything of reading anything extra! Occasionally I would stumble across a health book or something else of interest and read snippets here and there. Though, it just wasn’t a priority.
A few weeks ago, I read a few blog posts on the importance of a mother reading for her own education and how to actually make that happen. I am so grateful to those bloggers who inspired me. I started thinking how I could make this happen and what sort of books I wanted to include in my own education.
Then I stumbled across this post. Helena writes about how she can do her own education while homeschooling her own children. Her post really inspired me to make the most of those snippets of time that happen sporadically during the day.
I usually conduct most of my one on one teaching at our dining room table. So in setting that up for our days lessons, I also add one or two of my books to the table. When I have a minute or a few minutes in between teaching or waiting for a child, I can read a paragraph or a couple of pages. It is amazing how much I can get through during this time.
It isn’t just reading. It is learning another language – French. It is learning Latin alongside my daughter. It is relearning how to crochet and how to knit. It is taking sports lessons and learning how to play tennis. It is keeping a commonplace book and a book of centuries. It is being a student for tomorrows maths lesson so I understand it fully before attempting to teach it to my daughter. The list goes on.
We don’t learn just enough to be able to teach, but we learn to grow and develop and to beautify our own life.
There is so much learning to be done. And so much that can be considered ‘A Mother’s Education’. I would love to hear how you are educating yourself 🙂
