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We’re excited to be hosting the next Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival on February 19! (A blog carnival is an event where bloggers all write posts about a topic, which are collected and linked to on the hosting blog.) Since this is a time of year when all of us could use some encouragement, we’ve decided to center this carnival around the theme of Mother Culture.
Karen Andreola used the phrase “mother culture” to refer to those things that provide refreshment, renewal, and rest for the busy homeschool mom. Charlotte Mason talked about the need for mothers to make time to play without the children:
“If mothers could learn to do for themselves what they do for their children when these are overdone, we should have happier households. Let the mother go out to play! If she would only have courage to let everything go when life becomes too tense, and just take a day, or half a day, out in the fields, or with a favourite book, or in a picture gallery looking long and well at just two or three pictures, or in bed, without the children, life would go on far more happily for both children and parents” (Vol. 3, p. 34).
Charlotte also encouraged us moms to keep learning and exploring things that we’re interested in. One of the Parents Review articles (Vol. 3, No. 2) challenged:
“Is there not some need for ‘mother culture’? But how is the state of things to be altered? So many mothers say, ‘I simply have no time for myself!’ ‘I never read a book!’ Or else, ‘I don’t think it is right to think of myself!’ They not only starve their minds, but they do it deliberately, and with a sense of self-sacrifice which seems to supply ample justification. There are, moreover, unfortunately, only too many people who think that sort of thing so lovely that public opinion appears to justify it. But does public opinion justify anything? Does it justify tight-lacing—or high heels—or bearing-reins for horses? It can never justify anything which leads to the ‘Oh, it’s only mother’ tone in any young person.
“That tone is not the right one. But can it be altered? Each mother must settle this for herself. She must weigh things in the balance. She must see which is the most important—the time spent in luxuriously gloating over the charms of her fascinating baby, or what she may do with that time to keep herself ‘growing’ for the sake of that baby ‘some day,’ when it will want her even more than it does now.”
We’ll collect all the submissions and link to all of them in one big post on February 19. Then we can all kick back, read to our heart’s content, and soak in the encouragement! (Oh, am I looking forward to it!)