Womanly Arts

We have a “just turned” 18 yo daughter and we’ve had these discussions over the last few years. We agreed that being well rounded is a great goal. We’ve just let her explore different things based on her interest at the time; sewing, cooking, baking, gardening, home decorating, etc. Also, being able to do “what’s necessary”, like mowing, taking off the garbage, working within a budget and paying the bills, etc. if her future husband happens to need her to be his helper in those ways for a season (as I am right now 😕 )

I asked her how she would answer your post and she said “Proverbs 31 would sum it up wouldn’t it, mom?” I’m going to go crawl in my hole now 😳 Maybe she should be the mom!!!! 😆

mj

P.s. I just had a thought. Wonder if any of our older girls would like to exchange ideas on this forum?

I like the lists above and I wonder if we can add something about being a good partner and what that means. I remember my mom, grandma, and aunts took new wives in the family under their wings. It can be hard to be a new wife, especially if you didn’t grow up with brothers and don’t understand how guys can be different than girls.

I sometimes see young women really frustrated and unhappy with their husbands, not realizing that patience and kindness will work so much better than sharp words.

I’m not surrounded by extended family anymore and I regret that my daughter doesn’t have the strong support of older women relatives that I had growing up. I sometimes wonder how to best guide her in the coming years.

I actually had this discussion with my own 17 year old daughter, she wants to go to college, and she said that if God willing a husband came her way – she would like to homeschool her children. She said that maybe a degree in teaching secondary to her major might be a good plan – thinking about it she might well be right. We live in such uncertain times, it cannot hurt to cover all the bases. She does not want to teach in a school or anything, but thought it might be helpful in the future. I too am curious to read what others think.

Thanks for that – I too have degrees in British History, and British Literature – but not the teacher certificate as that was not what I wanted to do – I planned on doing research, a whole different story. I actually never used my degrees in the way I thought I would, however I feel they equipped me to be a better homeschool teacher and made me a more well rounded individual. The love of history and literature never left me, and I do a lot of reading and research now for fun. I am encouraging our girls to get a really good education in the field of their choice and I thank you for your letter as it validates my daughters idea about getting a degree and adding teacher’s training to it. By the way, you are very smart, already planning your CM for your young daughter. I love CM and it is all I would use with little ones – with my teens I am being a bit more eclectic, especially as one is really into science. We do read and narrate science books, but mostly follow the curriculum and do the tests. Anyway, your little one is lucky to have you – starting our own learning early can only help. We came to homeschooling late – I was not aware of it in England where we were living and so our girls were in PS until quite late, so I missed the opportunity to start from scratch with CM, wish I could have though. Still we had a few years pure CM, now changed it a wee bit, but still read, narrate and do copywork along with the textbooks. The narrations now are more opinion driven than telling back, but it is still CM. Good luck when you get started, I just love homeschooling.

Missingthesquire – glad I could chime in on a subject I actually know something about! :0) Thanks for the well-wishes!

I’ve written down the authors and titles of the other suggestions – I’ll look them up at the library soon!