I am just about to come unhinged by milk. If I go anywhere, anytime I go anywhere, I come home with milk. If I go to work, I pick up milk on the way home. If we go to the park, we come home with milk. Need gas? Get milk too. Going for a root canal? Could you pick up some milk? I have started buying three gallons at a time. I had no idea milk would own me. All the years I spent nursing should have been a clue. But I have a learning disability and I am slow. It has taken me nine years to see the world clearly. Last night I saw it, and I went nearly psychotic on my husband. We were out of milk and he wanted some. He offered to jump in the car and go out JUST for milk. Milk is now its own destination. And woe unto those who have none.

Something in me broke. I had been planning to get to the store all day. I knew we were out. Hell, the kids had gone 24 whole hours without milk in a glass. I could feel the earth starting to wobble. Unfortunately I snapped at Joe, "Do you HAVE to drink SO MUCH milk?!" Because, ya know, he likes a splash in his coffee and, usually, a glass in the evening. Can you see how UNREASONABLE he is? Don't worry, I was quick to tell him. But the truth is, running out of milk makes me feel like a bad wife and a worse mother. Somehow, milk is the definition of my job. And milk is the outer boundary of wealth. Right there, I am probably dead on target.

Many babies never really get to spend much time at home with their Moms or Dads. We make sure they all get enough milk, though. Milk is a clear priority in our society. But being safe and relaxed at home in the loving arms of a parent? Eh, not so much. Apparently, that is too much for a baby to ask. I heard once that at the end of our adult lives, we will have spent more time with our coworkers than our families. Ok? Harsh perhaps, but necessary. Work is necessary. I get that. But is that what we want for babies? Because it follows naturally, that babies are now spending more time with their coworkers than their families.

I am not talking about homeschool here. I am talking about staying home with babies. There is an op/ed article in the New York Times today about the lack of concern in congress for funding childcare. The punch line of the whole essay implies that parents staying home with their babies, is an unreasonable goal. The assumption, we will never again have a society where it is possible for babies to be home with parents, just really made me mad. Is all that milk gunking up our brains?

It is not true that you can only homeschool if you are rich. Of all the homeschoolers I know, most are of average income. Many aren't even that. How do we do it? I think many of us, through a searingly scary and painful adjustment from freewheeling people in our 20 to serious parents in our 30s, learn to prioritise the children right after they are born and we fall in love with them. Right there, something changes in future homeschooling parents. Even if we don't realise it at the time. When we fall in love with our babies, and when this love rearranges our internal landscape, we feel a need to be home protecting, loving, and nurturing these babies.

Once that happens, homeschool is nothing much more than a continuation of the same. A bigger house, better vacations, newer clothes, and more milk just never quite become more important than being home for the children. I quote one of my older posts:

"We started our life together without any money or any real prospects. That did not bother me one tiny whit, as I always expected to be poor. In 1995 I remember thinking that we would NEVER earn as much as $30,000.00 a year-- a staggering and unimaginable sum. In the beginning, we lived and had two babies on $18,000.00 a year. It was stressful and difficult. (It was also priceless.) We did without many many things, often things such as milk. We did without a computer, a cell phone, new clothes, vacations, cable TV, cars that ran properly, anything which can not be found in the local thrift shop, dinners in restaurants, movies, dates in general.....you get the idea. We had WIC, the kids had Medicaid, we had help from family, and we were gritty and we got along. For years I kited money on credit cards. We got used to getting along. And we noticed that the things we did without were not the most important things. We had one whole heaping lot of the most important things. Things like Fairies and Barbarians. And each other. And long walks in the country and the pleasure of holding a stag beetle and hearing it hiss. More pointedly, the pleasure of putting the stag beetle in the hand of a Fairy."

I wonder. (I also swanny, but that won't make sense to any of you who didn't grow up in The South.) Has the national obsession with making sure all the children, (And here I mean, of course, all the white children because how much does anyone in Washington really think about children at all? And if they think about children, they only really seem to think about their children. Let's face it. Most of those are white.) has this obsession with milk for children become a sad symbol? Or is it hubris, a sad Greek tragedy of false pride? We are proud of our American milk and our fat babies sitting in daycare, many of them from the ripe old age of 6 weeks, the lucky ones getting to stay home 6 whole months. Are we compensating? How many of those babies get breast fed? How many get EXCLUSIVELY breast fed for the first 6 months, and PREFERABLY the first whole year, as put forth by the American Pediatric Association? But worse, how many of our children spend more time with strangers than family? What has happened to our value system? And why can't I keep enough milk in this house?