Connie is a Christian homeschooling mom of seven noisy kidlets, wife of one hunky golf pro, maker of aprons, teller of stories, wiper of noses. It’s a wonderful life! You can find her at her blog Smockity Frocks.
Several years ago, when we had moved for my husband’s new job and were expecting our fifth child, I found myself in a small town, away from friends and family.
We didn’t know anyone in town who homeshooled or had a large family. None of our new friends or acquaintances understood why we chose to live the way we did.
That’s about the time I discovered something called “blogs”. In a moment of loneliness, I had Googled “large family, homeschool” and stumbled upon Amy’s Humble Musings.
I was thrilled that I could read about the daily happenings of a lady who seemed just like me!
Christian? Check. Homeschooler? Check. Large family? Check. Republican? Check.
Soon, using the checklist I had formed, I found more “like minded” blogs and I felt like I had a little online community of friends who were just like me in every way.
What I didn’t realize, though, was my little community was making me a snob in my real life. Whenever I met someone new, I would go through the check list in my head, and they would undoubtedly fall short in one or more areas. I would mentally keep score and whine to my online community that “like minded friends” were SO hard to find.
This snobbery of mine was so insidious that I didn’t even realize it was happening. I just kept wondering why the internet was the only place I could find anyone to live up to my narrow standards.
It never crossed my mind that I was searching the entire world over and only coming up with a handful of people who could pass my checklist.
In the meantime, I kept holding real life friends at a distance. If they were Christians who had a large family, but didn’t homeschool, I didn’t think we had enough in common to really be this thing called “like minded” that I had elevated to a position of utmost importance.
If they were homeschooling Christians who only had two children, I would lament the fact that we were so… so… DIFFERENT.
Then, one day and a couple of children later, I started thinking about the fact that my grandmother only had three children. And she thinks homeschooling is, well, kinda kooky. And she is a DEMOCRAT!
And I still, like, LOVE HER a whole lot.
And she still loves me even though I’m kinda kooky and Republican.
That’s when I realized that I was missing out on a whole world of wonderful friendships because of my exclusive checklist.
I suddenly saw so many people around me who were different, but not really so different after all. Most moms I know want the best for their children. They may take a different approach than I do in the daily details, but we have the same desire.
Most people I know want the best for our country. Opinions vary, but mostly nobody wants us to destroy ourselves from within. Again, the same desire.
I found that I don’t have to agree with someone on every point to be a friend. I can celebrate our likenesses and let the rest go.
The world is a much friendlier place now that I use the internet, not as a way to exclude, but as a tool to gather information and communicate with others.
