How Dads Participate in Homeschooling - Part 1

Since the recent discussions about fathers and homeschooling on K-Dad.net and Spunky Homeschool, I've spent some time thinking about all the things that Henry does which helps our homeschooling be successful.

I give each point its own post.

So, in no particular order:

1) Dad does most of the laundry.

I know this sounds trivial, but it makes a big difference. In the morning, Henry puts in a load of laundry before he goes jogging. He moves the load to the dryer and starts another load before he leaves for work. He sets the timer to remind me to move it to the dryer. Half the time I forget anyway. When Henry gets home, he brings the clean laundry in baskets to our bedroom.

The baskets of clean laundry have a tendency to stack up in our room. When we run out of baskets, I dump the laundry on our bed to be sorted. One of the kids helps me sort it back into the baskets. Each person in our family has a basket with their name on it. The kids then put away their own laundry.

My twelve year old does her own laundry, but occasionally something of hers will show up in the big pile of clean laundry on the bed.

Because Henry takes care of this, it is one less thing I need to worry about. Henry does many things for our homeschooling, but this simple thing means a lot to me. It was his idea and he does it with no fanfare or complaint. Our agreement was that he would wash and I would fold and put away. When the clean laudry starts to stack up, he will jump in and fold/put away, as well. So, every time the discussion comes up about how fathers support homeschooling or their wives in general, this is the first thing that pops into my head.

See Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 for the next point.


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Related Tags: homeschool, home education, laundry, fathers