Stats to Show Why BBHSing is Getting Harder

Remember how in BBHSing is Hard, Part 2 I discussed the ongoing demographic shift that keeps making it harder to be a BBHSer? Today, I happened to see an article about that very dynamic, here’s an excerpt:

“The sharpest decline in the(sic) Boston’s population of children, the study found, has been among middle-income families with children.
“‘These are families that tend to be above the income cutoff for subsidized housing programs and yet earn below what it takes to afford the fast-rising housing costs in many of these high-income cities,’ researchers wrote. ‘In today’s Boston, there are almost 6,000 fewer middle-income households with kids compared with 1980, even though our city has grown in total population.’”

Occasionally, I’ve spoken about our housing challenges with area homeschoolers. It’s unbelievable how casually insensitive people can be. I think some just cannot even imagine what life is like for the rest of us. It really brings to mind the parable of the brass pot and the earthenware pot. Three of these things are not good responses to the other:

Our landlord is raising our rent $250 which a 13% increase and we can’t afford it. We can’t find any affordable housing within an hour of Boston, I don’t know what I’m going to do.	I know just what you mean, we had to pay $600,000 over asking price for our home.
I know just what you mean, we own our home but want more space and we can’t find a home we want to buy.	Oh, North Central Massachusetts? I was thinking of buying a 40-acre farm up there. There’s a 200-acre farm in Vermont for the same price that I would love to move to.

I started this blog with the hopes of finding and bringing together other BBHSers for mutual support. We’re a vanishing tiny minority in a group that’s already a minority. Yo, clay pots! Hit me up in the comments!

BBHSing is Hard, Part 2

This is the second part of a two part series. Click here for Part 1.

For a really long time I didn’t understand why I couldn’t get much traction with homeschoolers in Greater Boston. Sometimes I would meet people who we seemed to get along with, but then something made it become clear we weren’t compatible, and I wasn’t entirely sure what it was.

In 2017 we lost our apartment to a $250 rent increase, we struggled for almost 6 months to find a new apartment. We couldn’t find anything within an hour’s drive of Boston and ended up in North Central Massachusetts. We lived there for almost 2 years, all the while working to find an apartment back in our old neighborhood.

So anyway, while in exile, what I learned about homeschoolers there opened my eyes. If you go outside the I-95 belt, and especially outside I-495, you will very quickly find more middle class and lower-middle class homeschoolers. You will easily find organized events catering to those homeschoolers. YMCA’s with very affordable homeschool gym and swim classes. A Boys & Girls club with a competitive swim team for $50/year. Mass Audubon homeschool classes that cost only $15 per class meeting. So many libraries with homeschool specific events! Coops that cost $50/year plus materials. Organizations of all kinds have easily found affordable homeschool classes.

I came to realize that the PRIMARY reason we couldn’t connect with homeschoolers in Greater Boston was that we were not in the same class. It’s so expensive in Greater Boston, it’s almost impossible for anyone below upper middle class to homeschool here. The cost of housing is the number 1 reason. If you have a middle class job, you really need 2 incomes to make it work in Greater Boston. Homeschooling and living on one income is wicked hard.

So many area homeschool events are SO EXPENSIVE! $300/academic class. Dance/martial arts/fine arts classes priced at $30/class meeting or above. Parts & Crafts! The coop at the Blue Hills! Not to mention that people with good resources are likely doing things on their own together and not advertising them on local homeschooling boards. Therefore many homeschoolers in the area are unavailable to BBHSers, we just can’t go where they go.

Add to that the fact that countless families have already been displaced and you have an awful demographic shift, where most of the people left in Boston are wealthy or poor. There are so few BBHSers because of the cold realities of economics which makes it harder to join together to create opportunities for ourselves.

There are always sacrifices that must be made when you live according to values. Sometimes it’s painful and solitary. And so, this post is dedicated to the BBHSers out there, homeschooling through stress, taking care of their families and making it work!

BBHSing is Hard, Part 1

When we ultimately came to realize our kids needed homeschooling, I was a totally newbie. I literally started out with the web search “What is homeschooling?”

Wow, did I have a lot to learn back then. Based on rose-colored accounts of homeschooling in blogs and message boards for newbies, I started out thinking classical education would be best for our family. I started out thinking it wouldn’t be hard to make connections. I started out thinking coops were common wherever homeschoolers were. I was so optimistic, unprepared and naive. (Optimism has been one of my faults for a long time.)

Learning that homeschooling is not homogeneous* was probably my first surprise. Given how welcoming everyone sounded online when discussing homeschooling, I really was unprepared for the tension between various philosophical tribes of homeschooling.

I remember our first organized homeschooling class was a fall sport clinic. I went there with such excitement to be meeting local homeschoolers, but was quickly met with blank stares when I went to introduce myself to the field-side moms. I immediately felt like I was back in elementary school, trying to make friends at a new school with a very chilly social environment.

I tried again in the winter at the MFA homeschool classes and made some promising connections, but it was hard to socialize while accompanying my high needs 5 year old through his Artful Adventures class.

Spring came and we tried the Watertown playgroup at Arsenal Park. By then I was already struggling with isolation and worn down a bit by the demands of homeschooling. So arriving at Arsenal and not knowing anyone at a busy, fairly spread out park, was very hard for me to cope with. By then I already knew that there were homeschooling social pitfalls I couldn’t easily predict, which made branching out feel very difficult.

As a second-choice homeschooler, I naturally found more in common with other second-choice homeschoolers. We are a pragmatic bunch. But one of the downsides to making friends with second-choicers was that they might change things up as needs and strengths evolved. Our first homseschool friends all went back to school within the first 2 years of meeting them.

First-choicers are homeschooling for an entirely different set of reasons and had a well formed sense of identity and purpose for their homeschooling family. They weren’t ever going to send their kids to school. This is a lovely set of life choices, and I have always admired and also envied their certainty and preparation. But the difference in our reasons for homeschooling was fundamentally tied to how different we were as people and that inhibited the formation of closer ties.

* Although homeschooling in this area is NOT as racially diverse as the general population.

Stick around for Part 2, coming tomorrow!

Winter Socializing on the Cheap

This BBHS family lives in a tiny apartment. It’s so small, we barely have enough room for all 4 of us to sit and watch TV. If we have one more person over for dinner, we have to move the couch and bring the table out of the kitchen. If you come into our apartment, I would say, “welcome, let me give you a tour, here’s all of it!”

Having playdate, or teaching a class together over here isn’t comfortable or practical. In warm months we can meet people anywhere outside, but when it turns cold we have to be creative about where to spend time with friends. This post is dedicated to BBHSers with similar challenges to having friends visit.

Places that are Free

A Library is a great place to meet up; it’s free, children’s rooms often have board games kids can play together, or other activities such as crafts, movies and more. The downside is that there aren’t many opportunities for gross motor activities if the kids are bigger than toddlers. I always appreciate libraries where the kids’ room is separate from the rest of the library. The Main branches of the Arlington, Boston, Cambridge, Somerville and Watertown libraries all have very nice, seperate kids’ rooms. In Cambridge and Somerville, there are playgrounds right outside as well.

The entrance to the Children's Library at the Copley branch of the Boston Public Library. — *The BPL’s Children’s Library at the Main branch. Source: BBHS*

There is a winter games day meetup at the Arlington Fox Library organized on the Homeschoolting Together Boston group. This is something you might consider starting up at a library nearer to you! This location is convenient to the 77, 79 and 350 MBTA busses.

Hiking/Going for a walk is also a good, cheap activity that’s better with friends. In winter you just have to have good enough outerwear and know where the nearest bathrooms are. If you need some inspiration or ideas on city locations for hiking, check out Outdoors Rx! When you register and sign up for their newsletter you can join their organized activities in and around Boston for free. If you just want information on where to spend time outdoors in nature in the city, check out their brochures on Boston (Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan), Chealsea/Revere, Framingham, and Waltham.

Almost Free/Cheap

Go with your friends to a museum’s free/cheap day! Or take advantage of library free admission museum passes. Most of the bigger museums in the area have days and times with free admission or admission by voluntary donation (which can be zero dollars, too). Visit the website of a museum you’re interested in to find out if they offer free admission days/times.

The Museum of Science is a decent place for indoor, gross motor opportunities. You can easily get a free admission pass from various libraries. There’s the Science Playground on the top floor (although they got rid of the running feature) and the Charles River Exhibit on the lowest level for some wonderful sensory play. If it isn’t busy, it’s not much of a problem for the kiddos to run a little bit. I’m not advocating full on running, just noting that it’s an indoor space where it’s more acceptable for the kids to get out some big movements. Also, there’s a lot to see without needing a ticket, such as the little zoo and hands on lab (check schedule for topics and hours) both downstairs from the Discovery Center, the ball machine and the solar system exhibit outside the Omni Theater.

If you have favorite go-to places for meeting up with friends in winter, I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

What’s all this, then?

Why Broke Boston Homeschooling?

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.

Do you ever read optimistic homeschooling advice that tells you to go out and join groups, meet other homeschoolers at park days and homeschool events at local institutions? Do you find that those events and park days are often out of reach because of distance from public transportation, or the cost?

Do you hear about other people belonging to homeschool coops but you can’t find one you can afford, and/or get to?

Do you read advice that reassures you’ll find your tribe? Are you a second choice homeschooler and your reasons for homeschooling don’t fit with typical “tribes?”

When you talk with local homeschoolers, do you ever feel like the others just don’t understand your challenges or what it means to live in Greater Boston with relatively limited resources?

If you identify with a lot of this, then stick around, this blog is for you and me!