Our maths curriculum, The Good and the Beautiful, lay open on the table. It was easy, enjoyable, beautiful even. But surely maths had to be hard to be effective, and I knew just the thing for the job: Singapore Math, the crowning glory of Math Land. Sure, it was pricey, but raising a maths genius was going to cost something. The new curriculum arrived… and so did the maths woes. Unlike our old open-and-go books, this one demanded one-on-one time, just maths and me, every single lesson.
Then there was Instagram, my portal to the homeschooling world. These families had such lovely sunlight pouring into their rooms. Road tracks that stuck on the wall… a solar system set… and a discount code! The tracks were eventually sold off on a WhatsApp group, and I have no idea what happened to the planets. Aren’t you glad I’m not in charge of keeping the universe running?
WhatsApp dealt its fair share of blows, too. Comparisons with other people’s children, however well meant, landed hard. This was my first shot at parenting, and sadly, I didn’t have much of a community to help me navigate conversations like that. I believed those words, and they stung… deep.
I’m happy to report that things aren’t nearly as dismal anymore. I now have the community I once longed for, and the darkest days are behind me. In fact, we began our new homeschooling term with a bouquet of lilies on the table. I wanted us to… consider the lilies. I’d been reading Miroslav Volf’s The Cost of Ambition, and his chapter on Kierkegaard had me going, “Hey, I’ve been through this too!”
Kierkegaard’s parable of the lily and the bird grows out of Jesus’ teaching on worry. Jesus taught that no one can serve two masters: we serve either God or money (Matthew 6:24). He went on to show that worry often reveals a divided heart, one that trusts something other than God to secure our lives. And like the master teacher He is, He painted a picture for the people gathered under the open sky:
“And he said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on… Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.’” (Luke 12:22–27, ESV)
Unlike many in Jesus’ first audience, for whom daily bread was a real worry, most of us reading this probably aren’t worried about what we will eat or wear. But we may be worrying about how our food, our clothes, our children, our homes and our lives compare with everyone else’s. Some relatives size up our children at family gatherings, and well-meaning people keep nudging us to put our children in school: “But what about their socialisation?” The worry of comparison is a common plague.
To illustrate the point, Kierkegaard tells a story, which Volf retells in his book. Once upon a time, a little lily grew happily beside a brook, surrounded by other flowers. Anyone who truly looked at her could see she was dressed more splendidly than Solomon. Then one day, a little bird dropped by and made friends with her. On her travels across the sky, the bird had spotted dazzling lilies in faraway places, and she loved to describe them.
But the bird was a mischief-maker. Rather than enjoying the lily’s beauty, she boasted of everything she had seen on her travels. Worse still, her stories usually ended with a put-down. Next to those lilies, this lily was nothing, so unremarkable that she could hardly call herself a lily at all. The lily began to feel small beside those dazzling lilies and beside the bird who could fly. Worry crept in, and the lily could think of little but herself and her lot, from morning till night. She longed to be one of those beautiful lilies, or better still, a Crown Imperial whom everyone envied.
To give the lily what she craved, the bird agreed to move her. She pecked at the earth around the lily, pulled her up by the roots, and set off with her towards the far-off lilies. But the lily withered on the way.
As Volf puts it, “Fleeing from inferiority by striving for superiority kills her.”
Homeschooling became one of the places where I tried to flee my perceived inferiorities, and the results were far from life-giving. Worry showed up in my curriculum choices, especially in maths. Teachers had shattered my confidence in my own school days, so now I longed to be ahead of the game. I chased what seemed superior instead of what worked best for my family.
But comparison reached deeper than curricula. For years, I was caught in the trap of believing there was something wrong with the way I mothered. Words stung me the way the bird’s words stung the lily. I began to lose patience with my family and to worry that we would never measure up.
Change didn’t come from a book. Kierkegaard gave me words for what I’d lived through, but words alone didn’t set me free. Transformation has been slow. The biggest change was distance. Some of the conversations that fed my sense of not being enough fell away, and I stopped seeking them out. Painful as that was, it gave me room to heal. Just as important was letting in people who loved my family, whose encouragement helped me believe in us again. I also filled my mind with the truth and began meeting regularly with a spiritual companion.
Over time, she has helped me see my identity as God’s beloved and reminded me that my children are on their own unique journeys with God. She has also helped me see spiritual disciplines as grace work: not another way to measure up, but a way of making room for God to do what I can’t. I’m no longer trying to be better than anyone. Yes, moments of comparison still come, but now I recognise them as the insidious trap they are, and I ask God to help me stay in my lane.
Each of these was a gift, but none of them was the source.
The freedom I’ve found ultimately comes from Jesus. Put a group of homeschooling mums together and, of course, we’ll compare. If we can only make sense of who we are in relation to each other, we’ll end up feeling either good or bad, but anxious to keep our place. But when we understand ourselves in relation to Jesus, we’re free to relate to one another without worry. My dignity comes from Him, not from anyone else’s accomplishments, so I’m free to respect everyone simply because they are human.
Jesus Himself reasons this way: “But if God so clothes the grass… how much more will he clothe you” (Luke 12:28, ESV). If an ordinary lily is more glorious than Solomon’s royal robes, how much more glorious is a human being? You needn’t be like me, and I needn’t be like you, because each of us is just as God intended.
The way I home-educate looks very different from the way my friends do. My elder daughter is an excellent baker. I didn’t plan that; it happened because I used to bake up a storm when she was little. My younger one is brilliant at dead hangs, courtesy of her athletic dad. And both girls are growing up in a mini-library, thanks to my great love of books.
One friend loves science and brings that temperament beautifully into her home education. Another involves her children in the life of the home and is doing an amazing job of keeping local traditions alive: pickles, masalas, and even Goa sausage, all from scratch! I’ve learnt so much from both of them, but I don’t expect, or even need, their gifts to become my personality.
I’m learning to be content where I’m planted: with the curriculum we use, and with the uniqueness I bring to my family. And I’m so thankful for friends who do things differently from me, friends I can learn from and whose differences I can enjoy. Instead of living with the worry of comparison, I’m enjoying the blessing of community, in all its beautiful variety.
I’m making that bouquet our new homeschool tradition. From now on, we’ll begin every term with fresh lilies on the table, a beautiful reminder that our uniqueness is a gift, and that each of us, whatever our pace or curriculum, carries the same dignity. The lilies neither toil nor spin, and they are not racing anyone. They simply bloom as they were made to. And so, by God’s grace, can we.
Where has the bird been whispering to you lately? And what might it look like for you to stay planted?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
