I know that I have posted this picture before (just last week as a matter of fact) but I felt that it tied in so beautifully to the rest of this post that I needed to use it again. Read on and you'll understand why.
Today on Facebook I read this fabulously spot-on blogpost. And while I rarely devote a whole post here to something that I read there I just couldn't help but feel that what I said there needed to be shared here as well. Kara over at Quill and Camera posted about life as a recovering Waldorf perfectionist. This post is beautifully written and resonated deeply with me (even though we've never been 100% Waldorf).
"My kids’ favorite toys continue to be open-ended. We don’t push early academics. We bake. A lot. We have a rhythm.
We really dig gnomes.
But I don’t sing a song when it’s time to leave a public place or mop the floor.
The parts of Waldorf that just don’t work for us, I leave for other families. I admire those families very much. And yes, a little part of me sometimes wishes we lived in a community where none of the kids had Xboxes, because something about that just sounds very nice.
But when we opened up our world a bit, when we joined a diverse homeschooling co-op for instance, so many wonderful things happened for us. So I don’t regret at all embracing the parts of Waldorf philosophy that work for us, and letting the rest go."
-Kara from Quill and Camera
We really dig gnomes.
But I don’t sing a song when it’s time to leave a public place or mop the floor.
The parts of Waldorf that just don’t work for us, I leave for other families. I admire those families very much. And yes, a little part of me sometimes wishes we lived in a community where none of the kids had Xboxes, because something about that just sounds very nice.
But when we opened up our world a bit, when we joined a diverse homeschooling co-op for instance, so many wonderful things happened for us. So I don’t regret at all embracing the parts of Waldorf philosophy that work for us, and letting the rest go."
-Kara from Quill and Camera
We have never been Waldorf purists (or perfectionists) though we are happy to be connected to this beautiful community. I must admit that there have been times when I've wished that we could be *more* Waldorfy than we are. Truthfully though, when we've tried to be more Waldorfy it never really felt right either. So much of what we've embraced about the Waldorf philosophy are things that we just naturally did or things that just inherently felt right to us. We've experienced new festivals and new things along the way (and met some amazing families) thanks to our connection to the Waldorf community, all the while adopting only what truly felt right to us and leaving the rest for other families for who those things are a better fit. It's all about balance, my friends. It's all about finding what works. For us, it's a blend of a whole bunch of different approaches to life and learning (seriously, we really don't fit under any one category these days), but it's that blend that makes us the family that we are! Oh, and we *really* dig gnomes! xo
