Day 407 of 1000
I spend about one-fourth of my time on the road these days. The rest of the time, I spend at home, working up in the bonus room. It used to be that I went off to work every morning while the rest of the family stayed home. Now it is often the other way around. Today, Lorena will be in school until about five so I will pick up the kids at NCSU when they get out a little after mid-day.
All this has me thinking about what will happen to the kids when they leave home in a little over a year and a half. It might move out to a little more than that if the kids stay home for the summer, but it will be soon. One of the big topics in our household over the years has been that the purpose of school is to learn something that will make you employable, get out as quickly as possible, and if you have a little fun a long that is OK, but not essential.
Having done the homeschool thing, one of our pet peeves is the idea that the experience of traditional school has any intrinsic value other than the preparation of the students to contribute to society. We have given this a good deal of thought and discussion over the last several months because the kids are really not to far from the transition from college into either grad school and/or work when they will have to take even more responsibility for their finances, household, and all the things that have to do with living on their own. Some of the topics include internships, leisure time (or, more importantly, the lack thereof when it comes to meeting responsibilities), and resumes.