Today Was Supposed to Be His First Day of Kindergarten

Today was technically Khari’s first day of kindergarten.

And I kept him home.

Our homeschool year doesn’t officially start until September 14, so there was no real schedule today, no first-day lesson plan, no cute little setup waiting for him at the table. Mondays will eventually be one of his co-op days anyway, so today was really just… Monday.

Until everybody started posting first-day pictures.

And then I had a moment.

Because kindergarten is a big one.

It’s not just another school year. It’s usually the first real school year. The backpacks, the little signs, the parents standing outside classrooms trying not to cry, all the kids looking around at each other like none of them really know what’s going on yet.

And mine was home.

So yes, for a second I wondered if I was making him miss something.

Not just a picture. An experience.

And that part is hard to explain, because I chose this. I wanted something different for him. I still do. But apparently society can still guilt-trip you with a Target backpack and a

chalkboard sign.

I had to remind myself that the point was never for his life to look exactly like everybody else’s.

Actually, I’m trying very hard for it not to.

I want him to have a life that fits him, not just one that looks familiar.

And those are not always the same thing.

[PHOTO: A candid of Khari at home today. Nothing staged. Something that feels like “this was our day.”]

I don’t think traditional school was ever really the plan for us.

To be fair, I also thought I’d be rich by now, so in my original vision, the logistics looked a little different.

But even before I had all the details figured out, I never felt especially attached to the idea of sending him through a standard school system just because that’s what people do.

Then we tried pre-K.

It was at a public elementary school, and academically, he was fine. That was never the issue.

Socially, it was harder.

There weren’t enough kids who looked like him. There weren’t enough teachers who looked like him. And beyond that, I started realizing that for public school to function at all, it has to standardize.

That’s not me saying every public school is bad.

It’s just true.

There are too many kids, too many needs, too many schedules, too many standards, and not enough time. So eventually, somebody has to fit the system more than the system fits them.

And if you know Khari, you know that man was not built to blend into the background.

He is loud. Curious. Social. Distracted. Observant. Excitable. Sensitive. He asks a million questions. He notices things adults miss and then wants to discuss them immediately.

He’s not the kid who’s going to quietly sit in the middle of a classroom, absorb the lesson and keep it moving.

So then the question became: if I already know that, do I send him anyway because it’s easier for me?

Do I wait until somebody tells me he’s too much, too distracted, too talkative, too something?

Do I let him fall behind because the environment wasn’t built for him and then call that normal?

That never sat right with me.

A few weeks ago, when I was second-guessing myself, I asked him if he wanted to go back to a big school like last year.

He said no.

He told me too many people in his class made him distracted and nervous. His ideal class size is “like eight people.” Eight.

Apparently nine is where the vibes shift.

He also had no interest in riding the bus.

And that conversation was what I needed to hear.

Not because I think a five-year-old should be making major educational decisions, but because it confirmed something I already felt.

Point for mama’s instinct.

[PHOTO: Khari doing something very him — talking, building, gardening, moving, exploring.

The funny part is, I’m not actually that scared about teaching kindergarten.

I can learn curriculum.

I can find books.

We can count things.

We can read.

We can go outside and turn half the day into science.

That part feels figure-out-able.

What scares me more is becoming so focused on being his teacher that I forget to just be his mother.

I don’t want every question to become a lesson.

I don’t want every walk to have an objective.

I don’t want to spend all day with him and somehow still make him feel like he’s being managed.

And then there’s the other part I think about a lot. Me.

Because I still have to exist in all of this.

I want to be a good mother. I want to cook healthy meals. I want to educate him well. I want to be present and fun and reliable. I want to run my business. I want to farm. I want to make money. I want to build something that gives us freedom.

And I also do not want to disappear trying to be the best mom, cook, teacher and everything else I can possibly be.

If I take evenings off because I’ve talked to a five-year-old all day, am I still a present mother?

If I miss bedtime sometimes because I'm building a farm from the ground up, am I failing at the whole reason I chose this lifestyle?

I don’t know yet.

That’s the truth.

I’m not a trained teacher.

I’m not an expert.

I’m not a perfect mom.

I am really just trying to do as much abnormal shit as possible so I can change the trajectory of my family’s life.

That’s it.

I left corporate.

I got access to farmland.

I’m homeschooling my son.

I’m trying to grow more of our food.

I’m trying to build work around our life instead of building our life around work.

And when I list it all out like that, it does sound a little unhinged.

But I also know what I’m trying to move toward.

I don’t see a regular life for my family.

And if I don’t want a regular life, I can’t keep doing regular shit just because it’s easier to explain.

[PHOTO: Something that shows the bigger life — farm, kitchen, books, errands, all of it mixing together.]

Today, I had to go to the bank.

And I caught myself looking at that differently too.

Because if we’re really doing this whole life-schooling thing, then the bank counts.

Khari walked in and told me it looked “familiar.”

“I think I’ve been here before. This place looks familiar to me.”

First of all, excellent sentence.

And when we went to the teller and they asked for my PIN on the keypad, he started asking about the numbers.

So, we talked about debit cards.

We talked about PINs. (He even made up his own lol)

We talked about why you don’t tell people your PIN. 

And what your PIN is for. 

And there it was.

A lesson.

No worksheet.

No curriculum guide.

Just a kid being curious and an adult making enough time to answer the question.

Curiosity really is the key to a good lesson plan.

[PHOTO: Something tied to the bank errand, counting money, a wallet, or another everyday learning moment.]

I’m not anti-structure. We will have structure.

I’m not anti-curriculum. We will use curriculum too.

But I don’t want Khari growing up believing learning only happens when somebody sits him at a desk and tells him it’s time to learn.

The bank is math.

The garden is science.

Cooking is measurement.

Errands are economics.

A random question can turn into the whole lesson.

And I think part of my job is just to stay awake enough to notice.

That does not make me feel completely confident.

It's one of the things I'm most scared about.

Being responsible for his education feels heavy. Trying to stay myself while being responsible for so much of his world feels heavy too.

But the scary option still feels better to me because I know who I’m trying to become on the other side of it.

I want to be brave.

I want my son to be brave.

And at some point, I realized I can’t keep telling him to trust himself, question things and choose the life that fits him if I’m too scared to do the same thing.

What would I encourage him to do? Take the safe route because everybody understands it?

Or trust what he knows, even when the choice looks weird from the outside?

That answer is pretty easy.

So, I guess I have to live it too.

I believe when you follow your heart, listen to God and position yourself for the life you say you want, doors open where walls used to be.

I do not know exactly how all of this is going to work.

I just know I’m moving in the direction that feels right and trusting that the rest will meet me there.

It kind of has to.

I’m not writing this to convince anybody to homeschool.

I am writing it because I think we should question the default more.

Why this school?

Why this schedule?

Why this way of working?

Why this version of success?

Why does childhood have to look one particular way?

Your answer might still be the traditional one.

That’s fine.

But I think it should be an answer you actually chose.

Not just one you inherited.

Parenting already requires a ridiculous amount of trust, and I’m learning that sometimes your gut does not sound loud or certain.

Sometimes it sounds like, “I don’t know, but this still feels more right than the alternative.”

Sometimes it sounds like your kid telling you eight people is enough.

Sometimes it sounds like everybody else posting their first-day pictures and you having to remind yourself why yours looks different.

I think the goal is just to get familiar with that voice.

Today was technically my son’s first day of kindergarten. He stayed home.

And I’m still good with that

.

[PHOTO: End with the two of you, Khari outside, or something that feels like the beginning of a new chapter.]