Some links may be affiliate links which is no extra cost to you but helps continue Blessed With Motherhood blog, thank you. See my full disclosure policy for more!
Mother Culture first coined by the mysterious “A” in a parents review article entitled by the same name in 1892 and brought into the light of the modern age by Karen Andreola’s book “Mother Culture” is a fascinating concept on how to grow as mothers and not “stand still”. I highly recommend reading both the article and the book to glean knowledge of this wonderful concept! It’s thought that the mysterious author A is none other than Charlotte Mason herself, which would be delightful and not surprising in the least.
This year I’m going to be buckling down on my own “Mother Culture” more. As a homeschool mom, my children’s education is extremely important and I pour much of my time into it. As I lay the feast of a rich classical Charlotte Mason education for my children I also will set a place at the table for my own ‘Mother’s Education’. Charlotte Mason shared encouragement and wise words for how to set this exact place setting…
“If mothers could learn to do for themselves what they do for their children when these are overdone, we should have happier households. Let the mother go out to play!”
-Charlotte Mason School Education pg 33-34
Here here for Mothers going out to play and for happier households. My children are all still very young but one day my husband and I will be empty nesters. While I can only imagine how bittersweet it will be, it will also mean we have succeeded in raising our little birds to fly the nest and build nests of their own. But so many mothers (especially those who homeschool) lose a piece of themselves in the process. They spent many years teaching and nurturing only to put themselves out of a job. So while we diligently pour ourselves into our children’s lives, it’s wisely recommended that mothers grow too, in our knowledge of books, arts, and skills. So that we don’t remain stagnate but flourish and demonstrate that learning truly is life long!
Because one of the foundations of a Charlotte Mason education is Children are born persons, we as mothers ARE born persons and hunger for truth, goodness and beauty ourselves! By pursuing “Mother Culture” we’ll be growing our hearts and minds in such a meaningful way.
For my own Mothers Education, I plan to pursue a plethora of things!
Books:
It’s no surprise that the greatest and easiest way to pursue education is to read widely. I’ve fallen off the bandwagon with reading this last year. The prior two years I had managed to read 100+ books in a year and I had dreams of reaching that goal every year. Little did I know that morning sickness sometimes gets triggered, mentally, by things you enjoy and not just food. Picture the first and second trimesters of pregnancy leading to bouts of nausea anytime I tried to pick up a book. Even audiobooks could trigger it! A house full of books and a children who hunger for living books, to say I saved any reading I could muster for our homeschool is the least I can say about it. But now it’s a funny memory that we can all laugh at while I tote my basket full of books, I’m currently reading, around the house. I only ended up reading 40 something books this year (including audiobooks & homeschool books) and while it’s still quite a lot. Our goals will be smaller in harder seasons of life.
How I choose what books to read and what kinds?
I’ve seen this going around a lot in the CM community and it wasn’t until I read the Parent Review Article that I found where this idea originated. The idea for your book stack to include
-A Stiff Book
-A Moderately Easy Book
– And A Novel
I’ve gone with this method for a few years and it truly is gratifying and great as a mood reader to have a few going at once and to simply pick up whichever one I’m feeling in the mood to read that day. I tend to like biting off more than I can chew so I usually have more that one book per category going too! I honestly love how this blog post breaks it down!
The Stiff Book: what makes a book stiff is that it’s more challenging to read, not just in level but in how much information it’s giving you! Ones that require a high level of attention. If the book is taxing for me I’m adding it to this category.
Examples of my stack in this category are Biblical Theology, Some Motherhood books, Homeschool books, books rich and heavy in information such as Mason’s books, a longer classic, those kinds of books.
The Moderately Easy Book: what makes these books easier than the stiff books is the language is more modern, or maybe they aren’t as long or throwing so much information your way. But they are still building up our minds and hearts in a living way. You’ll still learn something but it won’t be as taxing on our souls and minds.
A Novel Book: what makes a book a novel is they are shorter and the easiest to read but we aren’t looking for twaddle. Our minds can be poisoned by harmful books so we still want to look for truth, goodness and beauty in this section as much as the first two. They are pleasant to get through and might be many in a series. I might change what novels mean to others (especially to those in the Victorian age) but I think classics that are shorter and lighter in tone can fit nicely into this category just as much as modern books.
Jane Austen for instance! Check out my video on Youtube for many more examples. You can also find links to all the books I talk about for my Mother’s Education here.
Of course we can’t know a book before we read it so if you feel a book is twaddle, especially harmful it’s ok to not finish it and move on. Life is too short to read bad books and books that weigh us down in a harmful way.
More specific types of reading I’m hoping to do
Biblical Theology: These books can really fit into the stiff book category nicely but while I read my mind daily with this stack, I’d like to further my knowledge of Theology. I’m a protestant Christian, I’d like to dive deeper into Theology so I’d like to have one of these kinds of books going regularly too!
I’ll also be including a PNEU Parents Review Article in my stack. There are so many Articles and I think they hold a lot of wisdom especially for Charlotte Mason Home Educators and so I would like to glean from them anything I can and will be reading a few a month.
I hope you’ll follow along here and/or on my Youtube channel. I’m so looking forward to sharing it and all the hopes I have for cultivating my own Mother’s Education in everyday life!
Until next time friends,
-Ariel
