Hearing the Gypsy Song – Traveling the World
by Susan Stiffelman
I suppose the story of the journey I took to Africa and beyond with my fifteen-year-old, Malibu-raised son, began well before we left.
It was a foggy Malibu morning, and my son Ari was still asleep as I read through the e-mails that came in overnight. Reading about the options—chimp sanctuary in Uganda, safari on the Serengeti, working at a school in Tanzania -- I was cozy and warm in my Tempurpedic bed, listening to the sounds of the morning in my comfortable Malibu world. The trash truck was outside, a few dogs were barking, the usual birds were chirping, and not much else. At that point, whenever I talked about packing it up and hitting the road for two-a-half months to travel the globe with my teenage boy, it was as though it were happening to someone else. I felt almost a curiosity, an interest in how this 40’s woman, very attached to her creature comforts and routines, thought she was going to handle leaving her comfortable life and wandering with her son around the world.
What About Us? Renewing Your Marriage
by Erin Chianese
Homeschooling is so natural that it becomes a 24-hour job. Every opportunity can be educational and much parental time is taken up with these moments of learning with our kids. Homeschooling definitely brings families closer together. But often in our busy homes, marriage is the first thing to be put on hold and the last to get attention.
I took a parent education class when my kids were toddlers. The teacher tried to emphasize to us to take care of ourselves first, then our marriage, and lastly our children. She said we can more easily give to others if we are content and recharged by our own lives . . . great advice but the reality is that we take care of our children first, then ourselves, and finally our marriage, if there is any energy left. A marriage on the back burner can sit and wait for better times or it can burn.
