Observations upon beginning the "school year"

This week I've been talking with some other local moms about this activity and that, now that they are all starting up again.  People are coming in from out of town, gearing up their calendars, and generally behaving like squirrels before winter.  Some of it's quite natural and fun, and I'm glad to see everyone. But after penciling in the umpteenth activity in my calendar yesterday, I began to have a sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach.  I like people, and I'll go a good bit out of the way to be around them now and then, but it is really worth all this?  Can't we just do one activity? When are we going to daydream?  Sit around and read books?  Cook?   Is there anything that I can gracefully back out of here? Will anyone just come goof off with us, or do we have to have a program?

Here is something else I'm thinking about:  I have a "middle schooler," whatever that is. There's a lot of talk about independence.  Everybody is letting their children travel around to activities.  The kids have their own friends instead of doing things with their siblings.  They are joining youth group. They do their schoolwork by themselves. Sometimes the child wants to go to high school and the parent says, "Sure."  All this freedom!  And yet academically, it seems as though their homeschooling freedom is dissolving.  They are are writing term papers, doing lab work, beefing up their reading lists, doing test prep. 

How is it that our our home, we've somehow managed to take the opposite course?  C.Z. walks a few places by herself, but it's not like she's ever been excited about it or anything.  She doesn't care that much about shopping with other girls, comparing cell phone ring tones, or going to movies.  She probably has fewer friends than she did at six, eight or ten, while everyone does this fruit-basket-turn-over thing.  She talks fondly of the other kids at music school, but she's happy to eat lunch with us during her long break and isn't worried about what the other kids are doing.  She has no particular interest in youth group.  

And yet, academically, the situation is reversed:  She picks her own reading list, writes privately in her journal, and in her favorite subject, music, she outpaced me long ago.  There are still a few subjects where I ask her do something, but frankly, we never do a full schedule of academics. Who can pay attention to that many things at one time? This is not to say that I don't want an academically challenging homeschool.  If anything, I'd like one that is more challenging than she could do with a full schedule.  It's just that I think that for her to learn in any depth, she has to pick the topics, as she is ready for them, and she has to pick a few at a time to concentrate on. 

It's not the term papers or labs per se, of course.  It's the general tendency to fill in the blanks.  I really like to leave some of the blanks blank.  Let's say they're margins, for doodling.

How did we get to be so different?  I'm sure some of it has to do with the particular people that we are.  There are probably kids who beg for schedules, who positively thrive checking off lists and joining a bunch of extracurricular activities, or who long to test themselves against the mettle of a large, competitive high school.  But we're happiest more or less doing what we always do, what homeschoolers used to call a lifestyle of learning.  And I think we'll keep doing it, thank you. Would someone like to join us?