Living in an RV or in a house parenting is hard. Yup. As much as I wish it wasn’t the reality, it is. Everyone – including us – makes life with kids look so great and perfect on social media. But everyone with kids knows that there is rarely a day that goes by where there isn’t a challenge with parenting.
We are raising – let me rephrase that – trying to raise our kids by giving them freedom, opinions, options. It is a style called Radical Unschooling. We are not experts in this and don’t know what we are doing most of the time.
But we are trying our hardest – let me rephrase that – we want to raise our kids this way but we really could work harder at it. The reality is we are probably doing it 50-75% of the time. It is hard, it is challenging, and it means going against the norm a lot of the time.
Yes our kids yell at us. Yes our kids disobey us. Yes our kids have strong opinions and tell us NO. But we support all of that. Let me rephrase that. We WANT to support all of that. But again we don’t always do it, which isn’t OK. And we don’t accept it, whine about it, or make excuses, but instead are always working to be better at it.
We choose to sell our house – which had a LOT of space – homeschool our kids and work from home. Which means we are together 24/7. I mean for real 24/7. What this means is that there are times when our kids need space from us and we need space from them. It is a challenge.
We have days that are just miserable and frustrating. Where we can’t seem to all be happy at the same time. Craig and I are convinced our twins wake up and decide who is going to be good that day and who is going to be a handful. Which means one of them is always a handful! I am starting to wonder if it has to do with the fact that they are twins and the middle kids. . . .
Then on the days they are both in a good place one of the other ones has a bad day. Or on those days that really don’t go well multiple kids or Craig and I are having a bad day. Our goal is to live with the concept of Bad Moments not Bad Days. But it is a work in progress.
We also have days where we have activities planned and the kids don’t want to leave the RV. They fight us, yell at us, and make it a struggle to get out the door. This is hard for Craig and I to handle since we are working hard to give them these amazing opportunities. And at times they don’t care . . .
It has made us question if being on the road is the right thing for them. When we stop to think about it we realize that things would probably be very similar if we were in a house. Like I said RV or not Parenting is hard.
We are proud to say we want to be best friends with our kids. We know they are watching us every day so we strive to set a good example of how to live a happy and mindful life. WOW that is a lot of pressure.
Being a parent is a lot of responsibility and is hard! We want all of our kids and us to enjoy our life, to feel happy and secure, to have a say in their day. We have not figured out how to make that a reality every minute of everyday, but we continue to strive for it.
There are days I am just a bad Mom and a bad Wife. It makes me sad and frustrated. What I grab on to is that I am aware of it and I realize that I want to improve. I just have to be careful not to give myself to much leeway. . .
Our social Media posts will continue to show the happy and good times. Since we don’t want to embarrass our kids by taking pictures of them when they are upset or not in a good place. But we also want to be as honest and transparent as we can which is why we shared this post with you.
So for all the parents out there we feel you! We haven’t found the magic answer and living on the road or in a house parenting is hard! Know we are striving to be better parents and people. Parenting our kids well is definitely one of our top priorities each and every day. Is it ever enough NO. But that is OK parenting isn’t suppose to be easy. Anything that is worth it isn’t easy.
She loves being outside and exploring new places which is all made better when doing it with family and friends!
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Fantastic post! Love the honesty. From someone living in a house but striving for a more nomadic life with my family it’s easy to get caught up in the happy beautiful pictures and posts and believe life is easier on the road. But like you said and again reiterated, parenting is hard. It doesn’t matter where you are. It’s a fact of life and part of parenting.
Thank you for the kind words Mara! Yes, it is easy to think life is all roses when traveling, but we definitely have rough patches. We really try to make those into bad moments and not something that would ruin a whole day.