Things I don't think I'll miss about school

In the future I may have cause to eat my words. But now, from a fairly hopeful point of view, here's a list of things I don't think I (or anyone else) will miss about school:

• Waking up at 6:40 a.m. regularly on weekdays
• Pushing hard for early bedtime because I know P will be surly in the morning if she doesn't get her sleep
• Hurrying to get P to school, or to get me and T to school to pick her up in the afternoon
• Trying really hard to get T down for a nap in the time frame allowed by school pickup
• Trying to get P to do homework that she doesn't want to do, or doesn't want to do now
• Hearing about social bullying at school and worrying whether/how it would affect P
• Making a box lunch every day
• Worrying about P getting gluten-containing food at school that will make her sick (although she's actually quite good about not eating stuff she knows she's sensitive to, sometimes it's hard for her to tell)
• Having to plan family trips and other special activities around the school calendar

A lot of the above fall under the rubric of "Spending relationship capital to enforce schedules and routines that our family didn't have a voice in creating." I'm hoping that unschooling will mean we have more investment in what we are doing on a day-to-day and hour-to-hour basis. It may not make things easier overall, but I hope it will make our efforts feel more worthwhile because the goals we are working on are chosen by us.

We'll trade these for some new challenges, I'm sure. I'll save those for another post. :)