This morning the candle was lit, the verse was already chalked up in my loopy handwriting, and my five-year-old walked straight to the reading nook and picked the same bear book he has picked for nine days running. His little brother climbed onto a stool at the big table and asked for "the leaf page." Nothing about it was impressive. All of it was good.
I did not always feel that way about ordinary mornings like this one. So I want to tell you about the comparison trap, because I have been in it, and about the small habit that keeps pulling me out.
What comparison looked like in our house
For two years we did school at the kitchen table, and I loved that table. But in the evenings, after the boys were asleep, I would scroll. I saw another mama's four-year-old reading short chapter books. I saw a beautifully planned unit study with a field trip at the end. I saw a family who seemed to finish before nine every day with everyone smiling.
Then I would look at our morning. My oldest was still mixing up b and d. My youngest thought scissors were mostly for cutting the air. And I would quietly decide we were behind, that I was behind, that maybe I was not the right person for this.
Nobody said that to me. I said it to myself, one scroll at a time.
Why it pulls so hard
Comparison is sneaky because it starts from a good place. We compare because we love our children and want to give them our best. But Paul names the problem plainly: people who "measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves, are not wise" (2 Corinthians 10:12).
When I compare, I am measuring my boys against a stranger's highlight reel instead of against the children God actually gave me. I am holding up a ruler that was never meant for them. And I miss what is right in front of me, which is a three-year-old who can now hold a glue stick the right way up.
The five-minute Friday habit that climbs me out
In our classroom there is a wall where the week's work gets clipped up as we go. On Friday afternoon, before anything comes down, I sit with each boy for about five minutes and we look at it together. That is the whole habit. Here is how it goes:
- Stand at the wall together. No phone in your hand. Let your child point first.
- Ask one question per page. "Tell me about this one." Then just listen.
- Name one thing that grew. Not the neatest page. The page where something was new or hard.
- Thank God out loud for it. One sentence is plenty.
- Keep one page for the September folder. The rest can go home to Grandma or the recycling.
If you are working at the kitchen table, this works just as well. A strip of tape on the fridge door or a string and a few clothespins along a cupboard will do. We did exactly that for two years. If you want ideas for giving your work a home, I wrote about setting up a homeschool classroom, and much of it fits a corner of a kitchen too.
What to say to your child, and to yourself
Children pick up our comparing faster than we think. So I keep the words simple and the same every week. You are welcome to borrow them:
"Look at what you did this week. Remember when this was hard? Now you can do it. God made you to grow, and you are growing. Let's thank Him."
Last week my three-year-old held up his pumpkin size sort. The smallest pumpkin was glued on sideways, halfway off the page. But he had cut all five himself. A month ago he could not cut one. That is what we talked about, and he stood a little taller.
And later, when the house is quiet and I feel the old pull, I say a version of it to myself: "Look at what you did this week. You showed up. You read aloud. You prayed with them. That is faithfulness, and faithfulness is the assignment."
Measure against last September, not someone else's feed
That September folder is my favorite thing in the room. One page a month, per boy, in a plain folder in my corner workstation. When I start to doubt, I open it.
My five-year-old's first page this fall was the Fall Colors leaf coloring page, and he wrote his name with the letters marching uphill. His page from this week has his name sitting on the line. No one on the internet will ever see that, and no one needs to. It is proof enough for me that the Lord is doing a quiet work at our table.
If you are just starting out, begin your folder now. Pick any page from this week, even a simple one from the worksheet shop or a drawing on scrap paper. Date it. Future you will be so glad.
Guard what you let in
I have not given up scrolling completely, but I have changed what I scroll. I muted a few accounts that always left me feeling small. That was not a judgment on those mamas at all. It was just honest about my own heart.
What helped more than muting was adding real conversation. Our members' forum has a room just for the hard days, and the mamas there share messy pages and slow weeks alongside the lovely ones. It is much harder to believe everyone else has it all together when real women are telling you they don't. It costs nothing to join free, and you can just read for a while if you are shy.
And if comparison has you wondering whether homeschooling is right for your family at all, I gathered my honest thoughts in the case for homeschooling and our FAQ. You are allowed to choose this even when your days look nothing like anyone else's.
Your children, your calling
The mama with the chapter-book four-year-old is not your competition. She is your sister, faithfully teaching the children God gave her. You are faithfully teaching yours. Some weeks that looks like a wall full of pages. Some weeks it looks like one bear book read nine times in a warm chair.
So this Friday, stand at the wall, or the fridge, with your little one. Point to what grew. Say thank you out loud. Then close the folder and rest, because "let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another" (Galatians 6:4).
