The quiet importance of creativity for home-educating mothers
“We all have need to be artists in our lives; to see and to create, to interpret and to delight.”
Madeleine L’Engle
This is Barbara Bunny. She was knitted over a few minutes here and there over several days; a row while the kettle boiled, another as I sat down with a cup of tea, until, quite without fanfare, she was finished. A pocket-sized treasure, she was made from scraps of wool left over from pullovers and mittens knitted in previous years, the sort of yarn that brings happy memories as it passes through my hands once again.
Barbara reminds me that creativity need not be grand or perfect to be meaningful; she is, after all, full of flaws that I didn’t worry about correcting! Often, it is the small, steady acts; the knitting of a winter bonnet, taking a moment to sketch a flower along side your child, baking a cake just for the joy of it, that keep us whole.
As home-educating mothers, we pour so much of our energy into tending, teaching, and nurturing. But we, too, are living souls who must be nourished. When we make time for our own creativity, even in humble ways, we remind ourselves that we are more than facilitators of everyone else’s learning. We too are learners, dreamers, and image-bearers of the Divine Creator Himself.
Charlotte Mason wrote,
“The mind feeds on ideas, and therefore children should have a generous curriculum; but the mother’s mind, too, requires its proper food, else she will have nothing to give.”
(A Philosophy of Education, Vol. 6)
How easy it is to forget that. Yet creativity, in its many gentle forms, is not a luxury, it is a lifeline. It keeps us awake to beauty, helps us to notice the holiness in the everyday, and teaches our children that learning is not confined to books and timetables, but is also born in the quiet rhythm of making.
As we stitch, knead, paint, or knit, our hearts rest and our minds are free to turn over new ideas. Perhaps we choose our yarns for a baby cardigan, inspired by the colours of an evening sky we were recently blessed to observe. Or maybe the words of a poem or passage we read earlier begin to settle and take root as we bake.
It all enriches. It’s all valuable. We are valuable.
So here’s to the little makes, the slow stitches, the five minutes embraced between lessons. May we all find our own Barbara Bunny ! A gentle reminder that creativity belongs to us too.
From my home to yours,
