Don't Forget the New Kids!

A couple of years ago, Steve and I went to a homeschool conference and came home with the same thought: we can't forget the new crew.

We were so careful of how we brought up the top half of the family: no T.V., little sugar, lots of Bible, lots of reading aloud, family time and all the other things that you know are important and make such an issue of when you have your first children.  Unfortunately, the busyness of the older kids and their involvement in the world, simply because they are older, means that the younger ones are both exposed to things at a younger age that the older ones weren't, and that we don't have as much time to make sure we do the important things with our younger ones.

Part of that is just choosing your battles.  The older kids are always saying, "We never got to do that when we were their age!"  And that's true.  The older the kids got, the more there were of them than us and the bigger they were.  The worst thing that happened to our family was The Lord of the Rings and that is one of my favorite books and movies of all time.  The problem is, it opened the door for PG13 movies that has never closed.  Coincidentally, we moved in with my mother and she brought cable TV into the house, which we got used to.  Now, the New Crew, as we call them, has decided that if a show is not animated, it's a grown-ups movie, as opposed to the Old Crew, who watched John Wayne and Gary Cooper movies.  Partly, it was just easier not to fight, and partly, we decided some things were not worth fighting over.

But, at the same time, there are things we need to review. I recently realized that the New Crew don't know the New Testament!  They are pretty good on the Old Testament, but we need a refresher on the New Testament.  Right now we are reading through Matthew.  We need to have another go around on the Little House on the Prairie Books. We need to throw a baseball around for recess. We need to take the dog for a walk. I need to make sure they practice their instruments, since we aren't going to the public school for band anymore. We need to make beds! I must be the one to get them to bed so that we pray together, instead of relying on an older sibling to do it.

Steve has observed that if the older kids turn out well, life is easier on the younger kids. If the older kids don't turn out well, parents are tougher on the younger ones. That seems to have held true for our family, since the older kids are godly dears. Since we are moving next month, we get a chance to start fresh in so many ways, like cut down to one T.V., cancel the cable, take walks with the dog, get going on a chore chart and pray diligently with my children when they go to bed. And onward with Little House and the book of Matthew!

Introducing the Badger Family

Well, where are we?   My name is Shannon and my husband, Steve, and I have been married for 21 years.  I was brought up in apartments in Chicago and he was brought up under the runways at O'Hare Airport.   We met at a large singles Bible Study at a large, non-denominational church in the western suburbs, where he was Mr. Hospitality and I was a lowly, recent college grad.  But he took pity on this introverted girl who got stomach pains whenever she walked into a ballroom and talked to me.  We got married 2 1/2 years later and started having babies right away.  (Steve was 31 and figured he had waited long enough to have children and there was nothing else I wanted to do!)  So, Ben was born a month after we moved into our first house and two weeks before our first anniversary.  I had convinced Steve that I really wanted a home birth and, as hard as it was, we were both glad that I had.  

On our honeymoon, Steve and I sat on the balcony of his condo and discussed the direction of our life.  

Shannon: What do you really want to do?
Steve:  I want to spend time with my kids.
Shannon: Okay.  So, what do you want to do while you are spending time with your kids?
Steve:  It doesn't matter.  Whatever will allow me to spend time with my kids.

That turned into a nine-year adventure of praying that God would bring Daddy home while we investigated buying a deer farm, an apartment building, and a camera shop.  We talked about raising llamas and starting a Bed and Breakfast.  We discussed his going back to school to become a veterinarian, or my pursuing a performing career in music and his taking the kids with me on the road, or having a family ministry.  We especially talked about moving to the country in the hope of getting out of debt with a lower cost of living.  But we always understood that Dad being home was the goal, not country living.

With his computer work for various companies, Steve finally ended up at a job that was in a small town/country environment, but there was no housing available with all the building going on and he was commuting so far that some of the children were acting out terribly.  There were only five of them at the time, and we all missed Steve dreadfully.  Well, coincidentally enough, my father (Papa) retired and followed my mother's (Mutti's) inclination to move to Southwestern Wisconsin so she could become a recluse.  They knew of Steve's interest in multi-generational living, and his desire to move us to the country, so Papa and Mutti invited us to dinner one night and said, "How would you like to move up to Wisconsin with us and we will find out what we're going to do when we grow up?"  Steve was 40!

So, we did!  We had two small houses in town while Mutti and Papa located land to build a house for us all.  It was a house like you've never seen, since it was essentially two houses connected by common areas.  My mother insisted that we have our own kitchens, so she wouldn't take advantage of my cooking and she would not have to face our mob for every meal.  

After fifteen years of living together and raising alpacas, which I did all the fiber processing for, my mother decided to retire away from the Badger Bunch, so we gave away the alpacas, and simplified our lives by selling the farm and dividing households. We are still on the best of terms, but Steve's mom, Grandma Grace, is moving in with us. So, we are a homeschooling, home-birthing, home-dadding, multi-generational family.