Understanding Sarah

Mom of 15: I Followed My Passions and Discovered This…

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Before the kids came along, I considered myself an artist, a writer, and a traveler. I was filling my life with art, creativity, and wonder. I used to travel Europe selling jewelry and art to fund my passions.

After becoming a mother, my passion became my children. Around 3 years into motherhood, I began to remember how much I loved art and poetry. I started to add a few of my passions back into my life. My husband started working four days a week. I took Fridays to dive back into my passions.

I began reading, writing, and small art projects. I purchased paintbrushes and acrylic paint and covered my home with murals. That turned into a small business decorating other’s homes. Then I started teaching moms homemaking, homesteading, and creative skills. We let our little ones play while we learned together.

There was one thing I didn’t do lots and lots of moms my age were doing. Spending time on TV and the Internet. I found when you have little kids, you’re going to be exhausted. The default can be turning on a show and putting them in front of a TV. We didn’t have a TV so that was never an option. I didn’t want that to be the example I set for my kids of adulthood. As parents, we are our children’s greatest teachers. The life we model for them is what their perception of adulthood is. Do we really want them to think being an adult is about working so much you’re exhausted and then starting at a screen watching other people live their lives the rest of the time?

As my kids reached school age, I started customizing their education around their passions. They take their passions seriously and become experts in their fields of interest. All of my kids start businesses in their early teens. Creativity and beauty has kept my children from becoming addicted to screens and technology.

Well-meaning family and friends have expressed concern my kids are missing out on aspects of “standardized” education. Yet my children have skills and talents kids in traditional school don’t have or have to wait until their 20s, 30s, or 40s to develop. I let them let go of things that are irrelevant and they’ll never need to know.

When a child’s education revolves around what they love, there’s no struggle or fight.

Our modern day workforce is all about skills, talents, and ability more than degrees and head knowledge. My children will be able to have specialized careers in their fields of passion. They’ve been studying since they were young and most of my children are making their own income before they ever move out as legal adults.

The way I raise my children looks very different from what you would see in a schoolroom because the childhood happening in our house looked like a lot of fun, adventure, exploring, creating, community, and more. Everyone is contributing their own gifts.

This is all because I set the model for them of pursuing my passions and letting it fuel my actions and career path. I want my children to look at the model I set of adulthood and be excited.

Today I have 15 children age 8-24. I delight in my teens and we have so much fun together. You have one life to live and it shouldn’t be boring. This is what I want my children to know and how I want their education to look. What about you?

Find my whole talk on this subject in the video below. And subscribe to my YouTube channel for more videos like this.

Get a FREE Mom School bundle so you can dive into your passions.

Buy 2, get 1 free Mom-Schooling Bundles with the promo code B2G1MomSchoolBundles at https://www.funschooling.com/mom-school

Learn more-

Sarah’s Mom Tips – Choosing a Major & Why 13 Is the Magic Number
From Anna: “Start Your 10,000-hour Journey”
One Day There Was A Mom

One Day There Was A Mom

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

One day, there was a young mom with eight children under ten years old, she was serving as a town council Vice President and was organizing festivals for Main Street. Homeschooling the kids and always searching for strategies to help her struggle learners to thrive, and to help her struggling neighbors to become a community, and helping at church and building her home-based ministries. She contributed to the family income by teaching classes every weekend for IUPUI. She cooked a feast every night. She was helping to run a farm store and all her children were starting their own businesses… she was up at night with a nursing baby and had a car seat under her desk at town hall.

And everything she did was fueled by self care and a little time at the feet of Jesus.

She made an effort to carve out time to recharge and to put her own passions and creativity on a pedestal, to always start and end her days with a time of focus on the things that brought her joy. One day she had realized that she was awake for over 16 hours a day and it was no crime to take one or two of those hours each day to focus on filling her own heart, and investing in her own needs, passions and pursuits. She gave 14 hours away to everyone and everything else, but held precious her space to thrive.

Some people send a message that mothers should never for a moment put themselves first, never for a moment do one thing for the joy of it… if there is a dish in the sink or laundry to be done. She learned to let the children entertain themselves, she helped her husband understand that if he didn’t give her a break she would have no energy for him at the end of the day, so she stopped listening to the voice of guilt and picked up a paint brush, a crochet hook, and a good book. As the children grew, her talents and hobbies developed and grew as well.

She was an example to her children of a parent who didn’t loose herself to parenting.

As her hobbies grew along side her children they became so well developed that they eventually became an income source that allowed her husband to become a stay-at-home dad who could focus on his own calling to serve others on the mission field, in the community, and be at home with the children. All the children were thriving so they had another baby and adopted five more kids.

The family didn’t thrive because she sacrificed everything to meet the needs and demands of others, the family thrived because she knew how to fill her own tank, and she knew of to give herself rest and space to be who she was meant to be, and by taking care of herself she was able to accomplish so many more things for others than she would if she lost herself to motherhood. She would tell you that there is nothing more precious to her than her family, but she knows that a family thrives when the mother thrives. And by the grace of God, and through the compassion and encouragement of a loving husband she took care of herself too.

When all my kids were little I used 49cent craft paints from Walmart and a couple of cheap paintbrushes to over our walls with murals…

Understanding Sarah: Welcoming our Seventh Child – “On the Day that I Give Birth let Your Glory Come to Earth”

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment
Anna holds her baby sister for the first time

Recently, I discovered a treasure trove of great content for the blog in a journal I filled when Anna was 7-8 and Laura was on the way, and Susie was still a baby. I wrote up six interesting pages where I was trying to express who I am and what motivates me. This kind of journaling can be very therapeutic for us as moms. I thought it might bless others to be able to share in my thoughts from these early years…the growing list of posts can be found here.

Here I am

Waiting for the warmth of spring

Colors soft yellow and green

bright skies and warm dark earth.

Plant me-I’ll take root

Water me-I’ll bear fruit

Shine on me-I’ll shine for you

Speak to me-I’ll sing to you.

I want to be your delight

I want to be like a baby in your arms

I want to see you smile at my song

I just long to draw closer to you.

I feel a baby move inside of me

I wonder who this little one will be

On the day that I give birth

May your glory come to earth

As the beauty of your power is displayed

In the face of a child you have made.

When the flowers of spring appear

I will wait to whisper in your ear

And praise you for the greatness of your plan

I will praise and worship you and pray

For your glory to fill our house that day.

Laura’s Peaceful Home Birth

Laura’s home birth was so precious. She was actually born at a moment when no one was paying attention except Anna who was in the birth pool with me. Here are some sweet photos and video from the hour Laura was born and a few pictures from her first week of life.

Laura and her bird

Understanding Sarah: Call Me to the Quiet Place

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Recently, I discovered a treasure trove of great content for the blog in a journal I filled when Anna was 7-8 and Laura was on the way, and Susie was still a baby. I wrote up six interesting pages where I was trying to express who I am and what motivates me. This kind of journaling can be very therapeutic for us as moms. I thought it might bless others to be able to share in my thoughts from these early years…

Ember and her friend Amanda using the “Laura and Leah” journal

We begin with a poem…because writing poetry is therapeutic for me.

Call me to the quiet place

Though all the world rages

Call me into your tender embrace

Draw me deep into your pages.

Let me “let go” of all the treasure

The trials, triumphs, pain…

Let me forsake my glory

Let me not see my own fame.

Let me disappear into your radiant light

Let me know the stillness of your sight

Let me be free from all the earthly care

Let me take a breath of heaven’s air.

I come with no beauty of my own

I come empty and I come alone

With trembling hands and trembling heart I bow

To the glory of your presence, I come now.

Undeserving, wicked, weak and poor

Broken, humbled, knocking at your door,

Lost in your eternal touch of grace

I have found such love in my Father’s face.

Open wide your gate and draw me in

Make me pure, purge me from my sin

Let me see the cross of Christ again

Let your holy work on me bring victory to win.

Triumph over sin and shame and grief

Blow away all vanity in me

Purge the dark and destitute places in my soul

Bring me through the fire until you see gold.

Mighty works-these my hands can’t bring

Holiness-Is it just a song I sing?

Beauty-Is it only surface deep?

Oh, let your holy will be born in me.

A living sacrifice I now become

Though I am not righteous, holy one

See me through the shed blood of your song

Through life and death, my victory is won.

Holiness and purity are mine

With your radiant beauty I now shine

I am light in the shadow of the cross

I find life in the shadow of the cross.

(December 18, 2007)