Holidays

America’s New Favorite Holiday

October 17th, 2026
Mollie T. Cox

In July, I received advertisements from Michaels letting me know the store was stocked for Halloween. I don’t decorate for Halloween, so I didn’t pay attention until my husband told me Halloween sales were predicted to have a large growth this season. According to news reports, Halloween has overtaken Christmas in popularity.

I did some research and found that Michaels started a 100-day countdown to Halloween. We have 100-day countdown to Christmas as well as Christmas in July on Hallmark. Will Hallmark’s Halloween movies begin airing in April? I hope not. We already have Summerween, summer Halloween festivities.

I considered why more people are declaring Halloween their favorite holiday. I don’t think it’s the obsession with the occult or the macabre, although that is growing and a concern. I think it is because Halloween is individualistic. Expectations are looser and less. The only present to buy is one-size-fits-all candy for twenty dollars or less. No obligatory office parties let alone parties for each activity children are involved in. No long-distance travel to celebrate.

I understand, but I wish we could take back Christmas—strip it of its stressful expectations so it can be rightly celebrated.

Favorites

Quotes I Found Along the Way

October 10th, 2026
Mollie T. Cox

I collect quotes. Here are a few favorites in no particular order.

I’d like to thank everyone I’ve ever met in my life.

Maureen Stapleton, 1981 Academy Awards Acceptance Speech

Earth is forgiveness school. It begins with forgiving yourself and then you might as well start at the dinner table.

Anne Lamott Ted Talk

Making the decision to have a child … is to decide forever to have your heart walking outside your body.

Elizabeth Stone

The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.

Madeleine L’Engle

Whatever is happening today, remember it is only one scene in a long movie. Don’t treat it like it’s the whole story.

Henry Cloud

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas Edison

Teaching is the one profession that creates all other professions.

David Haselkorn

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookcases.

Anna Quindlan

Maybe one of the above is my top favorite? What about you?

Homeschooling, Parenting

Emotional Security

October 3rd, 2026
Mollie T. Cox

All learning has an emotional base.

Plato

For over twenty years, I attended teacher workshops at The National Gallery of Art, The National Portrait Gallery, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. I was treated to posters, exhibition catalogues, interesting lectures, conversations with fellow educators, after-hours access to popular exhibits, and food. Really nice food.

A favorite teacher workshop (National Portrait Gallery 2018)

I have a file cabinet and a bookshelf full of resources from those experiences along with memories—wonderful although many are vague.

One piece of information I never forgot was this: Children need to be emotionally secure to learn. If children aren’t learning, examine their emotional security. If you aren’t learning, examine your emotional security. I don’t know why emotional security was part of an art lecture, but I’m glad it was. I wish I had known it before my children were adults.

Book Recommendations, Homeschooling, Parenting

The Value of Admitting It’s Hard

September 26th, 2026
Mollie T. Cox

Miss Agnes always said something was hard. … it would be hard at first like she said but we wouldn’t feel bad because she told us it would be. … and we’d feel really proud because we’d learned another hard thing.

Miss Agnes and the Ginger Tom by Kirkpatrick Hill

Saying that hard tasks are easy doesn’t motivate me. I know better. I distrust and disrespect the speaker. (Physical therapy proved that.)

I wish I had known to acknowledge the work I required of my children was hard in their eyes. Why did I tell them tasks or assignments were easy? Did I not want to tell my sons to do hard things? Did I think “easy” motivated more than “hard”? Most likely, the work seemed easy to me.

Research aligns with Miss Agnes’s philosophy. When children are told a task is hard and they complete it, they are more likely to stick with future tasks.

My homeschooling days are over, and my teaching opportunities are reduced. However, I’m still around. I need to acknowledge that seemingly simple tasks are hard for me as I age and celebrate their accomplishment.

My son made this sign for his high school students.

Book Recommendations, Homeschooling, Parenting

Seven Laws of the Learner

September 19th, 2026
Mollie T. Cox

The same Hebrew word means to learn and to teach. Do you realize the significance of that? We can’t separate teaching from learning … Teaching is what the teacher does in the student. 

Seven Laws of the Learner by Bruce Wilkerson

Seven Laws of the Learner changed my outlook. I had taught at two universities and homeschooled my sons over a decade before I read Wilkerson’s book and watched his DVD series. I more clearly saw my ultimate responsibility with both parenting and homeschooling and made immediate changes.

I had expected too much maturity and independence from my teenagers. If they weren’t learning, whether academically or non-academically, then I wasn’t teaching.

Regarding homeschooling, I took ownership of their weekly literature and biology vocabulary. Tiddlywinks were the markers and M&Ms the reward for Bingo vocabulary games. (My youngest claims he would have learned the words faster if I had let him fill up on M&Ms before Bingo started.) I looked for hands-on activities as I had done in earlier years. I stopped assuming that my guidance and creativity were less needed.

Another excellent parenting /teaching resource is Summarization in Any Subject: 50 Techniques to Improve Student Learning by Rick Wormeli.