Montessori Method and Catholicism?

I have another philosophical question about the Montessori Method and Catholicism for the mothers with experience. Is MM compatible with having children every year or two and not sending them away to preschool and institutional education?

I apply this question to any interesting parenting choice I want to make with my kids. Some parenting styles seem beneficial and fascinating, but they simply require too much time and attention than is possible to provide when a Catholic mother is in a 12- to 24-month cycle of being pregnant, having a baby, and nursing a baby. I am amazed just how much "attachment parenting"-type practices I can do even with our God-given 23-month spacing (which "the world" thinks is so short, but my traditionalist Catholic friends think is so big!). Even with that spacing and a very needy firstborn, I was able to "wear" John in slings for about 17 months and nurse him and avoid "crying it out." But I have my limits of two arms and two legs and only so many hours in a day!

Here I am, experimenting with some Montessori Method activities and it makes me wonder. Even though Dr. Montessori was Catholic, her method isn't outwardly religious, although it seems to hold to a good degree of natural law. One thing I've noticed is MM's admonishments that certain ages of children not be exposed to certain things before their minds are ready. So the child under six years old should never be exposed to imaginary, fake creatures because those are the years that the child is learning the foundation of what is real. Well, how does one do that when one has a passel full of kids in the house and the little ones grow up seeing the older children's imaginary toys and hearing the parents read fairy tales to the older children?

Another admonishment is to allow the baby to focus on only one thing at a time, so, for example, the mother should take the baby alone to a quiet, dim room to nurse every time. I can hear all the mothers of more than one child laughing hysterically at that. How is that supposed to be arranged? I'll just tell my two-year-old to play quietly by himself and not get into mischief.

Many times in my days talking with other moms at the grocery store or even in social circles, I hear allusions to how such-and-such will be so much easier when the older kids are in preschool or school. But that isn't our plan, so I'm always seeking what can be done within the limits of my being the sole daytime caretaker and educator of our children. God willing, this isn't going to be just a "short chapter" in my life and in another couple of years, my two children won't be in preschool and I still won't have time for volunteering and ladies' teas again. God willing, there will be another baby and another baby, all the while the older kids are still here all day!

This morning John was done sitting at the breakfast table, so had run off to play. Chris and I were finishing eating. John discovered his cleaning basket of vinegar-and-water and wanted to explore it right away. Maybe my mistake was that I didn't say "no, later." Instead I wanted to foster his initiative (otherwise, why does MM dictate that the cleaning supplies be left where the child can access them himself?), so I left my half-eaten breakfast and showed him how to clean the windows. Well, then he only wanted to spray and not wipe up with his cloth, so I spent the rest of my breakfast calling out instructions, "Okay, now stop spraying, that's too much cleaning solution. Now wipe it dry. Circles, circles!" I thought it would help if I sent him outdoors to the sun room, so Chris and I got his shoes and sent him outside to clean. I finished my breakfast. Then I discovered that he was bored with "cleaning." All he had done was the fun part: spraying the vinegar water on every piece of furniture in the sun room but not wiping anything. He said he wanted to play with his car. My minimal understanding of Montessori is that it teaches respect for tools, so I told him he had to finish the job he started before he could play with his car. It took much, much coaching on my part. We had to walk to every piece of furniture (me carrying the baby while she was nursing) and I'd show him that he sprayed without wiping it dry, so now he had to wipe it dry. He'd stand there, balking. Then I'd finally convince him to do some wipes, then I'd finish drying that piece of furniture and we'd move on to the next piece of furniture. Then I showed him how to put his wet, dirty cloth in the laundry room and put his spray bottle back in his cleaning basket and close the drawer. And then he could play with his car. I've heard stories of children at this tiny age who already know to do all this stuff. I know the mothers personally, so it's not just things I've read in books. But when I'm trying it for the first time, I wonder: How on earth would I give this kind of attention with several other children and a baby running around? I couldn't take this kind of time that gets me off schedule so that it's 9:00 a.m. and we're still in our pajamas with the dishes not yet done.

Does the Montessori Method only work for parents who are intently spacing their children an extremely manageable three or four years apart and then enrolling them in the Montessori school starting at 18 months or three years old to be trained and raised by someone else while the mother focuses on her new infant at home? (Or families who plan only one child? I just read about an idealized Montessori family and the authors describing it quoted the mother as saying she can't imagine having more than her one perfect baby and that she couldn't imagine having a baby with anything "wrong" with it. Not very Catholic!) Actually, I used to know a Catholic mother who, at last count, had twelve children in about twelve years, the youngest two who were twins. She homeschooled them all, doing Montessori for the early years and a Classical education for the later years, she nursed them till they self-weaned at a couple of years old, she wore them, she coslept with many children at once, she never did cry-it-out, she baked the family's bread, and the older kids were all enrolled in sports. I know it's possible, but how? How, I ask you?

*This blog post was able to be written because I'm still not washing my dishes, my son is busy eating breakfast (finally), Mary is asleep in my sling, and now I'm late with my planned morning schedule.