Chin hairs or no chin hairs, we must hold our heads high, ignore the marks of time and too many glazed donuts, and teach our children that we value ourselves beyond appearances. We must display confidence if we want to instill it in our children.
Besides the obvious, leaving home 5 days a week for 8-10 hours/day and rectangular slices of cardboard pizza, I wanted to really list what would have been missed if I had not gone to a conventional school. If I am going to commit to homeschooling until college-do-us-part, I owe it to my boys to fully understand what I’m asking them to give up.
And the #1 thing readers said they would have missed was…
I believe there are a handful of people who contact me every summer in hopes that I will talk them into homeschooling. They are stricken with indecision and the approaching end of summer break is like that lifeguard’s whistle signaling time is almost up. Either jump off the homeschool high dive or climb back down to the status quo.
Here is a list of reasons why I will not push you into homeschooling…
It seems some people lose all sense of decorum when confronted with the disquieting news that you are planning to homeschool…The last thing a worried new homeschool mom needs to bear is the added weight of the thinly veiled indignation of others. As if their obvious questions and assertions haven’t crossed her mind.
When I explained to my boys how Mr. Sharp relates only playing by ear and refusing to read music to reinventing the wheel and then not being able to communicate with anyone about it, it struck a chord with them….
Finally! They now see that in an effort to not bog themselves down with music theory, they were wasting time teaching themselves music theory like cavemen without a language.
Turns out, I have also accumulated a few trinkets of homeschool wisdom along the way…#13 Just go to the movies. CPS is not camped out behind the neighbors begonias. If public schools can take all day field trips to six flags and call it educational, you can go see the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid and call it journalism.
As for me and mine, no need to apologize for not being able to be there when I never expected it of you. And for those busy moms who suddenly went out of their way and showed up unexpectedly to see my boys do their thing, please know how much I appreciated the time sacrifice. Someday I hope to repay the gift, if I have never seen your baby be awesome. But don’t be creepy and keep a tally or anything. I do like Netflix.
“You cannot measure speed with a thermometer. And you cannot measure the quality of a uniquely designed plan of individualized education using a checklist for manufactured drones.
However, we are capable of evaluating ourselves.”…
“We wagered a second income on the notion that we could educate our children more effectively than the public school system. We wagered the need to fit into the outside world’s social expectations on the belief that our children should look to us for social and moral guidance. We wagered the ease and comfort of kid-free time on the belief that kids need family more than peers, love more than affirmation, and encouragement more than conformity.”
The unapologetic truth about homeschooling. From a slightly introverted, highly opinionated, mostly exhausted, yet exceedingly proud mom of three amazing boys.
