You might be a “Hifalutin Homeschooler”…

if you believe you can do a better job overseeing your kid’s education than any school system. Or if you’ve seen the village and don’t want it raising your kids.

Hifalutin-(southern slang) showing arrogance, pretentious, bombastic, elaborated artificially 

ex. “That hifalutin woman just waltzed in here and said her kids deserved better than the school had to offer!”

At least that is how people who are adamantly against homeschooling see it. So, like Fat Amy from Pitch Perfect, I just went ahead and started calling myself “The Hifalutin Homeschooler” before anyone said it behind my back.

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Fake It Till You Make It!

But seriously, who really knows exactly what they are doing when they first begin homeschooling?

Sure we read all the studies, picked out curriculum, and bought a world map and a pack of those post-it-notes in fun neon colors, but we didn’t really know what we were getting into until months (even years) later when we ditched the teacher’s manual and started yelling spelling words up the stairs while scrambling eggs next to a jar filled with fruit flies, maggots and a rotting banana all in the name of science.

That didn’t stop me from pretending I had it all under control from day one. Fake it till you make it, right?

Fielding questions from the people who thought I was nuts, or the ones who thought I was incapable (more on that here), had me popping off at the mouth about everything I believed to be true about homeschooling and how successful we were sure to be. Maybe?  I had one eyebrow raised in defiance, and my courage screwed to that sticking place Shakespeare said would guarantee us not to fail.

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Hifalutin Hold-Out

After five, whole, big, long, fun, trying, exhausting, amazing, wrinkle-causing, memory-filled years zipped by like lightening on the back of a land tortoise (which you’ll understand if you know how long a homeschool day can be and how fast a year passes), I am proud and embarrassed to announce:

I have held my current job longer than any other I have ever had in my entire life.

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*BONUS* Math warm-up for your kids:

If the “Hifalutin Homeschooler” has remained employed in her current position for 5 years without quitting, being fired or replaced by technology, or turning to a life of meaningless days spent at the gym and PTA meetings, how many days has she remained dedicated to her work?

Solution: So that’s 365 days times 5 years plus 1 extra day for the leap year… (closes eyes and uses fingers, then grabs cell phone while kids aren’t looking) for a grand total of 1,826 days, or one thousand, eight hundred twenty-six days, or 1.826 x 10³_.

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Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Right away I feel I must ask, “What money?”

Perhaps even more bemusing than my record shattering perseverance in sticking with something for 5 years, is that this job pays less (monetarily) than any other I have held. Even less than the 5 bucks I made that time I poured dog food all over the neighbor’s garage and hoped it would entertain their lonely dogs while they were out of town.

I’ve also been paid more for working as a babysitter, tutor, waitress, physical therapy aide, pharmacy clerk, rock painter, one-time sketch artist, emergency medicine physician assistant, and a writer.

But I take more pride in my slave labor of love than I ever had in any of those paying gigs.

If we are dedicated to our purpose we hifalutin homeschoolers will end up finding our passion in the job that takes the most work and pays the least. Because after keeping our heads held high, though our teeth may have been chattering, we set out determined to make our Hifalutin words a reality.

Words prove who we want to be, but actions prove who we are.

So are YOU a Hifalutin Homeschooler?

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Have you grabbed your copy of my hifalutin new book?

Socialize Like a Homeschooler

  Hilarious fun! Your kids will race you to the mailbox to read it first!

Available on Amazon!