It’s a little ironic that I ended up here, homeschooling my kids and running a homeschooling resource company that focuses on developing critical thinking skills, since 1.) I swore I would never homeschool, and 2.) I grew up in a cult that actively suppressed critical thinking of any kind.
While my family left that situation when I was a teenager, it wasn’t until I was an adult with kids of my own that I began to deconstruct what I had been taught, and what I thought I knew. Without anyone else telling me what to think, I realized with some surprise that I actually had thoughts of my own, and that those thoughts had value. This was transformational, and it led to a fascination with how our minds work and with our ability to adapt and change.
It was a few years later when my husband and I were getting ready to welcome our third kid that the subject of homeschooling first came up. I shut that shit down quick. But then it came up again. And again. In super random places, like my email inbox. And the Target checkout line. And the conference with my daughter’s teacher who suggested I try it because she was so disillusioned with the education system she had decided to take early retirement.
You know it’s bad when the teachers are telling you to homeschool.
At the time, homeschooling wasn’t an option I wanted to consider mainly because I’d seen how it can be used (and abused) by some to insulate their kids from the world and any viewpoints that oppose their way of thinking, which was the exact opposite of what I wanted for my own kids.
But as the topic kept popping up in all these random places, I finally decided the universe might be trying to tell us something. So I started to do some research, and after falling for days down an increasingly fascinating rabbit hole, I emerged on the other side now fully convinced that homeschooling was actually the best thing ever, and that we needed to start immediately! (I’m an all or nothing kind of girl.)
I approached our brand new life as homeschoolers armed with a shiny new boxed curriculum and a Pinterest board full of inspirational quotes and DIY crafts (which of course ended up looking nothing like the pictures). It took about 3 minutes to figure out that things were not going to be as easy as I thought.
And that things never go according to plan.
And that inspirational quotes aren’t enough to get you through the day.
And that those all-in-one programs that promise to make homeschooling simple are built for people with organizational skills and patience that I simply do not possess.
But we stuck with it (mainly because I’m freakishly stubborn) and have spent the past ten years learning what actually works for us and what doesn’t. And the importance of resilience and learning to adapt as circumstances change, which has made it clearer than ever that these are skills our kids absolutely need to survive in the real world.
Perspective
The years go so fast. Looking back now, having just celebrated my daughter’s high school graduation(!), the truth of this is really hitting home. As I work on planning out the upcoming school year with my boys, I’m ugly crying as I realize I have one less student to plan for. And that I’ll never have the chance to use the beautiful new elementary level curriculum I just found. And that the reality of our life right now is that I have to work a full time outside job to keep the lights on, and that cuts short the time I have with them each day, and that means I have to outsource more than I want to.
There are absolutely days where I wish we have taken the easier path, and even after all this time there’s still plenty of doubt and anxiety that creeps up. That’s to be expected though. When you take responsibility for your kids’ education, you can’t blame anyone else if things don’t turn out as you hope. It’s all on you, or at least it feels that way.
And that’s a pretty terrifying thought.
But in the end, these are our kids, and our job is to help prepare them for the world, even if it’s hard or scary. Or both.
The truth is, even if I could go back and start over knowing what I know now, I would still choose this life all over again. But there are definitely some things I would do differently.
And that’s why I decided to start using what I’ve learned to help other homeschooling families who might be feeling lost, or tired, or overwhelmed by the weight of what we take on as parents. And humans.
Maybe you’re in a place where you’re wondering if homeschooling is right for you, or if you have what it takes to pull it off. While I can’t answer that for you, I can say that when I was asking myself the same questions, the answer came only after I allowed myself to really consider all the possibilities, to dream about what I wanted learning to look like for my kids. When you give yourself permission to do that, what do you see?
You might just find your answer.