Things I Wish People Knew About Homeschooling

Homeschooling involves sacrifice.

Even if you’re not sacrificing a paycheck, or a career that you loved (and many of us did both), you’re sacrificing a lot of time and energy that you might have used elsewhere.

We were fortunate: my spousal unit’s career is enough to provide for our tiny family and then some (we’ve almost always had other living with us — 4 teen girls, 3 teen refugee boys, assorted relatives who were getting on their feet or starting over, elder care).  My paycheck was the “fun” money.  It allowed us to not struggle to care for others, allowed us to afford private school for our daughter, allowed us some little luxuries here and there we might not have otherwise had.  But what I gave up more than that paycheck was a career that I really loved, and was really good at.

During my time in the homeschooling community, I’ve seen parents make amazing sacrifices to be able to homeschool.  I’ve watch two parents juggle 4 jobs and homeschool 5 wee kids.  I’ve seen single parents get really creative with their work, their homeschooling, and their community to figure out how to make it all work.

Homeschooling involves sacrifice, but what you lose in wages or work or sleep you make up for in family time, education, and a relationship with your kids that’s like no other.

Homeschooling demands creativity.

The first hard lesson of homeschooling is that your kids aren’t the student you were, and they aren’t all the same.  You knew this, on some fundamental level when you started, but you went ahead and bought a curriculum that would have been great for you as a student or you bought a big box curriculum for each of your kids because you somehow thought that would be “easier” than working out something for each of them individually.  So you got to learn two lessons early on: sometimes you make bad purchases (and you should move them along ASAP — they’re just sitting there on the shelf, collecting dust and judging you), and this homeschooling thing is going to require more creativity than you thought.

Even if you didn’t make that mistake, and your shelves are only full of things you and yours love, you have to be ready to translate what you’re doing into digestible educationese for your athlete’s eligibility form, for grandma, for the clerk at the store, for your kidlet’s highschool transcripts.

What did Susy do last week?  Er, she was framing her windows and figuring out where to put the steps . . . Susy’s been doing a math and physics intensive over the last few months.  She blogs about it.  Oh, and focusing on her writing.

Homeschooling doesn’t have to be expensive.

You can get a perfectly good education with a library card and a bus pass.  You needn’t ever purchase a single textbook.  If you return them on time, the library is completely free (snort — a homeschooler who always returns all the books on time — that’s rich).  Do ask about a “homeschool card” at your local library — they often allow homeschoolers a greater number of books and sometimes a longer loan period.  The bus pass isn’t something you *need* to homeschool, but your homeschool life will be bigger and richer if it’s not all at . . . home.

Homeschooling doesn’t mean you have to know everything.

One of the things that’s awesome about homeschooling is that you get to learn alongside your children.  And, left to pursue their interests, it’s amazing how soon they’ll blow you away with their knowledge of things that are of interest to them.  You don’t have to be an expert on dinosaurs or gemstones or the Dark Ages or geography.  You just need to be willing to be the guide, the guru, the nudge, the muse, the facilitator, the chauffeur.

You can homeschool.

Homeschoolers cringe inwardly when, in response to, “Oh, we homeschool,” other parents say, “I could never homeschool my children.”  While it’s tempting to smile and say, “I could never homeschool your children, either,” what we really want to do it grab you about the shoulders and shake you gently, while saying (probably a bit too loudly), “Of course you can!  Who loves your children more than you do?  No one!  You can do this.”

Here’s homeschooling’s dirty little secret:

We’re *all* terrified that we’re messing up our children for life.
Anyone who says different is one of two things: a liar, or second generation (because they know that homeschooling works).

Regardless of the bravado or gushing, or magnificent blog, we’re all terrified. We’re worried that we’ll miss out on something important that will keep out children from doing something they want later in life. We’re worried when they don’t read early, because “Success by Six” has to mean “Washed up by 8.” We’re worried they won’t get a job, won’t go to college, won’t become functional adults. We’re worried that our choice to homeschool will limit them.

And I think this: Being worried means you’re still doing a great job. When you stop worrying, that’s when you should really be concerned.

On the other hand, if you tell us you want to homeschool, but then start down a laundry list of why it just isn’t possible — we’ve heard all the excuses before.  And we know folks who, despite the same (or even more arduous) circumstances are making the sacrifices they have to in order to homeschool.  What we know is that that box is of your own making.  It’s okay if you don’t really want to homeschool — but unless you have been forbidden by a court from homeschooling, it’s a choice you’re making.  And that’s okay — plenty of us came up through the pubic schools, and we turned out pretty okay.  Your kids will, too.

Homeschooling is messy.

Unless you stick with a curriculum and follow their neat scope and sequence, homeschooling will take you all over the map.  And it’s not just the “educational bits” that are messy — you house will look like someone destroyed it.  Every.  Single.  Day.
Because there’s a lot of life going on in there.  And there’s a whole school.  And there’s projects.  And some of them take a long time to dry.  And other take even longer to complete.  And there’s books and books and books and papers and papers and papers.  You’re going to have to embrace that mess, even if your pinterest is completely full of “school room” ideas that came straight out of the Pottery Barn catalogue.

Homeschooling is worth it.

All the sacrifice of time and money, all the brain-wracking creativity, all the library fines, all the feeling like a failure because you don’t know X, all the worry, all the day dreaming about ladies who lunch and a day at the spa, all the fantasizing about living in the Restoration Hardward catalogue — all of it is worth it.

~Jen GS