Recently on a Facebook homeschool group a mom was talking about getting discouraged and wondered what the rest of us do on days like this. I told her how I live right across the street from a fabulous public school and sometimes joke with my kids that they are driving me so crazy that I'm going to walk over and enroll them in school. Then I told her on extra hard days I remember that I'm not necessarily homeschooling because of my faith, but because of the freedom it affords.
I love that if one of my kids is sick I don't have to throw them all in the van to take x number of kids to school in the morning, pick up a kindergartner at noon, then pick up more at 3:15. I love sitting around nursing while reading to the kids, being able to watch educational shows that I pick out versus some stranger teacher or administrator picking them out. If we stay up late doing something fun as a family, we get to sleep in a little.
Field trips consist of all kinds of fun things and can happen anytime: the zoo, the farm, the circus, a kid art exhibit, a children's museum, to Phoenix where their dad is working, to Colorado for a vacation in September when there are no lines on rides. My husband comes home on his lunch break. My house is filled with happy sounds (and yes, sometimes the sounds of kids fighting and I yell KNOCK IT OFF !@#@#$). Oh, and how nice it is that if my kids aren't "getting" something in their learning, we skip it for a few weeks and come back to it and keep doing that until it clicks.
Also, we get to hang out with extended family as much as we can. And my hope is that my kids might be great friends when they are older because they are together a lot doing fun things.
My kids are only young RIGHT NOW. I want to enjoy it RIGHT NOW. I'm not saying that people with kids in school are not enjoying their kids. Most of my best friends do not homeschool, and we are not at odds in any way. I support them, they support me. But when pressed to come up with reasons why I homeschool and how I make it through every day, the above is what I come up with. I will never say that everyone should homeschool. But I also don't believe it takes a "special" or extra-patient person to do it.
You can do it. If you don't want to do it, don't. But please don't step on my choices. Let me take things further than I should, as I am prone to do. Feminists: you are pro-choice, right? So support my choice to homeschool and have a ton o babies!!!!
I love that if one of my kids is sick I don't have to throw them all in the van to take x number of kids to school in the morning, pick up a kindergartner at noon, then pick up more at 3:15. I love sitting around nursing while reading to the kids, being able to watch educational shows that I pick out versus some stranger teacher or administrator picking them out. If we stay up late doing something fun as a family, we get to sleep in a little.
Field trips consist of all kinds of fun things and can happen anytime: the zoo, the farm, the circus, a kid art exhibit, a children's museum, to Phoenix where their dad is working, to Colorado for a vacation in September when there are no lines on rides. My husband comes home on his lunch break. My house is filled with happy sounds (and yes, sometimes the sounds of kids fighting and I yell KNOCK IT OFF !@#@#$). Oh, and how nice it is that if my kids aren't "getting" something in their learning, we skip it for a few weeks and come back to it and keep doing that until it clicks.
Also, we get to hang out with extended family as much as we can. And my hope is that my kids might be great friends when they are older because they are together a lot doing fun things.
My kids are only young RIGHT NOW. I want to enjoy it RIGHT NOW. I'm not saying that people with kids in school are not enjoying their kids. Most of my best friends do not homeschool, and we are not at odds in any way. I support them, they support me. But when pressed to come up with reasons why I homeschool and how I make it through every day, the above is what I come up with. I will never say that everyone should homeschool. But I also don't believe it takes a "special" or extra-patient person to do it.
You can do it. If you don't want to do it, don't. But please don't step on my choices. Let me take things further than I should, as I am prone to do. Feminists: you are pro-choice, right? So support my choice to homeschool and have a ton o babies!!!!
