But now seems like a good time to try this again. My family is about to start on this crazy, unexpected homeschooling adventure that I swore I'd never take. But even though we haven't even officially begun yet, I can already see That Look in people's eyes when I tell them. Their voices change and they look...a little ill. So in the spirit of appearing like a Person who Does Normal Things, I'd like to invite my friends and family to check out this blog from time to time to get a glimpse of what the kids and I are doing over here.
To be fair, I understand why people are surprised when they find out we'll be homeschooling; I'm certainly not your stereotypical homeschooling mom. You won't find long denim jumpers in my closet, my hair is cut with at least semi-regularity, and we've got two, not twelve, kids. I'm well-educated, practice law on occasion, and I don't consider myself a religious zealot.
So let's start with the obvious question: Why are we homeschooling, when we could do...anything else? Since I've been rattling off answers to this question at least twice a week to friends, acquaintances, and a lot of veritable strangers who just had the misfortune to ask me how I am, I think I'll start this blog by sharing them with you. (Note: This list may also come in handy for reference five minutes before our private school re-enrollment deadline, when I'll undoubtedly be having a panic attack).
- Public Schools Have Problems. Bureaucracy, red tape, standardized testing. Big classes, small budgets, poor parenting, blah blah blah. You've heard it all before. These are deal breakers for us.
- (Good) Private School is Expensive. Because sending our kids to private school -- what we've done thus far -- only addresses a very small number of our concerns with traditional school, we simply don't feel that we're getting our money's worth out of the ever-increasing tuition cost right now.
- I Have Apparent Problems with Authority. This may come as a shock to those who know me, but I don't like being told what to do, especially when it concerns my kids. I don't appreciate school calendars that I'm expected to abide by, curriculum that I don't like but am expected to support, and inefficiently-run carlines in which I'm supposed to wait (without passing -- for the love of all that is good in this world, do not pass! Someone with a lanyard will yell at you...I've heard).
- My Kids are Best Friends. My daughter is just over a year older than my son and they do everything together. They have the funniest, sweetest relationship I've ever seen. I can't imagine separating them into their own little worlds at school and risking losing that.
- We have Places to Go. If you've known me for 5 minutes, you know that my kids and I like to pick up and just Go, and we'd even like to start tagging along sometimes with my husband when he travels (if he'll let us). We don't want to have to be "excused" from school, we don't want to get a notice from a truant officer, and we most definitely don't want to go when school is officially out and everybody else is going.
- There is More to Life than a Classroom. There are so many life experiences I want to share with my kids. There are so many things to learn and so many way to learn them. If I'm being perfectly honest with you, blog world, we all know that so much of school is a waste of time. You can call it "busy work" to make it sounds cute, but that doesn't make me feel any better about it. I do not send my kids to a place to simply pass the time, to stay "busy." My kids deserve more purpose to their lives.
- School is Just Too Much. It starts too early in the morning, goes too late in the afternoon, lasts too long into summer, starts too soon in the fall. So much "busy" leaves no time for play. But there is so, so much playing to be done.
- I'm Not Done with Them. I've spent the last 5+ years pouring my heart and soul out into my kids. Somehow, the idea of handing them over for a majority of their waking hours to someone else -- anyone else -- when I feel like I've only just begun this parenting journey is hard for me to stomach. I want to be a central figure in my childrens' lives, not an administrative assistant or a taxi driver.
I want to be very clear, though, that these are our reasons for taking our journey with our kids. If these aren't your reasons, and you're sending your kids to public or private school, that's awesome -- do that. No judgment over here. What's best for our family just won't look like what's best for your family and let's just all be okay with that. Okay? Okay.
Now that we've got that business out of the way, stay tuned, friends. This is bound to be a hilarious misadventure and I'm going to need some people to laugh through it with me, or I might lose my mind.
