My Homeschool Panic Attack

If you've seen me In Real Life for even thirty seconds this week (or gotten a text message from me...), you know I was having a little bit of a homeschooling meltdown.  You know, because the entire time we were together, I talked the subject of my child's education into the ground, and you wanted to gouge your eyes out.  Admittedly, you and I may not even be friends anymore; I wouldn't hold it against you.

In retrospect, I think the meltdown was triggered by Grace's Pre-K class from last year going back to school and having experiences together without her.  It was all well and good to say we were "homeschooling" over the summer, but another thing entirely when her former life started to move on without her.

Over the course of about 48 hours, I'd convinced myself that we were doing her irreparable harm by keeping her out of school with those admittedly precious kids.  I literally gathered up the documentation I would need to enroll her in public school, and stayed up late pouring through endless websites of private schools.

Thankfully, I still hadn't enrolled Grace anywhere by Tuesday, which happens to be the day that my little (therapy) homeschool group meets.

I have one particularly wise friend in this group.  She'll tell you that she's not wise at all -- she'll probably say that she's a mediocre homeschooler and that she's barely making it through the day.  You'll see that she has four kids ranging from 2 to some-age-my-kids-aren't-at-so-I-can't-identify, and you'll want to believe that this is true (because you only have 2 kids and you're barely making it through the day). But then she opens her mouth to talk, and you realize that she's so much more than she lets on.

After I threw up my panicked Homeschooling-is-Killing-My-Daughter's-Soul speech on her, she sort of smiled at me (the way you smile at someone who isn't very smart) and said simply, "You didn't choose to homeschool in a panic, so don't choose not to in a panic."

I saw my entire life flash before my eyes.  A lifetime full of making slow, prayerful choices followed by sudden scared (prayerless) retreats.  A lifetime of second guessing myself, not because the situation called for it, but just because I could.

I teach 3 and 4 year old "Bible Story Time" at my church.  Last week's lesson was about Adam and Eve and making Good Choices.  In fact, according to the curriculum I was given, God "knows exactly what we should do no matter what choice we have to make."  While this is probably true enough for preschoolers, whose choices generally center around whether or not to obey their parents, hit their brother, or bite that kid at the park, I'm not entirely sure that it's true for mothers all -- or even most -- of the time.

Most of the decisions we make as parents aren't black-and-white moral ones.  We aren't deciding whether to feed our kids, but what to feed them.  We aren't deciding whether to love our kids, but how to love them. We aren't deciding whether to educate our kids, but where to educate them.  We're researching, weighing, praying about, and ultimately choosing between several morally-acceptable choices.

Maybe, in these situations, God is interested less in what we choose and more in whether we live that choice out to His glory.

And I'm not entirely sure that panic glorifies God.

As a sidenote, Grace has suggested that we abandon homeschooling, don't enroll her in "school-school," and instead just take a constant string of vacations.  I'm considering it (not really...we're still homeschooling, because I couldn't stand the idea of rescheduling our September vacation...).