Being a Homeschool Mom Means My Life is Not My Own

Posted by Misty | 0 comments

Today I was surprised to find in my email, a request from an editor of our local paper. Citing a current argument about busing for magnet school students, he asked if I cared to send him my thoughts regarding busing, magnet schools, or what sacrifices I’d made to educate my children. I thought I’d pass along what I sent back to him. (He might have been sorry he asked—I’m pretty sure he didn’t expect such a tome!)

Dear Mike,

Hello! I would love to share my thoughts.

I was a public school student who really enjoyed school as a child. When my oldest child became of school age, however, I realized that sending him away from our home for seven hours a day just didn’t “feel” right to me. Surely I could teach him to read, write and do math myself, and it certainly wouldn’t take me that long to do it! So I started researching homeschooling. There were several families in our church who did it, and their children were well-spoken, intelligent, and doing just fine. We began homeschooling in 1997 and have never looked back.

That means I’m now beginning my fifteenth year as a home educator. Amazingly to us, we’ve graduated two of our children, both of whom met Bright Futures Scholarship requirements. Six more follow behind them, with four being part of a local umbrella school which oversees homeschoolers this year, and two doing preschool at home. We take part in a local Classical Conversations group, where young children practice memory work in history, math, science, geography, Latin, and English as well as do science experiments and learn about the fine arts together, while older ones spend one day a week meeting together with a trained tutor to study research, logic, apologetics, grammar, debate, geography, and all the other credit-worthy subjects which they’ll then work on at home.

We homeschool for many reasons. First of all, I believe the responsibility and privilege of educating children belongs to parents and not to the state. God put children in families, and commanded parents to teach their children “when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up,” Deut. 11:18-19. That pretty much covers the whole day, if you ask me. The home is the primary place children’s needs are to be met. Teaching them that learning is something that should take place throughout our lives, not just from the ages of five through eighteen and from 8am-3pm, is important to me. Placing twenty or thirty children of the same age together for that many hours a day creates a completely artificial environment unlike any he/she will encounter again their entire lives.

In addition, we believe our kids need to spend time with their siblings and parents, and that it’s not desirable that they become peer dependent. As God’s word says, “He who walks with the wise will become wise, but the companion of fools suffers harm,” Prov. 13:20 — another reason I don’t want them spending the bulk of their day with a group of same-aged children! We also wanted to follow classical methods of education which are missing in public schools today; while it used to be that one couldn’t apply to Harvard without being able to read Latin fluently, today’s students find it difficult to read English, as evidenced in this article from the National Center for Education Statistics indicating that only 35% graduate with a “proficient” reading level assessment–and that the percentage of students evaluated as reading at a “basic” level was also in decline in 2005.  Home schooled students test higher across the board in every subject, often by 30 percent or more. The statistics say there’s no correlation between the education level of parents and the accomplishment level of the student-children, and homeschooling also seems to level the playing field between boys and girls as evidenced in this article.

It’s not only reading where homeschoolers shine, either. Math scores are higher, science scores are higher, and SAT scores are higher. Even socialization–the biggie you hear everyone fussing over–seems to be just fine among homeschooled graduates, if you define socialization as learning to be a contributing member of society: 76% of homeschooled students voted in a state or national election in the past five years, compared to 29% of the general public, and 71% of them participate in ongoing community service activities, which outdistances the gp’s 37% by quite a stretch. The list of prominent personages who were homeschooled as children includes George Washington, James Madison, Leonardo DaVinci, Claude Monet, George Patton, Robert E. Lee, Beatrix Potter, C.S. Lewis … a pretty decent showing, I’d say. For these reasons, among others, I truly believe homeschooling is a superior academic and lifestyle choice for my children. Why would I make a lesser choice?

And finally, we just flat enjoy being with our children. We get 1,080 hours a year together that we’d miss if they were away at school. My thirteen year old plays Ninja spies with his four year old brother in the backyard for recess. The nine year old is often found helping her sister write some new word in her journal. And everyone clamors for their 30 minute play-with-the-baby time slot so I can help someone else with math.

I’ve never really understood why anyone would think it’s the proper sphere of government to educate children. This perhaps would explain why it works so poorly. Were more parents to take the job of education back in hand, I believe we’d see numerous benefits–from fewer wasted tax dollars to more stable families and better educated children — and parents.

What does this all mean, and how does it apply to the original question … “How have I sacrificed to obtain a quality education for my children?” Well, of course one major thing it’s meant is that we are a one-income family. While some moms are able to work outside the home and then spend their “free” time overseeing schoolwork and reading to their children, I’ve never found that to be the best choice for my kids. For many years having only one income meant we lived with only one car. I’ve done a few things to make money at home, from babysitting to proofreading at my computer late at night. We’ve dug through couch cushions for change so we could go to McDonald’s–for 59-cent cheeseburgers. I don’t watch soap operas or reality tv, and I don’t get to go out to lunch with my friends too often. Many late night hours are spent grading papers or researching new math products. We spend anywhere from $300-2,000 each year on curriculum, depending on the number of children schooling at home (another glaring difference between the home and public school systems.) We have a small house, and kids share bedrooms (usually happily, I might add!) Then again, being pressed has led to reaching for new solutions — entrepreneurships in home business and my husband’s brick-and-mortar kitchen design store — which have proven to be great assets to our lives.

Basically, being a homeschool mom means my life is not my own. But that was already the case before we began homeschooling, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Thanks for asking.

Misty Krasawski is the overly-blessed mom of eight children whom she homeschools in sunshine-y Florida. She has been clinging ferociously to the hand of her Lord since she was knee-high to a grasshopper, homeschooling for the past thirteen years, and has eighteen more years ahead of her with the children who are glad she will have done most of her experimenting on those who went before. Her wonderful husband Rob has much treasure laid up for him in heaven for having been called to such a daunting task. After the house goes to sleep she can sometimes be found gathering her thoughts at www.encouragingheartsathome.com.