I love talking with these women. We share a common history that most people can’t understand, and of course, that’s the main topic of conversation (besides our children, of course).

However, I have to admit that, despite being homeschooled, some of our now-adult children have disappointed us in different ways. (I can’t share too many details here, because I want to respect the privacy of these young adults.) In most cases, they’re doing great making their way in the world, but some have made sinful choices in their personal lives that have upset their parents. In one extreme case, someone chose a lifestyle that nearly killed them; sadly, they’re not out of the woods yet, after more than a year. (It really grieved me to hear about that person).

We moms openly share our disappointments with each other knowing that we can relate to each other so very well. We all had such great expectations, and some of them have been dashed.

I know this is common for parents. But I think it’s especially painful for homeschooling parents because we devoted our daily lives to raising our children, not because we had nothing better to do, but in part because we expected that our efforts would reap benefits for our children. And while the adult children I know have clearly reaped educational benefits from homeschooling, some of their lifestyle choices make it clear that not everything we taught them stuck.

I should point out that some of our expectations were created by the books we read and the speakers we listened to back when we were new homeschoolers. Even now, you’ll find some saying that homeschooling creates strong Christians, good citizens, yada yada. In fact, some people have made lucrative careers out of saying those things. It’s what everyone wants to hear. After all, why should we go through all this work if it’s not going to pay off?

But the fact is that there are no guarantees. And to those who point fingers and say, “Well, if you just do it right, your kids will turn out right,” I say “Beans!” I realize there’s no question that my husband and I made mistakes. All parents do. But when I think of how the Israelites treated God (see Exodus), why did I expect that none of my children would rebel or go in a different direction from the way we pointed them? Clearly each person must make their own way in life (and hopefully toward God). Not even the love of a homeschooling parent can overcome the effects of sin in the world.

But of course we had to try, and those of us specifically called to homeschool our children can’t regret it. (My mom friends and I talked about that a lot over Christmas!) We tried our best, but we’re learning that ultimately, our adult children’s lives are between them and God.

As for the verse in Proverbs that homeschoolers quote so often, “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it,” I’ve written before that it’s a principle, not a promise, and also that we can’t ignore that phrase “when he is old.” Homeschooling doesn’t turn out perfectly formed adults at age 18. Each person is a lifelong project of God’s. We homeschooling parents were deeply involved in the first stage, but God will use all sorts of people and events to shape our children over the course of their lives. Hopefully there’s still time for each one of them to come to the personal realization that living God’s way is the only way to live.  (We talked a lot about that, too.)

If newer homeschoolers could have heard our conversations over Christmas, it might have frightened them. That vision of homeschool success is what kept us going during the most difficult times, and I hate to pop that bubble for anyone.

That said, I suspect that even if every homeschooling parent could be convinced that homeschooling is good but doesn’t create perfect adults, they’ll still be disappointed someday if their adult child makes poor choices. It’s what happens when you love someone so much. And since it’s this painful for us, imagine how God, the only perfect parent, feels when He sees us making similar poor choices.

Me: You’re a goofball.

Josh: I’m not a cheese ball! You’re a cheese ball!

Me: I said ‘goofball,’ not ‘cheese ball.’

(Brief pause.)

Josh: Mmmm, cheese ball!

Crazy kid 

Once upon a time, a little girl who lived in our house wanted to be a dancer. She danced all over the living room in her leotard and, eventually, in a pink tutu she got for her birthday. I don’t recall how we first found the book A Very Young Dancer, but I read it to her many, many times, and once she learned to read, she read it to herself. It became one of her very favorite books.

Though she eventually outgrew her dancing phase, she still remembers that book and recently emailed me with information about the little girl who was featured in it. Seeing the girl’s photo was like spotting a long-lost acquaintance; her face was that familiar to me. You might find her life story interesting (it’s not what you’d expect but it has a happy ending) if you, too, used to read this book to your little dancer once upon a time.

My goodness, with all the sad and scary things happening in the world these days, why on earth are people getting upset about this family? Unlike many much-smaller families these days, they don’t require taxpayer aid. Nor do they farm out their kids to grandparents, as taxpayer-supported parents often do; apparently they not only raise their own kids but they homeschool them. What’s wrong with that?

There’s a poll alongside this article about the Duggars’ baby news that shows 66% of respondents believe that even four kids are too many. To those people I would like to say that three of my four kids work and pay taxes and pay into Social Security, and you should be glad about that. Just think, if the 50 million babies that have been aborted since 1973 would have been allowed to live, they too would be working and paying taxes and supporting you in your old age (and as a bonus, maybe one of them might have even found a cure for cancer or AIDS). Many of our governmental programs, flawed as they may be, were designed for a growing population that supports its elders. Some call that a pyramid scheme, and I agree, but it’s what our society has used for decades, and the loss of so many young people over the past 40 years has damaged the framework of these programs.

I don’t understand why people have such hostility toward large families. Our former neighbors have six kids, and the husband didn’t even tell his coworkers about the last two because he’d already taken so much heat from them for having four kids. How sad is that? Their oldest four kids, by the way, now include a music teacher and an optometrist so I think you could say they contribute to society even beyond financial contributions.

Their mom and I were once at a neighborhood party where I was introduced to the new neighbor across the street, a child psychologist working for the public schools. She and her husband had no children (though they did have a dog they occasionally dressed up and photographed in the front yard, to our amusement). She quickly made it clear that she didn’t especially like children and made a few cracks about “breeders” (large families), so I felt the need to introduce her to my neighbor and then said, “By the way, we both live right across the street from you and between us we have ten children. So you might not want to drink the water around here.” I still chuckle thinking about the look of dismay on her face.

We took some ribbing from family and friends about how much stuff we had, but the fact is that I never had time to completely go through things over the years because I was too busy homeschooling my kids, and I certainly can’t regret that. Also, we kept things that would be needed for our long-held dream of living on acreage, a dream that was apparently not in God’s will, and it wasn’t until we bought this tiny house in town that we knew we could give those things up.

We took countless boxes to Goodwill. We’ve given a lot of toys and homeschooling items to friends with young children. We’ve sold a lot of things on Craig’s List. And there are a few more things that need to go, but we’re working on that.

The hardest items to give up were the books. We love books. And though we do have a Kindle with plenty of books on it, the fact is that there’s nothing like holding a much-loved book in your hands. But there just wasn’t room for all the books we loved.

I’ve sold and given away many books in the past, but there were some I could never let go of, including those I used for my kids when I first designed Life Prep for them. I’m going to be giving those away on this blog soon, because I can’t use them with my youngest.

There is an upside to all of this. As much as I miss the things we gave up, it’s very freeing to live small. The housework doesn’t take nearly as long as it did when we had five bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. The utility bills for this house are lower than the last house (90 years old with 38 windows!) and the small closets here forced us to get rid of a lot of our clothes (which weren’t getting much use anyways because we don’t have jobs and nobody dresses up at church these days.)

So I’m not complaining. And the fact that they’re predicting snow tonight and we won’t have to clean off the car tomorrow because it now fits in the garage makes me extra glad we worked so hard to get rid of all our stuff after the move 

Since we had to sell our longtime home four years ago, we’ve lived in three more houses: two rentals and now the little house we just bought. And one of the interesting things we’ve learned on this journey is that each place felt like home rather quickly. Considering we moved out of state, this really surprised me, because each time we had to get used to a new town, new library and stores, new church, etc.

But what I finally realized is that home is wherever our family is gathered together. I recall a Christmas soon after we left Illinois. Four of us were living in Door County, our eldest was in Chicago and our son and daughter-in-law were in Missouri. Rather than have them trek up north, we rented a hotel suite in Illinois so all of us could gather there for Christmas. Never before had we exchanged Christmas gifts in a hotel! Yet it felt like home because all of us were there together.

Many people are being forced to move in this economy. Some are downsizing like we’ve had to do. In fact, someone very close to me has gone from owning two lovely homes and a tract of land in an island paradise to living in a tiny rental townhouse. It’s a painful process, no doubt about it. But once you discover that being together is the most important thing, you can get past your material losses and realize that the real gift is being with those you love.

Back in the 80s, when country decorating was all the rage, there were lots of folksy wall plaques emblazoned with geese or quilt blocks along with the saying “Home is Where the Heart Is.” Now those plaques look kind of dated and cheesy, but the saying is true: if you’re surrounded by your family, you’re home, no matter where you are.

Maybe that doesn’t sound so exciting to you, but this is my first-ever laundry chute and I love not having to lug everything down to the basement laundry room.

I’m not the only one who thinks it’s cool. Since Josh got over his initial fear of it (I think he was blown away at first by the idea that things could fall down it), laundry day hasn’t been the same.

He likes to summon me to the base of the chute so I can watch the entire process. Then he drops a week’s worth of collected dirty clothes down, one piece at a time, while shouting things like “Look out below!” and “Here it comes!” So it takes a while until everything makes it down the chute.

But he gets such joy out of doing this that I just wait patiently in the basement until all his laundry arrives. That’s the thing about Josh: he can take the simplest thing and turn it into fun. No wonder 99% of adults with Down syndrome say they’re happy. It’s their gift, and in that respect they’re far ahead of many other adults who don’t have the spare chromosome. They can find joy in the simplest pleasures; that’s why they’re such a joy to have around 

Not that it wasn’t a good film: it was. It vividly depicted how adults look out for themselves instead of the children they teach, suggesting they are a major stumbling block for educational change. I don’t disagree with that; watching the film made me very glad I homeschooled my kids.

My frustration lies in two areas: first off, the families depicted in the film have put all their faith in public schools. They try to get their children into better schools; those that fail think their children’s futures are doomed. Those that succeed think all their worries are over and their children will be just fine. That faith in schools is misguided, and the fact that they are so sure of this is just plain frustrating to me because I know from experience that you can work with your own child and help them, whether after school or instead of school. So you do have options.

I think of the inner-city single mom I once met who worked as a police officer on the third shift, came home and slept a few hours and then taught her son during the day. She wouldn’t let him out of their apartment without her because their neighborhood was so dangerous. But she was determined to give him an education and keep him out of gangs. She didn’t look to schools to save her son. She took it upon herself. I wish the parents in “Waiting for Superman” would figure this out instead of relying on the school system to save their children.

My other frustration is with the common attitude displayed in the film (and most everywhere else these days) that the only way out of poverty is a college education. How well I know from my research for my latest book that only about 20% of the job openings predicted by the federal government for the next ten years will require a college degree. Telling every child that a college education is their ticket to success is just plain cruel. That myth is perpetuated in this film, and I hate to see that happening. It’s just not fair to children. Yes, some should go to college because they have an aptitude for higher learning and a desire to excel in a career area that requires a college diploma (doctor, lawyer, etc.) But to tell all children they must go? It’s outdated advice that will lead many of them to become overburdened with college debt and unable to find a decent-paying job to help them pay back what they owe.

So if you want to see a movie that will make it clear why you shouldn’t send your child to school, you’ll like this film. Otherwise, it will probably just make you sad….or frustrated like I am right now.

One more thing: while the makers of this film were more than willing to criticize lousy teachers, they also put good teachers on a pedestal. I get so tired of that attitude. Yes, good teachers are important. But so are good cops, and good doctors, and good cooks. A child’s success in life is aided by the influence of many people, not just teachers, and primarily their parents and others who love them. And even children whose parents are not exactly Parents of the Year can be positively influenced by others who are not their schoolteachers. Besides, it’s not that hard to teach kids to read, write and do math if you haven’t put them somewhere (like school) where their inborn desire to learn has been snuffed out.

One of the things I decided over the course of our past four years as renters is that I spent far too much time thinking about making changes to our previous homes and then, eventually, making those changes. Yes, it’s fun, but it sure is time-consuming, and I just don’t want to spend that kind of time on a house anymore. I’ve decided I will appreciate the house as it is, and not spend too much time obsessing over changes. Yes, there will be changes, I’m sure, but I’m just not willing to put a lot of time into thinking, planning and executing them.

I didn’t make this decision on purpose. I think it’s a byproduct of living in a rental house after 25 years as a homeowner and enjoying the freedom of looking at ugly carpeting and thinking, “If this was my house, I’d replace that carpet, but since it’s not, I don’t care,” and then going on to do whatever it is I wanted to do for fun because I finally had the time. There’s a certain freedom in renting that I really enjoyed, and I guess subconsciously I’m trying to retain some of that freedom even though we just became homeowners again.

Another thought: we completely remodeled our first house, and bought our second house new and then completely decorated it. Maybe I just got burned out on all that decorating and now I don’t care as much? Who knows? What I do know is that I appreciate our latest house despite its dated wallpaper borders and various-shades-of-80s-beige walls, and that is very liberating.

How about you? Are you at this stage yet? Or would you agree with my friend that the box light fixture in the kitchen should be replaced with can lighting, and the basement walls should be painted a color other than white?