Tuesday, the day after Labor Day, marks the 30th anniversary of my first official day of homeschooling our children. Later this year, I will mark my birthday; my new age is a very round number, one of those numbers that makes you look back on your life, and think.
Hence the contemplative mood I find myself in today. I think back on how I’ve spent my life, and I realize I spent the majority of it homeschooling. If you count my eldest child’s first five years of life, before the day we first sat down at the kitchen table, sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” (because that’s what we did when I was in kindergarten) and opened a fresh new workbook from A Beka, I actually began homeschooling 35 years ago.
When I was a teen, I never knew homeschooling existed, much less that I would spend the bulk of my “career years” doing so. I never really had much career guidance from my family or teachers. But I grew up when feminism was in full bloom, so the one thing I was certain of was that only a career would make me happy, not staying home to raise children. That’s what all the women’s magazines I read told me.
Back then, people still believed that all the “good” careers required a college degree, so off I went to college. I got the degree, got the job in the corporate office working with the CEO and other head honchos of a large company, and spent my days writing articles and publishing a newsletter to motivate the sales force of 500+ men to sell more product.
I got to wear the cool corporate wardrobe that was in vogue back then: wool blazers, pencil skirts, silk-lined slacks, pantyhose and high heels. I got to leave the office for lunch meetings (on the company) in fancy restaurants. I was quoted in industry magazines and attended national trade shows.
I lasted 2 ½ years.
I was bored silly doing the same old things all the time, and I hated being locked up in an office every day from eight to five. Most importantly, I learned that I did not want to spend my life trying to raise sales numbers. I didn’t really care how much money the company made; increasing its profits wasn’t a goal worth giving up my time, literally my daily life, to achieve.
The feminists kept telling me that I would find happiness in a career, but they were wrong. I had to find something meaningful to do with my life; being paid money to do something that looked glamorous (but was, in reality, monotonous) was not the answer.
My husband and I solved this problem in the time-honored way: we had a baby. I took to motherhood like a duck to water. My baby was six months old when I first read about this amazing concept called homeschooling. We left her with her grandparents for a day so we could go to a seminar by a couple named Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore, and we were soon sold on the idea.
Looking back, I realize that I had been listening to the wrong voices when it came to determining my vocation. I see now that God put the concept of homeschooling in my path at just the right time in my life. He spent a few years teaching my husband and me about it, and then, when it came time to put our little girl on the school bus, we kept her home. We never sent a child to school until years later, when we sent one to college.
I’ve written many times about what a blessing homeschooling was for our family. But it was also a blessing for me personally. I got to run my own show: no more sitting in meetings, listening to the bosses drone on about their plans for the next fiscal year. I planned my own days, made lesson plans, bought supplies, set up art projects, and arranged field trips. I loved working with my kids each day, and especially the independence of it all.
After I’d been homeschooling for a few years, I got more creative. I began writing my own curriculum, designing my own unit studies, and coming up with ideas that would help my children learn what they wanted to learn, in addition to the reading, writing and math that their dad and I required them to study. As my children grew older, I learned to become more of a facilitator than a teacher, obtaining whatever materials and experiences they needed to explore different areas that interested them.
During these very busy years, I had to put my own interests and hobbies on the back burner because there just wasn’t time. But that was alright because I was immersed in helping my children learn what they wanted and needed to know.
Once my eldest two kids left home, I had more time on my hands, and that’s when I finally began to enjoy using the gift of writing that God gave me. I published a couple of newsletters about homeschooling, wrote books and articles about homeschooling, and even began selling some of the curriculum I designed for my kids.
These days, I continue to enjoy writing and publishing (Cardamom Publishers, the company my husband and I started, celebrates its 15th anniversary this year.) Thanks to the Internet, we both work from home, so I not only get to enjoy being in charge of my own schedule, but also being with my husband instead of being apart every weekday. And I’m happy to say I’ve never had to work in some corporate office again.
Professor and cultural critic Camille Paglia once referred to homeschooling mothers as being “formidable and capable personalities whom feminism has foolishly ignored.” It’s true:
- It takes guts to go against the flow by keeping your kids home instead of sending them to school like most parents do.
- It takes brains to keep smart children challenged.
- It takes emotional strength to live with your children day in and day out, year in and year out, something most mothers never do (whether they work outside the home, send their kids to school, or both.)
But there are rewards. We have the freedom to use our gifts in a meaningful way. We also have the freedom to decide how our days will go, where we will work, when we will work. Instead of being parked in a cubicle, I spent my days:
- On the sofa reading aloud
- At the table teaching algebra
- In the kitchen showing a child how to cook
- In the yard inspecting the root system of a garden plant
- In museums, at plays and touring places of business, to name just a few field trips we took.
Being a homeschooling mother means being able to choose how you spend your days, and your life. I’ll take that over the feminism I was sold back in my youth any day.
