Homeschooling - a lifestyle and commitment

So a couple of weeks ago I was fed up with homeschooling. I was tired and worn out and sick of fighting my kids. Battle weary, I think it's called. This probably had as much to do with the stresses of life as it did with the actual homeschooling part of my day. Baby's birth dad decided to drop into the picture. Bub wasn't walking and we were just beginning to absorb the diagnosis of Perthes Syndrome. And I was dealing with my own health issues. I just started a medication that made me feel like I had Lupus. I was so sore and tired I could barely move. Life got hard and homeschooling was an expression of the pressure cooker that was my life.

Hubby came home to find me researching what district school would come pick my kids up on a bus. I was ready to send them anywhere, to anyone who would take them. "Whoa, time-out." Hubby said. "We are not going to send our kids to the crummy school down the street just because they have a bus route that goes by our house. Remember, you prayed about this. You felt like homeschooling is what God wanted for our family. "

Sure, bring God into it.

I had prayed about how to educate my kids. A lot. And I felt that I had heard, very clearly, from Him that we should homeschool the kids for this year. Our old pastor used to say, "Never doubt in the darkness what God has clearly shown you in the light." Okay, I'll homeschool.

We had always planned on taking homeschooling year-by-year, child-by-child. We didn't want to commit ourselves to be Homeschooling Lifers. Kids are different. Life changes. We wanted to stay flexible.

Oddly, by doing this we had boxed ourselves in. If I am always considering transitioning my kids into traditional school, I have to have them prepared to transition smoothly. Basically, my curriculum needs to follow the public school's scope and sequence fairly closely.

Didn't I choose homeschooling partly because I felt like I could do a better job of deciding what my kids should learn that a school district? If I homeschool I don't necessarily have to burden myself with public school standards.

My friend Karen gave me this advice, "Consider/pray about whether you should take a year-by-year approach, or if you should take a long range approach." Year-by-year is a sprint training. Lifers are in it for the long haul, marathoners. I was training for both the sprint and the marathon. It's too hard. "The double minded man is unstable in all his ways," the Bible says. And I cannot simultaneously hold two goals in mind. Either I homeschool, or I don't.

There are probably two reasons that I have dragged my feet about committing to a long range approach to homeschooling. The first is this: homeschooling will cost me. If I am a homeschool mom that means that, by default, I am choosing not to do other things. Homeschooling is a lifestyle and a commitment, and there are so many good things about it. But it is a choice that costs. It does have drawbacks. I'll have to work harder for my kids to have friendships. I won't have as much time to volunteer, or go back to work. My house will probably always look "lived in".

The second reason that choosing a long-term path is daunting is that homeschooling is hard. It is hard to juggle educating several kids and managing a home. I want to do all of these things with excellence, and frankly, sometimes I do a pretty mediocre job. Insecurity eats at me. Can I do it? But I guess if I believe that this is what God has given me to do, the good works he has for me, then I've got to believe I have been equip for the challenge. Incidentally, as a kid I always thought I'd have some more glamorous mission in life. How humbling to think that my primary mission is to serve 4 little people and one tall, handsome and balding guy. My mission looks a lot like laundry, and dirty dishes, and runny noses, and shoe tying. Hmm...

I heard bit on the Christian radio station that stuck in my head. It went like this, "You think that sacrifice and commitment are barriers to your happiness, but in reality they are the path to it." Could it be? Has my God called me to the simple, unglamourous task of homeschooling and caring for my family because it is best for me? As I learn to serve I learn contentment and joy. And as I care for the needs of my little children I am forced to grow-up in to the woman I am supposed to be.