Career ruin: homeschooling
When people tell me they want to stay home with their kids and they can’t afford it, I want to yell at them about how when I was trying to write freelance and take care of the kids I had a babysitter refuse to come to the house because we had no food in the house. We had no food in the house because we had no money. I bought food on a day-to-day basis. That was me, affording to stay home with my kids and not work.
I must also admit that I ended up in a mental ward. Maybe from postpartum depression, but probably from the stress of being the sole breadwinner and a stay-at-home mom.
I am having flashbacks. Because I’m homeschooling now — both boys. I never really believed I’d do this. When I launched my homeschooling blog I actually thought I was just exploring a trend. I thought I’d just write a little about how it’s clear to me that there is about to be a homeschooling revolution.
But that’s not what happened.
Because then I noticed how the US school system is really just the biggest babysitting institution in the world. My first clue, probably, was that I was dying to have my kids back in school so I could have my life back. What else can I do to get time alone? How else can I do some work? Work is very fun.
I love work. I love how people tell me how great I am when I am right. I love when I sell something and make a lot of money, when I create a great job for someone, when I give great career advice. Work is so rewarding. I get accolades and I get money. It’s a toxic combination.
And kids at home without school is just impossible. There is no reward system. There is no announcement that the mom has done a good job. We don’t even know what a good job is.
So in the middle of realizing that school is really just a babysitting service, I became militant. I realized that public school is like Social Security. There is no money to do what we are pretending we are aiming to do. We should just grow up and admit that we cannot have effective public schools for everyone. Just like we cannot have Social Security for everyone.
But parents in the middle class can have one parent working and one parent home with their kids.
I feel like I have no choice. Because while I was waiting for the kids to go back to school, I was reading. And, of course, now my homeschool site makes me a magnet for research about school. And the evidence is overwhelming that schools are not meeting the educational needs of children:
- Unstructured play is more important than everything else for young kids.
- Test scores are not important.
- The homeschool trend is huge among educated parents.
- Passion-based learning is an impossible goal with 30 kids and one teacher.
- Almost all serious talk of school reform is about redefining what school is.
I challenge you to read these links and tell me you don’t think homeschool would be better for your kids. And this is why I tell myself that I have to make homeschooling work.
Believe me. There is absolutely no evidence that middle class kids from college-educated parents should be sitting in a classroom. Find me some. Really. Put it in the comments. Because if I could have found some, my kids would be in a classroom today.
But you know what? I can’t figure out how to get my work done and do homeschool too. I can’t figure out: Should I work more to pay for more childcare so I can work more? I know I don’t want the pressure of trying to have a big job and be a mom. I want to be a mom and I want to have an interesting job. And, I guess, I want to figure out how much more I have to work in order to pay for somehow getting a break from the kids.
I feel so bad writing that. A break from the kids. But that’s what sending kids to school is. Giving the parents a break. So I guess I’m still doing that. I’m still planning to get some sort of break. I’m just not calling it school.
Last week, all I could think of for my break was shopping at Forever 21. And I am hopeful that maybe it counted as homeschooling, too.
I think it is odd that so many commented that homeschooling is stressful. I have 3 children educated at home and one foster child in the local high school. The child in school takes more of my time and energy than the three kids at home combined.
Keeping on top of the homework is a killer. I often don’t know there is a problem until later when the teacher finally posts the grades for the assignments done three weeks ago. Even with all the online information from the school, it rarely is enough. The teacher posting online that the child has “Packet #7 due tomorrow” doesn’t do me a lot of good. I still don’t know what they child is supposed to do or even the material covered, and if the child is struggling in the class she can’t explain it to me either.
Then there is the stress of having a child in a class way above her academic ability because that was the only class with an opening. I have a child that failed Pre-Algebra (before coming to our foster home) who is now in Algebra I. Like this kid has a snowballs chance in hell of understanding what is going on in class. I can help her with the work at home, but the class time does her no benefit.
Most teachers don’t want to meet with me in person. I’ve asked for face to face meeting with every teacher. Only one said yes. All the others responded with an offer to let the child repeat assignments instead of a face to face meeting.
One of the teachers I’ve been trying to meet informed me that I should take it up with the long-term sub who is taking over her class tomorrow. Oh, that helps.
On the other hand, my students at home are thriving.
yes.
i ran a before- and after-school program for several years. the parents were stressed out, overworked, tired. they dropped their kids off at 7 a.m. (they wanted an earlier drop-off) and picked them up at 6 p.m. with a bag of mcdonalds, rushing the kids into their change of clothes for gymnastics or tae kwon do and having them eat in the car. one mom told me she was so tired of doing her third-grader’s homework and it was *so boring*. no irony that she was doing her child’s homework; she just assumed i understood that it was stupid busywork and doing nothing for him so she just did it to cross it off.
hs’ing is a relaxed, low-stress life at my house. no rush in the morning, no rush at dinnertime, plenty of time for errands and chores and meal-making. afternoons are for playing outside with friends, not being bused from school to after-school program to activities. evenings are relaxing and fun family time. plenty of time for hobbies, socializing, quiet off-hours trips to museums and movies, uncrowded off-season vacations.
Great work! Please keep it up. My wife and I are home-schooling our four children. I say I, but really it’s she who does the schooling. Yes, we are a family where we have the blessing and luxury of one working while one stays at home. We don’t have much ‘down-time.’ But from the mere standpoint of having sane, non-dramatic children who are voracious readers and writers, and who love learning, it’s a big win.
Have you investigated the democratic school movement, Sudbury schools, etc.? Because there is some amazing education – the kind I imagine you’d want for your boys – going on in democratic schools. I’m guessing there’s nothing like that close to you…but it’s worth a look. Kids learning how to learn in a non-coercive way + you having time to work = win!
So are there any men here who are homeschooling, or is this career:homeschool sacrifice entirely done by women?
my husband cut back his hours to half-time when our first child was born; i cut back from 80 hrs a week to 40 and worked half of those at home. we have both adjusted our careers so we can share childcare and homeschooling duties.
This is a great topic. I actually had a thread going on FB about public schools last week. I was amazed how many comments I received. Mostly from people who were burned out on it and taking my side. I don’t have children but I am all for homeschooling. I think most homeschool parents have groups and the other parents realize they all need breaks from their kids once in a while. The description of public schools being like a big babysitting program is probably right on.
So very timely for me! I’m becoming a militant grandmother. I realized public schools in Texas were not what they were when I was young when testing possible legal secretarial candidates 20 years ago. Starting at about 10-15 years younger than me they flunked the level of required spelling — flunked it bad! I remarked to a friend, “do these women only read Cosmopolitan Magazine??” I’ve been searching the internet trying to make a time line as to what was going on in public education in Texas at that time — I think busing might have been an influence. I’m going to have to find a retired teacher and start a dialogue because if I’m paying taxes, I don’t want a bunch of badly educated children around me. It’s the largest portion of our taxes here in Texas. My daughter-in-law is a middle school teacher and is doing a wonderful job with my two grandkids. I’ve been looking through materials to have “weekend fun” with them. (Did you know an avocado is a berry?); plus I’m searching for materials to teach them cursive writing.
And Teacher Sue: here there are mentors, who are appreciated up to a point, but they implement a new State program plus a program a new superintendant wants. Constant interruptions. I’m in my 60’s, but my classes were rarely interrupted by “outsiders” and when they were the classroom feel into disarray. Too much micro-management. I also have discovered, now working in higher education, that higher education has become employers for all the college and grad school graduates that can’t find a job elsewhere – another reason they have become top heavy. Not all kids need nor should go to college. But learning to read, write, think critically, and know history are essential.
Penelope, suggestion regarding break from kids and wanting to do your own thing. You’re paying taxes one way or another. People a generation (or two now) ago used to worry about their children’s socialization skills if they did not enter public school. My son had a roommate who was homeschool and he thought him “just weird, Mom! Just weird! No, not homeschooling my kids!” and of course now the landscape has SO CHANGED! Anyway, how about a compromise: Have the kids in school half of the year (you pick: fall or spring) and then home school them the other half (they can then catch up and surpass where they should be in public school). Sometimes being a purist about things, an idealogue, if you will, can work against your personal situation.
I have been searching on the internet for a website that can
will satisfy my son’s educational needs and allow me to spend the time I have
available. We were looking for an internet
program that would motivate my son and provide learning resources that fits his
personal style of learning. The site we found that best meets my sons needs is
http://www.etap.org. We took the 10 day free trial, which does not require providing a
credit card, to make sure it worked for my son.
What we liked about eTAP is it gives access to all the
grades and subjects and my son can progress at his own learning speed. The cost
is affordable and one fee includes all your family’s children. Also it is the
only program that includes free educational videos and access to other
interactive resources with the traditional instruction. No additional books or
fees are required.
My son is enjoying learning on the internet and I only need
to monitor his progress. He rarely has questions for me and the variety of
learning resources provided by eTAP satisfies his learning needs.
I have been searching on the internet for a website that can
will satisfy my son’s educational needs and allow me to spend the time I have
available. We were looking for an internet
program that would motivate my son and provide learning resources that fits his
personal style of learning. The site we found that best meets my sons needs is
http://www.etap.org. We took the 10 day free trial, which does not require providing a
credit card, to make sure it worked for my son.
What we liked about eTAP is it gives access to all the
grades and subjects and my son can progress at his own learning speed. The cost
is affordable and one fee includes all your family’s children. Also it is the
only program that includes free educational videos and access to other
interactive resources with the traditional instruction. No additional books or
fees are required.
My son is enjoying learning on the internet and I only need
to monitor his progress. He rarely has questions for me and the variety of
learning resources provided by eTAP satisfies his learning needs.
You have a great perspective on this. First time reading your blog, and it was a joy.
Schools really are big babysitters. It’s true. I learned a lot, even in public schools, but sometimes it seemed like there really was no reason I couldn’t learn the same things or even more if I just stayed home.
Great post.
Bryce
The problem is we live in isolation from family and community and we need breaks. (Introverts need breaks too), but parents who have no support system within arms reach–and that means you, because one and sometimes two independent and cranky grown people with other responsibilities are not a good enough support system–can’t take it all on. You’ve probably said this yourself in your blog. You just can’t be the wife/cook/mom/educator AND have a career w/o sacrificing well-being if you don’t have support. Most of us pay for this, with real money or with our children’s potential. My well-being is so far gone some days, I have very few things to gamble but the future.
We spent an average of 1 hour a day homeschooling to keep our kid AHEAD of the public school system. I think that most middle class families can afford that amount of time. We taught our kids to read a full year before the school system and they were devouring high school level books by age 9. We let them direct most of their free time. Our eldest just went to his first choice of colleges UCSB to go on the pre-med track.
How do you suppose your great grandmother did it? Ok, for you maybe your great, great grandmother, but just the same someone in your family homeschooled before. Yes, that’s the way it used to be done before this newfangled notion of “schooling” came along!
I realize I’m just reading this post off the bat without any other kind of filler information from any of your previous posts; however, I figured it couldn’t hurt to comment. First: I am a product of the homeschool institution, and I am incredibly grateful for it. I don’t know how my mom hung on so tenaciously to teaching my brother and me, but I have a greater advantage in life in general than my fellow public school compatriots because of my eduction. I realize this is hardly a reward for you, but I think you’re doing your kids a great service.
Some thoughts on giving you more time. Do you use any particular curriculums, or are you making yours from scratch? When I was learning, we used a lot of Abeka (sic?) and Saxon books and schedules.
Do you have a homeschool group in your area? My family discovered a good deal of other families like ours, and we started meeting on a regular basis. College campuses (and more often than not professors who also taught at home or just favored the concept) would offer the homeschoolers group classes which could take anywhere from a day to an hour – giving the parents some “me” time while getting the kids to socialize and learn.
Sets of parents would also often take a large group of kids (all ages) and teach them. This usually involved transportation and food from my mother, but resulted in her getting time to do things for herself while we learned sign language or rudimentary farming or worked in a soup kitchen or learned about Africa (you get the idea).
When I was in my teens, I often taught younger children at my house while their mothers went to work – either by following a designated curriculum or creating my own. I would then do my own studies in the afternoon and in conjunction with the kids I was teaching.
Don’t know if any of this helps but cheers to your ongoing efforts!!
Well, first off, the photo is a crack-up (pun intended). I’ve never been in a Forever 21, and thankfully my 10-yo homeschooled daughter thinks the place sounds terrifying, so I’m off the hook for now!
Said dd has never gone to school, unless you count her Sunday School at our Unitarian Universalist church. After my maternity leave, she was in daycare 2-3 days/week with my husband and I juggling our schedules to stay home the other days. Then I hit a wall physically (right after 9/11) and shifted to full-time homeness. After a good chunk of time as DINKs, we could afford this on savings. When money got tighter, we moved to a cheaper house in a less expensive part of our region. I picked up some part-time work that I could do from home, and my husband shifted to fewer hours to be with the girl more. For the last few years he’s been full-time again while I’ve been the home learning guide.
Have we been happy and content? Just like most couples and families we have our ups and downs, usually tied to isolation (me), the work treadmill (him), and little money we can direct to savings or house repairs. I figure that if we had stayed in town, enrolled the girl in school, and both worked full-time, we would have a different set of issues. That’s life.
But I do know that our daughter is supremely happy. She’s learning about herself: how to learn, what’s important to her, how families flex in ways big and small to accommodate each other. Her dad and I figure that we only have about 7-10 years left of deep connection with her before her life takes a course away from us. That, too, is life. In the meantime, our lives are sure to continue to flex and change. Sometimes, when you think the homeschooling is too restrictive, it’s worth reminding yourself of how much has changed in X years, or months, or days. And reminding yourself that whatever wall you feel up against won’t always be there. There are, of course, more active things to do, too, but sometimes the battle is mostly in how we frame the situation.
Wishes of strength and ease as you continue to balance your needs with the needs of those around you.
Well, first off, the photo is a crack-up (pun intended). I’ve never been in a Forever 21, and thankfully my 10-yo homeschooled daughter thinks the place sounds terrifying, so I’m off the hook for now!
Said dd has never gone to school, unless you count her Sunday School at our Unitarian Universalist church. After my maternity leave, she was in daycare 2-3 days/week with my husband and I juggling our schedules to stay home the other days. Then I hit a wall physically (right after 9/11) and shifted to full-time homeness. After a good chunk of time as DINKs, we could afford this on savings. When money got tighter, we moved to a cheaper house in a less expensive part of our region. I picked up some part-time work that I could do from home, and my husband shifted to fewer hours to be with the girl more. For the last few years he’s been full-time again while I’ve been the home learning guide.
Have we been happy and content? Just like most couples and families we have our ups and downs, usually tied to isolation (me), the work treadmill (him), and little money we can direct to savings or house repairs. I figure that if we had stayed in town, enrolled the girl in school, and both worked full-time, we would have a different set of issues. That’s life.
But I do know that our daughter is supremely happy. She’s learning about herself: how to learn, what’s important to her, how families flex in ways big and small to accommodate each other. Her dad and I figure that we only have about 7-10 years left of deep connection with her before her life takes a course away from us. That, too, is life. In the meantime, our lives are sure to continue to flex and change. Sometimes, when you think the homeschooling is too restrictive, it’s worth reminding yourself of how much has changed in X years, or months, or days. And reminding yourself that whatever wall you feel up against won’t always be there. There are, of course, more active things to do, too, but sometimes the battle is mostly in how we frame the situation.
Wishes of strength and ease as you continue to balance your needs with the needs of those around you.
I’ve noticed that most of these posts, while often so salient on homeschooling, have little to say about the intersection of hanging onto a career and homeschooling kids.
While I truly believe parents of all socioeconomic and education backgrounds can successfully homeschool their children, I don’t believe it is for everybody. Not everyone is emotionally able to handle being needed quite so much as a stay at home parent is needed. Not everyone is confident enough to make an alternative choice and carry it through. Not everyone is willing or able to nurture the community connections that make it all doable and enjoyable for the whole family.
Most of all, any choice requires some sort of sacrifice or another. There are only so many hours in the day. If you are someone who will consistently resent having made the choice to homeschool the kids and not spend that time working, the kids and your family are all better off with you back at work and them in school. Resentment is palpable. It makes people hate each other. When parents are frustrated and feeling thwarted in their life goals because of their parenting choices, they take it out on their kids. It doesn’t matter how hard they try not to. No one can learn in a home environment like that.
Here is my experience as a homeschooling parent so far:
My two kids are 11 and 12 and have never been to school. I knew before they were born that I wanted to homeschool them come what may.
I had them in less than ideal circumstances… My daughter was the result of throwing caution to the wind in a summer fling, and my son was conceived in rape when my daughter was only 8 months old. Needless to say, I was a single mom. I was also young, not “educated,” and while I did own my home and have a decent job when my daughter was born, I decided to quit that job because it was not flexible enough to allow me to parent the way I believed I needed to.
I exhausted myself those first few years. I was an attachment style, working, single parent. I worked from home half the time with a baby at my breast and spent the other half of my work hours in the office. When my son came along with health problems, I just couldn’t do the 2 under 2 and working attachment parent thing any more. For a while I coasted on savings and then credit cards, because I knew my priority was my kids. I even ended up marrying the first person who came along and wanted to help me. He adopted my kids and became our financial support for the next few years.
I lost all my business connections, lost my technical skills, and focused on our kids and our home.
As the kids got older we started to do more homeschooly things. I had a co-op with other moms where we took turns doing activities with the kids. We found a thriving community of homeschoolers in our area. We spent time doing projects that struck our fancy, doing service in our community, and doing all the things necessary to keep the home running.
When I decided to go back to school and pursue an associate degree so that I could study something I loved and possibly make a carreer out of it someday my husband freaked. My supposedly progressive, feminist husband was very threatened by the idea I could be something other than dependant on him. This was the straw that broke the back of my marriage. (It was already strained thanks to the fact I’m actually a lesbian, among other things.)
So… we had a divorce to get through. That meant finding work, and working around his totally inflexible (and odd) schedule. We continued to homeschool, sending the kids back and forth. Ironically, homeschooling made it possible for each of us to be able to work and spend time with the kids. School would have meant one of us would only have the kids one day a week. Instead, it was 50-50.
He got to keep the schedule he liked… just seeing the kids when he was truly free. I, on the other hand, found an email-based customer service job with flexible hours. I’d work late into the night on days I had my kids, and I’d work long hours when I didn’t have them. When hired, I convinced my boss to agree to a sizable raise and increased responsibilities three months in if I had proved myself and created a job description. I proved myself. Before long I had risen to an upper management position, managing the kind of technical work that I had performed in the past. My employer was flexible and even allowed me to take my children on international business trips – a great learning experience that would have been even better if I’d actually been able to spend the time with them!
I finally had enough money. I bought a house (at the peak of the market, sigh). My flexible hours ended up meaning lots and lots of hours. I had to travel to conferences. My performance was slipping. I felt guilty all the time. When I was working, I felt guilty that I wasn’t with the kids. When I was with the kids, I was guilty about not working. The stress started to pile up. The economic crisis hit our company and I was unable to make a commitment to working longer hours at a different position when we restructured in order to cope with the crisis. I was laid off.
I still had connections. I was offered other positions in my field. However, none of them would work with my ex-husband’s schedule and my resulting parenting time. Had I taken any of those positions I would have ended up only seeing them a few hours a week. As it was, my kids were not getting the attention they really needed from me. They were doing ok, but not great.
I took being laid off as an opportunity. I knew I never wanted to work for someone else again and wanted to start my own business. I did an associate degree as the fastest way to obtain the certification I’d need for the business I thought I’d want to run. Being in school bought me time with my kids that I knew I wouldn’t have if I were in full-on business start-up mode. The classes took time, but I was able to be with the kids most days. Financial aid and scholarships kept us afloat.
I recently finished the degree, and while my business has taken a different direction, the time I spent in school was great. Now I am launching my business, and again we are readjusting how our family does things. My daughter spends 75% of her time with me and my partner, my son is with us for half of each week. The kids are now old enough to be left home alone for a while. They are also into taking classes at a local homeschool resource center. These things buy me time to work.
Still, I find that many aspects of being a homeschooling parenting get in the way of running my business, but that’s true no matter how one parents. I’ve committed career suicide time and again because my priorities are strongly set for positive time spent with my children and partner. I’m hoping this time will be different.
The key ingredient to successful homeschooling is the connection you have with your children. Without time together, that connection is weak. Without the connection, the time you do spend together becomes a fight. That’s not good for anybody.
Nurturing a career, especially one you make up along the way yourself, also takes a massive amount of time and energy. Sometimes that’s not compatible with parenting, but I think it needs to be. One of the things I deeply want for my children is for them to understand the satisfaction and value that comes with hard work.
I see the balance between work and parenting as something that needs to evolve as our kids grow, our circumstances change, and our personal motivations shift. I may not be on the fast track right now, but I can work around the edges of my parenting. It won’t be long before my kids are grown and I’ll be able to focus more on work. Being able to homeschool them has been worth the things I’ve given up, so far.
Hi Joy- I was so excited to read this! I am so happy to hear that it IS possible to be a single, work at home, homeschooling mom!
Thank you so much for this affirmation- I have been following this path for the past year and many times I find I am the only one in my family that is totally at peace with these decisions.
Thank you again!
-Mary Brigitte Hampton
I’m glad it helped! It definitely isn’t easy, but it’s easier than making the choice to put them in school (which would come with its own challenges, anyway!) If you are at peace with your decisions and truly understand your priorities, you can make it work.
How old are your kids? I found that working at home is very, very difficult, especially when they are young. If you can hire someone to help out for at least part of that time, it will be well worth the money.
If anything, Penelope’s experiences validate the experiences of generations of humanity – men should support their families, while women should engage in a far more valuable enterprise – raising and educating the next generation of human beings.
Excellent comment. I agree 100%.
If anything, Penelope’s experiences validate the experiences of generations of humanity – men should support their families, while women should engage in a far more valuable enterprise – raising and educating the next generation of human beings.
Perhaps public schools are babysitting, but they’re providing the very important service of exposing kids to a magnitude of other kids their own age from different backgrounds. Kids that are able to learn on their own, through the ways described in the links you provided can and do thrive at public school and I was definitely one of them. They can seek a teacher’s attention, can learn on their own when the teacher isn’t providing individualized attention and most importantly, will meet other students that have different abilities from their own to propel their own progress in developing a skill or interest. The system that we have isn’t perfect and the first step towards improving it is getting parents more involved and engaged with their children so that they don’t just treat school as a babysitting service. Dropping out of the system completely is not helping anyone.
Perhaps public schools are babysitting, but they’re providing the very important service of exposing kids to a magnitude of other kids their own age from different backgrounds. Kids that are able to learn on their own, through the ways described in the links you provided can and do thrive at public school and I was definitely one of them. They can seek a teacher’s attention, can learn on their own when the teacher isn’t providing individualized attention and most importantly, will meet other students that have different abilities from their own to propel their own progress in developing a skill or interest. The system that we have isn’t perfect and the first step towards improving it is getting parents more involved and engaged with their children so that they don’t just treat school as a babysitting service. Dropping out of the system completely is not helping anyone.
Perhaps public schools are babysitting, but they’re providing the very important service of exposing kids to a magnitude of other kids their own age from different backgrounds. Kids that are able to learn on their own, through the ways described in the links you provided can and do thrive at public school and I was definitely one of them. They can seek a teacher’s attention, can learn on their own when the teacher isn’t providing individualized attention and most importantly, will meet other students that have different abilities from their own to propel their own progress in developing a skill or interest. The system that we have isn’t perfect and the first step towards improving it is getting parents more involved and engaged with their children so that they don’t just treat school as a babysitting service. Dropping out of the system completely is not helping anyone.
Additionally, while most homeschoolers would never openly admit to this, in running summer camps that attracted many homeschoolers I observed that a big motivating factor for parents to homeschool their kids was their fear of exposing their children to others that didn’t share their values. Most of these parents would say that it’s fine for their kids to go school with black kids but not if those kids are from a bad neighborhood or are dealing with more adult life experience that they don’t want their own kids to pick up. It’s truly disappointing and a step backwards as a society.
Additionally, while most homeschoolers would never openly admit to this, in running summer camps that attracted many homeschoolers I observed that a big motivating factor for parents to homeschool their kids was their fear of exposing their children to others that didn’t share their values. Most of these parents would say that it’s fine for their kids to go school with black kids but not if those kids are from a bad neighborhood or are dealing with more adult life experience that they don’t want their own kids to pick up. It’s truly disappointing and a step backwards as a society.
I’ve put my art career on hold to let my 7-year-old daughter rise as high as her interest in science allows–we homeschool to give her room to shoot for the moon. No classroom of 30 to 1 can do that, no matter how skilled the teacher. It’s one season of my life, I will pick up my career again when the time is right. In the meantime, homeschooling is the best decision we’ve ever made.
I’ve put my art career on hold to let my 7-year-old daughter rise as high as her interest in science allows–we homeschool to give her room to shoot for the moon. No classroom of 30 to 1 can do that, no matter how skilled the teacher. It’s one season of my life, I will pick up my career again when the time is right. In the meantime, homeschooling is the best decision we’ve ever made.
I would suggest that you find a place with good private schools. I am not saying there are no good public schools. There are. But there are many great private schools, where instruction is individualized and students are learning skills for the 21st century. I live in a small city in the rust belt, not in NY or CA, and our kids go to a great school where parents are involved. These schools are often generous with aid, even to middle/upper middle income families. We sacrifice to make this possible – we live in a small house and drive used cars. Parents have to be informed about their choices and be willing to make sacrifices. Public schooling and homeschooling are not the only options in most areas.
School is not just a place to learn about things….you learn how to interact with others — especially others who are different from you so when you go into the real world, you don’t think you are better than others or at least you have some skills to fit in and not be the homeschooled kids who I think of as thinking they are just a smidge better than everyone else.
I don’t understand why these discussions are invariably about what should be instead of what is.
Here I sit. There is a public school building down the street, one block away. Some of the programs in it my family doesn’t qualify for, period, because of income or lack of special needs or English language competency. As for the elementary school being run out of that building, my 8yo would get a better education just existing in my house even if I never got out of bed. As it is, he gets an education by being home with me, even though I am distracted doing housework and wrangling his small sisters, and wornout and demoralized, that cannot even be compared with what he’d be receiving down the street. He plays with those kids, I talk to them, it’s a shame and a scandal what’s being done to them.
Don’t you people get it? Why on earth would a sane, rational woman refrain from using free childcare her child could WALK TO? Do you comprehend how bad things have gotten for more and more people to be making this choice?
Sure, I could play the game and do the work to get him into the better programs around here. But it is so much work and the benefits are so negligible – plus they are far away. Acceptable schooling means an hour at least on the bus; right there that means acceptable isn’t enough, it needs to be stellar. And it’s not.
The schools are no longer part of the community; they no longer serve the community; they seek to replace the community and to require the community to serve them. They exist for the interests of the people they pay. They aren’t for my son. There is nothing good enough for him that the schools are interested in providing. It’s all on me.
Thank you for the enlightening post!
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I don’t see schools as babysitters that is giving schools too much of a positive image. Never heard of a babysitter making children take a drug test or walk through a metal detector. And I don’t think babysitters have powerful unions either.
I like your post. Homeschooling puts more control in the hands of the parents where it belongs. It is also a huge responsibility but that’s not a bad thing. Even puts more responsibility on the children to be better students.
I don’t see schools as babysitters that is giving schools too much of a positive image. Never heard of a babysitter making children take a drug test or walk through a metal detector. And I don’t think babysitters have powerful unions either.
I like your post. Homeschooling puts more control in the hands of the parents where it belongs. It is also a huge responsibility but that’s not a bad thing. Even puts more responsibility on the children to be better students.
They can develop social skills in school, but can’t at home, only interacting with themselves… building a social network can be invaluable at a young age. Especially if your kids have aspergers..
The social aspect of school and the things you learn about getting along with people is at least as important as the teaching of subjects. I think it’s sad when parents deprive their children of that experience.
My daughter has a friend from church whose whole family is home schooled. I am totally unsupportive of home schooling for the simple reason that school is life, in general sense. Protective parents who remove their children from school remove them from life and all of its trials, troubles and joys.
Parents are not professional educators, part-time psychologists and sociologists. Most of them don’t have the experience to pull off what structured learning and interaction accomplish on their own. That’s why schools exist.
When parents decide to protectively omit their children from organized education, they are making a concious decision to remove thier children from life. When the children enter society (if they can do that wihtout significant trouble, which is doubtful), the young adults are not armed for success in the real world. And now as adults, they are much more susceptible to harrowing experiences that can legitimately harm them – sometimes permanently, and what’s wors, they lack the critical life experiences to understand how to deal with those experiences on their own.
There’s certainly reasons why home-schooling would be advisable: ghetto, bad teachers, poor overall committment to education, amazingly awful teachers, but those are the outliers, not the norm, and most teachers make next to nothing, comparitively, so they have to be in it for the education, the experience transfer and the children.
For people who have the resources, even the worst scenario is solveable with private schools. I know, I went to one, and I’m amazed at the education that I got in hindsight.
For most, public schools are the answer and they can and do fulfill very necessary requirements for child development, not just babysitting. For thos epeople who want to argue that their schools suck – pro tip: it’s a free country – move to where they don’t suck. Your job is replacable, your kid’s success isn’t.
I know how you can do both. If you do Art Robinson’s type of homeschooling, the kids will be working independently. You really only do the 3 R’s each day and lots of it. Most of the people who are doing his type of homeschooling are mothers that have a lot of children and have been homeschooling for many many years. This really simplifies everything. Art’s wife died and he worked from home while homeschooling his 6 kids.
Don’t you remember this post you wrote? http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2008/06/10/the-hardest-part-of-my-job-is-that-everyone-lies-about-parenting/
Aren’t you contributing to Mommy porn by even suggesting that you can have a great job, be a great mom, be a great wife to The Farmer AND oh yes AND homeschool on top of it all. What a joke, when is the truth going to be told? Only the Pioneer Woman can do that….hahahahahahhaha….now there’s the worst case of mommy porn ever!
Thanks for your post and your honesty! Years ago I dropped out of college to start a bussiness with my hubby. It was a dream job for me! We owned a clothing boutique and so I got to shop for trendy clothes for a living. As buyers we went to countless trade shows, attended fashion shows, traveled, rode on limos in Las Vegas, plus I just loved the interaction with customers and making good bussiness deals with vendors was a high for me. Then we had our first child and I decided to spend less time at the bussiness and more time with her. We continued to have kids and therefore was I less able to help hubby. The last time I worked was in 2007 when we had a bussiness at a mall and by then we had 3 kids. Everyday that I would leave my kids with my in-laws my heart would break. Even though we loved having our own bussiness somehow all that I once found so fun about my job lost it’s luster. Specially whenever one of them would ask me “Mama, how much longer do you have until you stop working? I miss you!”. Long story short we made the decition that I should be a SAHM full time. DH still needed my help but we realised that to us me being able to meet our kids’ needs was more important than having a sucessful bussines at their expence. Hubby now works for another company and I am pregnant with our 5th child. We unschool and yes, we are not rich by any means. We have a budget, we have bills, we cut coupons and look for sales. I cannot get my weekly mani/pedis anymore like I did when I worked and I swaped shopping for the latest fashion trends with shopping for the right diaper sizes at Wal-Mart. I never hear “go girl” or “ooh and ahh” from people when I tell them I am a SAH/unschooling mom like I did when I was a woman who owned my own bussiness. Still, I cannot immagine myself being anywhere else but with my babies full time. I could never give them up to schools to be raised by total strangers! Not even to elite private schools or Christian schools, no way. Same goes for giving my kids up to babysitters or day cares. Even having my kids raised by family members is something I could never do now. My children were give to me and DH by God and my joy comes from taking full responsibility for them. Besides no teacher or nanny as good as they may be could ever love them more than I do so why would I want them to spend most of their childhood with anyone else but me? Do I miss my old life? Honestly some days I do. Specially days when I only got 3 hours of sleep because one of the kids had a nightmare and the piles of laundry are overflowing to the hallway from the laundry room, and the dishes are piled up in the sink. But I have NEVER once have experienced the same broken heart since I became a SAHM that I used to get when I had to leave my kids for work. And my bussiness never showed me the great love nor given me the awesome joy that my kids give me everyday I spend with them :)!!!
Sometimes I get dizzy reading Penelope’s posts. But, I really enjoy them.
Uh. Wow. 500 comments and no wonder–what an amazing post. And yes, honey, YES it counts as school. EVERYTHING counts as school when you’re homeschooling.
My children have been teaching me for 11 years that they learn best and most when I leave them the heck alone to get on with it already. And also when I drag them around with me to places they think are boring. And also when I let them cook dinner with me. Which is almost never.
I still get in manic phases where I think I have to have them doing math worksheets and using educational software and studying Spanish and Mandarin because, you know, they’re going to need to communicate with our overlords some day. But I try to limit the mandatory stuff to an hour a day because really–it’s not the important bit.
Maybe someone’s already said this but could you find another homeschooling family to trade children with on a regular basis? My children go to another homeschooling family’s home three days a week, then my husband and I trade off with them on the other two days, so we each get a four-day workweek out of the deal. The cost is affordable because she’s getting the benefit of an income from home with her children, and I’m getting the benefit of client meetings that don’t involve poop or screaming (at least most of the time).
Also: I haven’t had time to update my blog in ages (delivering stuff to clients–stuff that pays bills is lovely but often interferes with the blog). Now I’m going to post a link to your blog, and then ta-da! Effortless blog post. Thank you.
I’m sorry, but I find this article terribly difficult to follow. Your thoughts are poorly organized and you make very little sense. Your writing is very disjointed. I’m shocked that you do this for a living. You probably won’t allow this comment to be published.
Also, I think public school is beneficial to children because it prepares them for the real world. When they grow up, assuming they’re not self-employed, they’ll need a job. That job requires structure and doing what people tell you to do, not because you want to, but because you have to.
You need to consider the future of this country and the world when you decide what is and isn’t important for your children to learn. I sure hope you think that science and math are important, because they literally run the world. Even the most basic product involves some degree of physics or chemistry or math. Children need to learn these subjects so they can take over when older generations retire.
Wow – this blog has a lively debate on home-schooling! I am posting this comment to describe my personal experience with homeschooling and seek advice or comments. Without further ado…
My wife and I live in an area with fantastic elementary schools – they get 10 out of 10 ratings & test scores are high. People move to this are FOR the schools. We are the parents of a home-schooled 10 and 8 year old – both girls. In addition, we have a 18 month old little girl. I work full time. I have been asking my wife to contribute financially to the family for the past 10 years and it unlikely to happen as long as she insists on home-schooling. In theory, I LOVE the idea of home-schooling. I want nothing less than my daughters to be learning without the silly distractions that public school can introduce – boys, cliques, drugs, etc. – you name it. We are also Christian and I want my little girls to be protected to some degree from the nonsense. My wife, however, has a completely different lifestyle than I would like. She is a total night-owl and insists on staying up until 2 or 3 am and sleeps until 11 or noonish. The kids co-sleep and so they maintain the same hours. I have tried to convince her many times to put them in public school that is less than 2 miles from our house to allow her more time to clean the house, spend time with the baby, etc. and she is adamant about continuing with this. When I’m at work, she can often be found at the mall with the kids and out running errands. So in her case I feel that the home-schooling is a sham and only serves to allow her to continue going to be late and getting up late. If the kids went to school, then she would have to get up early to take them and pick them up. I feel that my daughters would get a better education in public school than this charade my wife has them in. What do I do though? Bringing this up usually results in a nasty fight. Do I involve some social service agency or the public school? I want what is best for my kids and I don’t think my wife is currently providing that.
Yes, we all need our breaks every once in a while.
Yes, it is difficult to inculcate passion in a 30, even 40-student class.
Yes, work encourages personal development.
Yes, homeschooling is possible.
At the end of the day, however, it’s all about personal choices. It’s about what fits and what doesn’t.
You cannot force homeschooling on anyone like they cannnot force traditional schooling on you. The great thing about having this blog, however, is you can let them reconsider.
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The number one reason why kids are in public school is because of selfishness. And that is also the reason for many other problems in society. Being a conformist means working 9 to 5 to buy a house, two cars, swimming pool, and a bunch of other material things. It becomes a way of life just to maintain the illusion of security. Even though the world could end any day. And we know that it takes more than one person to pay all the bills when living the typical life. With that said, there is no good excuse for sending kids to an institution of any kind.
I griped for years when sending our first daughter to school. I hated how it changed her and basically removed her innocence. She is 12 now and we have two smaller children who just started school this year. I am only 40. But I am very old fashioned because I know very well about past generations and the wisdom that came from them. Seeing how today’s generation has become diluted to dumbing down our population, it is a given to raise our children at home.
Math doesn’t make you intelligent. Any parrot can learn something and tell it back. But it is still a dumb bird. And that’s what our kids are becoming. We must raise them at home and let them see a more natural life minus the corruption so that they grow to become wise like our great grandparents were.
We recently removed our kids from public school once and for all. They will never go back. Sure, I cherish my privacy and quiet time. And I rarely get it when they are at home. But parenting is about sacrificing any and all for the sake of our kids. Selling out is the style of modern parents who care more about money than their own children. I am not one of them. I place little value on money. If I have to live in leaky shack and sleep on the floor to raise my kids wise, then that is what I’ll do.
Oh my god you are an idiot.