Why We Don't Homeschool

We've had this topic come up with some new people we have been meeting lately and I realized it would be good to post about.  Those who have known me for a while all ready know a lot of these details but I think it may be new to others.  There is a very long story of how God called us to put our kids in public school, I won't be telling that story again (I hear some of you saying "whew!").  It was a great story in our journey but it is long.   The purpose here is to tell some very practical reasons that honestly I could not even see at the time of His guiding us.  He could though!

I do want to preface this by saying two main things:  One, is that I highly support homeschooling.  It has it's positives and it's negatives, as does public school, but on the whole it is a wonderful option for many.  I want to be supportive of my homeschooling friends by acknowledging all they do and doing what I can to encourage them if I'm given the opportunity.  Secondly, I do believe that homeschooling is pushed as the "godly" way to proceed with Christian families and public school is characterized as selfish for the parents and damaging for the children.  This is somewhat of an unspoken conversation because I think if many came out and said, "It's more godly to homeschool", they would be shocked at themselves.  God is not in a box, he is using all of his people everywhere in many ways.   He will over expose and underexpose children for the armor they will need in the path He has for them.  I don't think some women, or even some Christian couples give themselves the freedom to realize this is an option for them anymore.  I know I didn't.  Public school was a bad word and an evil monster to me before. 

Here are the main reasons we don't homeschool, and I've put them in order of importance: 

• God called us - Even though I won't get into the details, it is very true.  He called us into it vividly when our eldest was in kindergarten, and he called us out of it vividly at the end of her 4th grade year.  Does God do that?  Well, all I can say is what I know and that is that He did for us. To keep homeschooling would have been us not following His lead.
• I secretly thought it made me more righteous-  That makes me cringe to even write, but I did.  I may be one of the few women in the Christian community who struggled with that, or dare admit it, but it did.  I thought I looked better in eyes of God by homeschooling.  Furthermore, I thought He was obligated to give me a good return on my sacrifices and the end result had to be good Christian kids. 
• My marriage was being put second-  This is not biblical.  I was so exhausted from all the work of the house, the schooling, the socializing efforts etc, I had very little energy or time for my husband.  Not every one has this issue, but I sure did and I was putting the kids over my husband.  I would spend time after they all got to bed, getting ready for the next day's schooling and had no time for him.  I found it interesting at our recent marriage retreat, the speaker said that his biggest group of threatened marriages came from families who homeschooled and now had an empty nest.  That was where I was headed.  Thank you LORD for seeing that!  This does not mean that it will be that way for all couples, but it is a red flag I was ignoring.
• Our children needed outside prodding-  God knew this and we did not at the time.  We had no idea how much our kids would blossom once we put them in school.  I'd like to break down now into each child and tell how it was His best for them: 

1. Our Eldest- She was an easy child to school, the academic.  However, she had developed this sense that the world revolved around her and had no social or authoritative pressures to show her some reality on how this was so not true.  For her, the atmosphere at home fed this problem.  She was not getting challenged by the opinions of others, so hers was supreme.  She was not getting challenged by having to change and adapt to a team, and her agenda reigned.  It's not that I was giving into her at every turn, it was that she was at home so of course the schedule catered to her.  Her brother and sister did whatever she said so of course she had the last word....are you getting the idea?  She was the perfectionist who had to also learn that in reality, you won't be able to complete everything perfectly.  You do the best with the time you have.  Socially, she had to learn that not everyone was going to do or play what she wanted.  
2. Our Middle- Oh, God had big things in mind for her.  She hated school at home with me.  She was in the shadow of a sister who was reading "The Chronicles of Narnia" in kindergarten and had convinced her self she was therefore stupid.  She was bored with worksheets and I had little time for travel or the kind of hands on, mess making learning she loved.  I had her older sister's lessons to do, and her little preschool brother to keep up with.  She was just a home school to do list and she knew it.  Once she entered school, she was amazed at how smart she was because she was in a room with kids her own age!  She loved having a teacher and meeting the challenges of leading in the classroom. She loved that the schedule was all for her the whole school day.  She did not have to go be busy till I could tend to her schooling.  She thrives on group feed back and had no opportunity for this at home.  It was amazing how she blossomed.   
3. Our Third-  The only boy, he has never officially been home-schooled.  He struggles so  much with  structure of any kind and since the only one he knows is school, he dreams of homeschooling.  He has some fantasy idea that it means you get to play Lego's all day.  He needed to be out of the house of girls, and motivated more to get moving.  He is very much the timid boy in some respects.  He is not a wimp, but fits the baby of the family role well.  We are always having to challenge him to stop wining and get going.  School does that for him.  It also gives him time with other boys to be out from the "skirts" at home.  It holds him accountable to a standard of behavior where you cannot wiggle all day if you want to.  He is however, perhaps the one child who I've struggled with the most having in school.  Boys don't do well with that structure.  There have been times when we have prayed about him coming home but God has always encouraged us that this is good for him to learn.  He may get by on the skin of his teeth, and not bringing home all the perfect student awards his sisters are, but he is learning some great skills of hanging in there and being attentive. 

• I needed to grow in my faith-   Faith in God, not myself.   I was holding on too tightly to my own formulas working for me and trying to work out something that the Lord did not have for me.  I was more determined to make good children if it killed me, than I was to trust the God who gave them to me.  Somewhere along the line from being called to homeschool, and struggling with it, I developed wrong motives to keep going.  I honestly did not give myself the option of not doing it anymore, I felt it was just sinful.  I'm very thankful God showed me I was wrong.  He had to show me my heart before I realized this though.  He had to show me my heart motives for having them home and they were not good.  I wanted trained monkeys who would make me proud, he wanted kingdom workers prepared for what He wanted of them.  When it came down to it, all my reasons to keep them home were fear driven. 
• We were not a team-  Helping me in any way, either with planning or follow through, has never been my husbands gift.  I really think that the best homeschool families are the ones who's couples are on the same page and work together in some fashion.  Quite honestly, I think my husband would have been better at homeschooling the children than me.  He is the academic, but he has to have a job so that was not an option. Doing anything regarding homeschooling on top of work was never something that happened for us.  
• We didn't have the ideal setting-  Now, I realize you can homeschool, anywhere and succeed if you are called to but for us, our situation was not ideal.  We live in a small modular park with a small yard not allowing much room for play.  We are not somewhere where we can let our children roam safely either.  We also live 15-30 minutes from most of the homeschool activities or social gatherings.  It became way to hard to get them out enough, even outside.  I did not want to have kids who were locked in with tv screens and dying of boredom just to have them homeschooled.  
• I was becoming a bad mom-  At the end of the school day I did not want to talk to my kids.  I felt like I was showing them the hand the rest of the day.  I was spent!  I could not just be mom and chat, or be all cute and bake cookies.  Getting through the work was all I could do.  I spent many afternoons hiding in my room telling them to stay busy.  I realized that this one big hat was making me hate being a mom.  It broke my heart when I realized that I was robing them of a mom being so determined to be their teacher.  

So, I share all this to say that we all have to be open to what God has for us, as well as what he has for each child.  I have not closed the door, I have learned not to close doors anymore.  Right now these are the reasons we DON'T homeschool.  God could give us other ones any moment for going back into it for one of our kids.  He could do anything.  He should be heard, and I should not be afraid.  I have no idea what God is preparing my kids for through school.  I do know for me it's quite simple now (though it use to not be) that this is not for us right now.  

Whatever we do, I remember what a wise woman told me, we are still and always will be our children s teachers.  We are their disciple-rs.  Whether they sit in a desk at a school, or the table in our dining room, we are teaching them.  The bible says women are to be in the home teaching their children.  "Teacher's at home" it says in Titus.  This is a priority, but no where does it say what exactly we are to teach them as far as academics go.  It does say for us to teach them God's ways, his workings in history and our own lives.  What he has each of us teach beyond that may vary.  I just want to encourage others to listen to Him and follow His leading.  

More than anything, if you are struggling, or hurting, or feeling like you are a looser in this area.  Tell God that, and don't try to be what men tell you you should be, even Christian men.  Talk to your husband, get council and above all BE HONEST with yourself and God.  Being open to His will may not look like you thought it would look.  It may mean that you carry on in a different way, or with different motives.  It may mean that you choose other options. 

I read something back then that amazed me.  It amazed me how narrow my thinking and view of God had become it was this: 

 We want God to stay in schools, but we want all Christian kids out.

I wonder what He wants.....  

It's just something to think about......