My Favorite Reason We Homeschool

There are many reasons we chose to homeschool. As I've said before the number one reason we made our decision is because it's what we personally felt the Lord speaking was best for our family and that is enough. There are so many other reasons that we made this choice though. I could write a book about all stories of crazy things I hear that goes on in schools these days. Or, I could talk about what's being taught in schools, curriculum with an agenda, common core, freedom to teach God's word, benefits of a one on one education, sex ed, statistics, test scores, socialization, bad influences, peer pressure, bullying, the list goes on and on. The list of pro's for our family was much longer than the cons, But there is definitely a favorite reason why I wanted to homeschool. Today I want to talk about that one small reason, which to me is a very BIG one.

Have any of you mom's ever had one of those days... you find an old picture of your baby and suddenly your heart melts? The memories of her first step, first birthday, holding her on your lap, and cuddling her in bed seem just like yesterday. You ask yourself "where did my baby go?" It happened so fast! My oldest is 9.  For the most part she doesn't like cuddles or being babied anymore. She enjoys being the big sister and wants to be independent most of the time. I'm very proud of the young lady she is becoming, but when I look at the old photo albums a sad reality hits me. That part of her life is now over. Only in memories can I ever go back to those days when she was that little girl. They are gone now forever. How could 9 whole years have passed that quickly? Then a sad thought turns to a frightening one! I realize that in that same short amount of time my now 9 year old will be a woman. Her whole childhood will be gone. When you first have a child people always say things to you like, "they grow up so fast!" or "don't blink...she'll be in college." You kind of chuckle and say "yeah I know," but you don't really know or understand just how fast those years are really going to fly by, or how quickly your child is going to change. One day you're holding a newborn, the next moment she's become a toddler. You hardly notice when she switched from toddler to preschooler and suddenly she's 9!

 I have no regrets keeping my daughter home with me these past 9 years. It's the reality of how little time I have left with her that keeps me going. Just looking at the averages for my state, children attend public schools about 7 hours a day for 180 days of the year. That's 35 hours per week that the average child spends away from their home and parents every week! 35 hours! Then not to mention much of the little time they do get to spend at home with mom and dad through the week is spent doing homework! In their entire school life that equals 15,120 hours spent at school. In just 9 more short years my daughter will be an 18 year old, possibly getting ready to leave for college. Then she will be gone. She'll have the rest of her life to spend out in the world away from me, learning, meeting new people, making new friends, working, starting a family, fulfilling God's plan.  I don't want to get to graduation day and realize that her childhood is over and fifteen thousand hours of that childhood was spent away from me.The little time I have left with her is precious! I want to cherish every moment. I want her to get to spend her childhood here with her family. Call me selfish, but I want her to spend those precious 35 hours a week with us, not away with "friends" who probably wouldn't be her long term future friends anyway or a teacher to answer her questions. I want her to spend those 35 hours a week reading books with me, asking me questions, playing, bonding with her siblings, taking family walks, cooking together, enjoying being a kid, enjoying life. So many of us when we think back to our childhood the first thing we remember is our school life, because we spent so much of it there. We think of the friends we hung out with, our teachers, etc. When she is an adult I don't want most of her memories to be of what happened at school, I want them to be of us together. I'm not at all saying that every school moment is a happy one, we definitely have melt downs, fits, sibling fights, and just plain hard school days, but even on the rough days we get through it together. We learn from it, and it makes us closer as a family.

I know that the majority of my readers are fellow home school moms. I've heard many of you express concern about your choice. For some of you homeschooling is very hard and you face all kinds of challenges. Some days you want to give up. Some of you feel inadequate to teach. Some of you face opposition from friends and family. Others just wonder if they've made the best choice for their child. I hope this post encourages you to keep going. No matter what challenges you face, I promise you when it's all said and done, you will not regret having spent these years investing in your child. You will not want to take back one moment (the good and the bad) of their childhood that was spent together.