Remember last year’s big Send Home—that day when students came home from schools across the country for “just two weeks” and didn’t return for months. A pandemic is a shocking, world-changing event, and children sent home en masse is a shocking, family-changing event.
Many families really struggled with this transition, including my friends. The technology was very difficult for students and teachers. Both were untrained in distance learning and faced a steep learning curve. Parents struggled to help their children with lessons they were unprepared to reteach. Academic performance across the country was affected. Not only did these students not progress in their education, but performance worsened, creating what researchers are calling the “COVID slide.”
Understandably, homeschooling grew dramatically from to 2020 to 2021—more than doubling, in fact. A recent government census now estimates over 11 percent of American families are not just learning at home but full-on homeschooling now. These parents are looking for a better and easier way to ensure continuity of care and academic progress in the wake of unprecedented educational disruption.
That doesn’t mean everyone suddenly knows what homeschooling is really about, though. As a homeschool graduate turned homeschool mom turned homeschool author, I still squirm a little when I hear people whispering behind me, “I could never do that” or “She has homeschooled forever; she wouldn’t understand how hard it is.”
There are dozens of things I wish I could find the courage to say. I’m not the only one. There are so many things that we homeschool moms wish we could somehow explain. For instance:
1. Homeschooling is hard—and easy.
We know homeschooling is hard. Taking on the responsibility of full-time education for our children is daunting. Every morning, I wake up and face the books, the papers, the children, the empty coffee pots, and I wonder, how on earth? And that’s where my ability ends.
God didn’t call me to homeschool because I’m super smart, or capable, or patient (oh, no. Not that last one, especially). God called me to homeschool because he is all those things and more. “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). Without that God, there would be no homeschooling. Only he is sufficient for such a difficult task.
God didn’t call me to homeschool because I’m super smart, or capable, or patient. God called me to homeschool because he is all those things and more.
At the same time, homeschooling is easy. If God calls us to do it, he will do it through us (1 Thess. 5:24). So he has given us materials (some even free), manuals (some really helpful), and a community (some really fun) to lighten the load.
Since homeschool parents choose the materials, make the schedule, and teach at each child’s unique rate and abilities, homeschooling is often much easier on the entire family than distance learning.
2. Homeschooling doesn’t require expert training.
It’s true that the parent’s level of education affects how well public school students perform. In homeschool families, students generally perform at the same level no matter their parents’ level of education. It’s the homeschool culture—the special attention on what each individual child needs to excel—that makes all the difference.
3. Homeschooling doesn’t require well-behaved children.
A comment I often hear is, “I could never homeschool because my child doesn’t listen to me. The teacher does a better job of handling her.” Yet homeschooling is about that very thing—one sinner shepherding another toward listening to the Shepherd.
We homeschool parents don’t have perfect children. In fact, they struggle with disobedience, respect, laziness, irresponsibility, worldliness—everything we struggle with. But here in our homes, we can set academics aside to work on these heart issues as they come up. That’s the real change Christian homeschool parents want to make.
4. Homeschoolers aren’t weird.
In fact, we live among you undetected. The first and even second-generation homeschoolers are grown, married, working jobs, serving in churches, and helping in their communities. You likely know a homeschool grad and don’t even know it. Although I seem to have “homeschool mom” tattooed on my forehead, people usually don’t know I’m a homeschool grad myself. I’m almost normal.
There are homeschool students in your child’s Sunday school class, swim class, soccer team, and neighborhood. We love to be involved in group activities. We work to change culture. We enjoy social media. Our teens are not wearing denim jumpers and uncut hair. What sets us apart, we pray, is our love for God and people.
5. Homeschooling doesn’t make us spiritual.
We aren’t super saints chosen by God, climbing mountains to speak to him and receive our curriculum on stone tablets. Instead, we’re sinners desperate for God’s grace, relying on him to overcome our many failings and to turn our children to himself in spite of us.
We are afraid, impatient, frustrated, and insecure in our methods and choices. We struggle to finish each school year, and we dread every test. We’re tired of defending our parenting choice and weary of feeling like we have to somehow prove ourselves. We frequently lose sight of why we are called to do this and what God is doing in our family’s life.
Homeschooling challenges our faith, and it grows our faith. And that’s the most important lesson homeschool moms can give you. Like all of life, homeschooling is all about God’s grace—God’s grace on one set of sinners who pray they show God’s grace every day to their children.