I never had any intentions to homeschool before having kids or when they were very young. Honestly I’d never given it the thought, I just assumed I’d do what “everyone else” did and send the kids to school. But I thank God for having other plans.
One Sunday at church after the service, while little one-year-old Leo toddled around my feet, I overheard another mom, a woman new to our church, talking about milking goats. I confidently chipped in with “I love goats!” trying to join in the conversation and having a limited past experience with goats (my mom had a milking goat for our family for about a year and we had a couple pygmies as pets). This woman said she was goat-sitting for someone else from church and eagerly asked if I would help her milk for a couple days as she was having some trouble with it. I agreed, thinking that milking would come right back to me (spoiler- it didn’t). I went with her the next day and we tried, unsuccessfully, to milk the goat but instantly had a friend connection, both being interested in natural/healthy living, sharing birth stories with each other, and chatting about interests in crafting. I expressed interest in quilt-making and she was excited to share her knowledge, so we arranged to get together for her to teach me how to make a quilt for the baby (I was pregnant with my daughter, Lyla, at the time).
A week later, standing around my tiny kitchen table, we cut fabric squares and talked more. I remember saying the famously despised-by-homeschoolers excuse “I could never do that” when she explained that she homeschooled her five sons. I admired her hesitantly, wondering how anyone could have patience and stamina enough to homeschool five kids when I, with only a toddler and baby on the way, had already fantasized about the days when the kids would be in school and I’d have quiet hours to myself to just work on Etsy orders and home tasks. She said she never thought she could homeschool either, but that God had called her to it so she just did it.
I guess it must’ve always been somewhere in me, the reservation about sending my small, innocent, beautiful babies away from me all day, everyday. I had thought of reasons I couldn’t bear to send them off but didn’t think I actually had other options. I had lived with a stereotype that only extremists homeschooled and that it was somehow subpar- socially, academically, financially, acceptably- to public school.
My new friend didn’t give up the subject, but rather continued to gently persuade me as we met for play dates, chatted at church, shared meals and hobbies at each others homes, and, thankfully, did not milk anymore goats. She showed me her schoolroom and favorite books and curriculums and told me not to be overwhelmed by all the options and methods as I looked at it all wondering where to even begin. And by the time Leo was four, there had been enough talking and thinking and praying and researching and convincing my husband. We bought a couple small mix-matched curriculums and started homeschooling.
If success was based on that first year, it would’ve easily been considered a failure. I was perfectionistic, idealistic and impatient. Leo had days where he “hated school”. I’m ashamed to admit that I yelled at my little boy for not “getting” concepts that I thought he should understand. I was hurried and overly enthusiastic about how fast he should learn what I thought he should learn. We only made it halfway through one of the curriculums and went way too fast through the other. I felt largely ill-equipped to handle such a huge responsibility of properly educating my children.
Of course, there were many sweet moments too- Leo reading his first words, songs we memorized together, adorable artwork and letter pages, tiny hands cutting shapes and maneuvering pencils and markers. Leo learned a ton, and I learned more, mine mostly lessons in love and patience and slowing down. And we did accomplish a lot- we completed curriculums, read a ton of books, established a routine, found programs and websites that were helpful and others that weren’t. It may have been partially pride and unwillingness to quit that kept me going after that first year; mostly, though, it was God’s grace and sufficiency, His power made perfect in weakness, and love and wisdom for our family. We continued and grew and learned much more than just letters and numbers.
Six years later, my whole philosophy on children’s learning has changed, and by continual practice, some really helpful parenting books, and God’s endless grace, I’ve grown way more patient. We do much less structured “school”, especially for under age eight, and much more child-led/interest-led learning. We’ve found so many useful resources and discovered that it’s not everyone who sends their kids off to public school; there’s actually a huge network of like-minded families out there and around here (even in our tiny town). I’ve been inspired by homeschooling moms through podcasts, social media, and books. I’ve learned to allow my kids to inspire me, showing me how incredibly capable they are of learning, with or without formal lessons and workbooks, and how much they love to learn. They crave it!
Homeschooling has allowed me to have conversations with my kids that I never thought a six year old was even capable of. It’s allowed me to learn to love history (my notoriously most-hated and worst subject all through my own school years). It’s taught me patience and endurance and gentleness and humility and to let go control. It’s helped me to learn to treat my children with true respect and to expect great things from them, including true respect.
We’ve taken many nature walks and praised God for His creation. We’ve had random days off just to have fun. We’ve become interested as a whole family in certain subjects and gone on adventures because of them- interest in trains took us to ride the Cumbres & Toltec, an old, working steam train; interest in whales caused us to watch some amazing documentaries and led us to San Diego one year and Monterey the next in search of humpback whales (where, bonus, we also learned which of us are prone to sea-sickness).
Homeschooling has given our kids the rich gift of learning at a pace that is comfortable for each of them, fast through some things (science for one, reading for the other) and slow through some things (handwriting for one and math for the other).
This morning the kids spent hours outside at their little table building airship models with hot glue and popsicle sticks and spouting off facts about airships to me, completely on their own initiative after reading about airships in a book we already had.
It can take a long time to see the “fruits of your labor” with anything like homeschooling. I think that’s the main reason people get so discouraged in the first year. You’re putting in an immense amount of effort, time, energy, even money, and seeing very little reward. There are big hopes and expectations and visions that are unrealistic (when I very first gave homeschooling a serious thought, I pictured us at the botanical garden everyday, journals and sketchbooks in hand, laughing and drawing and basically living in a magical art family land). There are some really sweet days- when your 5 year old reads “cat” by himself for the first time or your daughter says “I LOVE math!” after playing a fun math game online because you realized you didn’t plan any sort of math curriculum and so resorted to googling “free online math first grade”. But most of that time in the beginning, you’re either repeating or unlearning the methods you were taught with as a child and you and your children are slowly getting accustomed to a new routine, which is always hard, even if it’s fun.
Eventually, though, the fruits of the labor do begin to ripen, and all those times we resisted screens even though it would’ve been way easier to give in; all those books on parenting or habits or productivity or learning methods; all the money that felt wasted on curriculums and planners that we ended up only getting halfway through; all the prayers for patience that seemed to just bring “opportunities” to be patient; all the nature walks that either you or your kids grumble to go on- somehow, cumulatively all add up to something productive.
Yesterday we went on a walk as a family on a little local nature trail. We threw rocks into the river, pointed out mistletoe, and identified a few birds. It was easy and natural, not forced, not even intended to be “school”. My husband saw a hole in a tree, and as he and Leo went to inspect they found it was filled with shells! Leo was deeply intrigued, wondering aloud if some sort of bird had collected and stored them there and if they were from the lake or the river or the ocean. Later, at home, I found him with a nice piece of paper, tracing each shell and labeling it with a tiny number inside that corresponded to a number on its traced spot. He had grouped them into little categories like “strange markings” and “coral-like” and labeled the categories as well. When Lyla saw his work, she got our her own paper and went to work.
Waiting for the harvest is hard, but it’s worth it.
Homeschooling is exciting and difficult and confusing and rewarding. I think being unsure about whether or not it’s the right choice is normal, not just in the beginning, but all along the way. But the choices to spend more time with our children, to learn to love learning with them, to pray for wisdom and lean on God for leading, and to go “against the grain” when we see necessary- these things are worth it.
Jennifer Blacklock Blog 
Leave a comment