Why We're Homeschooling, part 2

Her last day of preschool

In which I ponder the liberating possibility that all parents mess up their children.*

Read Part 1 here.

In thinking about homeschooling, there were a few things that came to mind as the Big Questions. One was this: Am I going to mess up my children if I homeschool them?

This is a question that can become an attack on homeschooling from sort of a more public level: “You people are messing up your kids by not sending them to public school with everyone else, you’re depriving them of opportunities and socialization, la la la.” I didn’t mean it that way, though. I meant it on a much more personal, intimate level. Am I personally going to really mess up my kids—give them emotional baggage, forget to teach them important things, make their lives occasionally squirmy and frustrated?

The answer: Yes.

Here is what I think. (And keep in mind that for this discussion, I’m purposely excluding the topic of parents who are actively abusive, neglectful, or in some other way awful. I’m talking only about parents who are generally doing a good job, trying hard, and loving their children.) We all mess up our kids.

We all prepare them to launch out into the world with the best we can give them. We stick a PBJ and a bag of carrots in their life backpacks with a little happy love note written on the napkin. We stuff their school books in there too, maybe a blankie or a stuffed animal to help them feel loved. But then there’s the other stuff we stick in their life backpacks. Those times we didn’t answer their questions because we were too tired or grumpy, the time they overheard us calling them ungrateful in a moment of anger. The way we wanted to read instead of interacting, a haunting certainty that they could be playing their sports or their instruments far better than they were. We stick that stuff in there too, no matter how hard we try not to, no matter how awesome we are as parents.

And hey, even those “perfect” parents can give us baggage. I think I may actually be grateful that I never saw my mom that way. So when my own kids came along, okay, I wasn’t as well prepared as I would have liked. But when I first got angry or tired or sad and had to run in my room to hide, at least I didn’t say to myself, “My mom never would have done that. I must be a terrible person. I will never be as good as she is.” I wasn’t constantly trying to live up to an impossible model of supposed perfection.

Okay, bottom line. We are all of us imperfect people (even the perfect ones). We will make mistakes. They will affect our children, sometimes in unexpected ways. Our children will have to learn to deal with that. Dealing with other people’s mistakes is part of life. The good news, though, is that despite the fact that our parents messed us up, most of us are reasonably well-adjusted individuals, living reasonably decent lives. So there’s hope for our own kids.

For me, this was a very liberating step both in the journey toward homeschooling and in the overall journey of parenting. I was being paralyzed by indecision because I was sure I had to make the absolutely perfect decision, that there was one thing I could do that would make everything else correct. This was, in a word, spazzy. I will do some good stuff and some less good. But in the end, trying something and working at it will be better than just sitting around feeling guilty and worried while I can’t decide.

So there you go: Homeschooling Decision Part 2: Accept that no matter what I decide, I won’t be perfect. And that’s perfectly okay.

*And no, you do not need to be a curmudgeon about this. I am at least sort of kidding. Ish.