Homeschooling Objection #1: But I need time to myself.

Well, it’s been a while. I blame it on . . . there are too many things I would like to blame this on. Mostly I’ve just been entirely unmotivated to do anything with the blog (and/or anything else). But I’m trying to get off my butt at least a bit again, so here we go.

I thought I’d start up my thoughts on homeschooling again by going through some of the objections that I have had or that other people have mentioned to me about homeschooling. Now that I’ve been doing it for about half the school year, I will also be inserting things I’ve discovered along the way. Probably nothing will be profound, but I think it may help me sort some things out, clarify what I think is great and not-so-great about homeschooling, and help me come to some thoughts about our plan for next year (no, I don’t know yet if we’ll homeschool next year; I’m leaning that way, but pregnancy has majorly thrown me for a loop, and I’m still trying to adjust to the idea of homeschooling with a newborn). Also, I hope that if I have any friends who are trying to decide for themselves, I might give a good idea or thought or two. Maybe.

So, as part of the process of deciding to homeschool, several questions and objections arose. I thought I’d start with an easy one: “I can’t homeschool because I am really looking forward to having some time to get stuff done around the house (or write my novel, or catch up on my soap operas, or whatever).”

There are a couple reasons this was a pretty easy one to deal with, and I didn’t even realize the most obvious reason until Coriel went to half-day, three-day-a-week preschool last year. The most obvious reason? I didn’t have time to myself. I still had my younger child on hand. And actually, now that I had only one kid, I had more work taking care of her than I did when I had two at home. Why? Because they entertain each other. In fact, at the very moment that I am writing this, they are in their room digging through some pile of toys (it sounds like the plastic food, maybe?), and thoroughly having fun. Without my help at all. When it was just me and Addra, she needed a bit more of my attention. Sure, she still sometimes played on her own, but it didn’t last as long. I couldn’t sit down for an extended writing session, for example. Or, um . . . a nap.

Okay, so maybe when all my children are of school age, perhaps I will suddenly start seeing this objection in a new light. Until then, two at home actually is much easier than one. That’s just the way it is for us. (I’ll talk more in future times about how I admit that my kids are super easy-to-homeschool folk; I realize that many kids aren’t.)

The other reason why this objection was easy for me to dismiss is simply that making educational choices for my kids probably shouldn’t rest solely on how much “me” time I want.* As much as I want it to, the world continues to not revolve around me.

That’s all for today, folks. I’ll just leave you with a link to this article that I think has some interesting things to say but that I also don’t necessarily agree with entirely.

*Note: Of course this works in both directions. Just because homeschooling is easier for me sometimes—because they entertain each other—is also not a good reason to make this decision. But it is definitely a perk.