Yes, We Are Homeschoolers

Some of you, who have been following me for a while, already knew this.

If you’ve been reading since the beginning, you’d know that some of my earliest writings did involve a few homeschool activities. And I’ve had a TPT (Teachers Pay Teachers) storefront, also under the name of Star Magnolias, with a handful of things, but I haven’t focused a ton of time on it. At the time I was just more interested in putting all of my free time and attention on just my art and all things fiber/textile.

So, why am I telling you this now? Think of this as my official-intro-to-this-other-aspect-of-my-life post.

In my last post (update this was one of the posts I’d removed March 2021), I mentioned I wanted to start writing about homeschooling more. For a while I had stopped, because I wanted to mainly focus on the me things more in my free time, like my fiber art. And then there’s this thing about trying to find the right balance between sharing things that might be helpful/useful to other parents but also oversharing about my kids - my husband and I want to keep their lives private as much as possible. Also, there’s a thing about watering down the blog too much with too many different things making it difficult for you to find what it is you wanted to read. That was more of an issue with my older blog design, where I couldn’t neatly place things into categories like I do now - it was more of a mish-mash of posts.

Ironically, despite the fact that to the outside world it seems like I started writing about my art and then about homeschooling, I wouldn’t have this blog, or my tutorials, if we hadn’t decided years ago to homeschool our kids and I still had my full time graphic design job. With the amount of time that went into my work then, I barely had time for my family. Also, I did start out blogging about homeschool type stuff, on another blog, way back, that I totally forgot about after writing one or two posts. It’s probably still somewhere lost on the internet, if I could remember what it was called (luckily it was a free blog site). I just wasn’t very good at blogging back then. I’d like to think my skill has improved some with practice.

There’s also this thing that, until the past few months, we’d been unschoolers. I just didn’t see any reason to add any sort of structured curricula or lesson plans for preschoolers. I also don’t agree with the idea of forcing children under the age of 7 to any sort of formal schooling anyway. And, as it turned out, I didn’t need to - the kids naturally wanted to learn the things they did much like they wanted to learn how to crawl, or walk, or communicate. They are deeply passionate about the things that interest them. Since I didn’t really do much in the way of preparing work for them, I didn’t really have any reason or content to structure into a blog post. So, for those who are curious about that, yes, it’s totally possible for a child to learn the alphabet, how to count to 100, colors, shapes, how to read, the most basic arithmetic, what different animals are called, what different insects are and the function they play in an ecosystem, the names of body parts, how to recognize poison ivy (what do you mean that’s not in the state standards? everyone should know how to avoid poison ivy) and even things like the concept of cities, states, countries, and so on, without any formal schooling whatsoever.

P.S. the reason I go on mostly about my daughter here, is that by the time my son was born, we’d already made the decision to homeschool, and at the same time he’s still at the age where I’m not really focused on any sort of lesson plans - he won’t be at the compulsory age for our state for another year and a half as of writing this post, even with the new state law changes (compulsory age in PA outside of Philadelphia had been 8 years old up until this new law, and starting with the 2020-’21 school year it was lowered to 6). Any homeschooling done on his part is through tagging along with us on field trips or sitting in on any lesson work I do with my daughter if he so chooses. Otherwise, he doesn’t have any planned lesson work as of yet.

how it all began

Back when I’d come back to work as a new mom… yeah, I looked thrilled. I loved my actual work though, but I wished I could work from home.

This, meaning homeschooling, wasn’t our intention at all when we first discussed raising a family (neither was my being a stay-at-home-mom to be honest). It wasn’t even our intention initially after I had my daughter - in fact, I went back to work the first year. The funny thing about having kids is, you really don’t know how you’re going to think about things until you’re in the thick of it… When we moved to our new home, we paid attention to the school district rating, not at all realizing what is involved in getting that rating and the effect that has on kids (ps the answer is standardized test scores… lots of standardized testing).

I just remember that going back to work felt wrong. I felt it deep in my core. We did what we could to hold off daycare as long as possible, carefully planning out both of our FMLA and tag teaming being home with our child - we both took the full 12 weeks (dear world, that’s the maximum we’re allowed by law, it’s unpaid, most people can’t afford to take that much time off, and even then, that’s still not enough time). He went back to work after 2 weeks, then staying home 3 days per week (working from home one of those). When I went back to work after 8 weeks, I worked 3 days on, 2 days off. Doing so, we were able to delay until our child was 5 months old. After that, she spent half the week with my husband’s mom, and the other half at daycare. We got the best daycare we could afford, which isn’t even the most expensive daycare here but it wasn’t a subsidized one, even if it meant the majority of my income went to paying for that daycare (that ultimately made it easier for us to decide that I would stay home, also, another major problem with this country considering I was making double minimum wage and all my income went to daycare for one child - seriously how do people even live???).

I remember crying the entire drive to work on multiple occasions (not in front of her, I waited til I got in the car). Leaving her was so hard. At first she seemed okay with it, but after a while, she was also crying. Not just when I left, but there were days when the daycare workers, including the dean, took turns rocking and holding her the entire day (there was zero fault with the daycare, they really did the best they could). People-who-always-know-better said “Oh, trust me, it’ll get easier… just give it time.” For me, it never did. Luckily, I had three wonderful friends at work who distracted me during my lunch break and checked in on me throughout the day. The other people at work, well, that’s a different story - but for a little bit of “tea,” the irony here is those friends, who are still my friends, are male, while the female coworkers for the most part were vicious. Even to the point of spreading rumors that there was something nefarious going on between me and my male friends… take that for what you will, but there was no sisterhood when I really needed one. And we were so so so so very sick those few months, as if the universe itself was telling me to “please, stay home with your baby.” We’d never been so sick in our lives… we’re talking several bouts of stomach viruses, our daughter had recurring conjunctivitis, I ended up with pneumonia, my husband with pleurisy, his mom’s asthma came back with a vengeance after having not needed an inhaler for years… All this despite daily disinfecting practices done by the daycare itself. By the time she was 10 months old, I’d had enough, and I quit my job (I’d used up all four weeks of my vacation/sick time by that point anyway).

When I quit, I felt like I could finally breathe again (not just because I was no longer sick). Some might suggest I had PPD, but I can tell you that my depression was entirely based on my circumstances and not any hormonal thing. I just knew, for me personally, that there was nothing natural about my life at that time, and I felt like I didn’t have a choice. Until I did. I know how incredibly lucky and privileged I am to have been able to make that choice, and my heart truly goes out to all the parents who don’t have that choice, in either direction - being able to find work that would pay enough to afford daycare for all their kids so they can work, or being able to afford to live on a single income so they can raise their kids. Having admined two parenting groups (one archived for some time, one quite large and still growing), I’ve come across moms in all different scenarios - what matters most is being able to make the choice that they need for their life. There’s never a simple answer to anything parenting related. So, I’m not going to write about homeschooling as if you’re a bad parent for not choosing to homeschool, because I know it’s not that easy. There will be no judgments here, just myself writing from my personal experience about how we came to the decision to do so, as well as all the reasons I’ve come up with since then to reinforce that decision, and some of our favorite things when it comes to books and resources. I’m of the firm belief that we’re all doing the best we can with the cards we’ve been dealt.

I’m honestly not sure if it would have been possible for me to maintain the job I had anyway these days - we both had extremely demanding jobs that would, at times, require longer than 40-hour workweeks. I couldn’t tell you the last time my husband had a 40 hour workweek - it’s been a few years. He gets home very late most nights, and then there is the rare occasion when he has to stay even later than that. I think this decision, at least to some degree, was kind of inevitable for us.

ok so where does homeschooling fit into this? why not send them to school when they’re older?

It ended up being a fairly natural progression of thought for us, especially after we settled into our new routine with me being home and realizing how much better life was for all of us (for the most part, I mean there’s the money issue, but we had to tighten our belts very quickly even if I’d stayed at work). What really had us both convinced and thinking seriously about homeschooling was watching Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talks (this link has them, plus a few others I hadn’t watched yet). I watched the TED talks. I showed my husband the TED talks. Then I said something along the lines of “I really think we should seriously consider homeschooling,” and he agreed. I was pretty dead set on it from the start, although we didn’t really have to make a decision until it was time to register for school, which was still years away. Some parents do think they’ll homeschool and then later change their minds for one reason or another (or vice versa). It didn’t really hit me that we were really doing this until the moms of kids my daughter’s age were asking in the local group about school registration and posting first day of school photos. It felt kind of weird knowing we weren’t a part of that, that our lives just continued as it had all these years before.

The world is our classroom.

We didn’t decide to homeschool for any of the stereotyped reasons. I say stereotyped, because while there certainly are families who choose to homeschool for those reasons (which is fine and totally in their right - I don’t mean this as an us vs them thing…), it seems as though any time the topic of homeschooling is brought up, people automatically assume the most unusual reasons as being true for all homeschoolers. I suppose that’s the nature of stereotypes. I think it’s because, for whatever reason, it’s hard for some people to see a parent who would choose to homeschool as being in their right mind, so they clearly had to have a really good reason that also strays from what society at large considers the norm. An answer like “I don’t agree with the way our education system is currently set up” is both way too simplified and relateable for most people. And if something is relateable, that means that they might have also considered homeschooling if they were in my shoes today, and then we get into some funny mental gymnastics as they try to figure out how else we must be completely different. While the number of homeschoolers is growing, quite rapidly I might add, there are still those who see us as social pariahs and scatter as soon as they find out, as if homeschooling is a contagious disease. I’m not kidding; I’ve run into some really funny people (at least they try not to be obvious about it). Fortunately, the people I’m talking about here are ones we come across rarely. If I had to guess, I think it largely has to do with the emphasis placed on them to fit in with society, as well as how completely different their personal experiences were with going to school (likely fond memories). And then there are the stories about abusive families who pull their kids out of school under the guise of homeschooling for the purpose of isolating them, which don’t help our case either, especially when the media chooses to be careless with its words and calls them homeschoolers. It’s my personal opinion that calling people who take advantage of homeschool laws in order to isolate and abuse their children doesn’t make them homeschoolers… To put it another way, if a man who forces a child into marriage for the purpose of masking his pedophilia and abuse, would you call him her husband? And if you would, then do you define marriage as a legal contract, which is what that would be, or would you say that there’s more to it, in the form of a promise between two consenting individuals to love and respect each other? Criminals will always find ways to skirt the system, and that includes taking advantage of certain laws (though, I’m really not sure what the purpose would be for a law that allows for child marriage, but that’s besides the point).

While I do know one or two homeschoolers who are religious (not sure if that was their reason), we’re a secular family, so it wasn’t for religious reasons. While I do know a few homeschoolers who are anti-vax (vaccine laws are a major reason why they choose to homeschool), we ourselves are not. It wasn’t for any sort of neurodivergence or learning disability - our decision was made long before any such diagnoses would have been possible. If I had to choose from this list of reasons, I’d say for us it’s to provide a nontraditional approach. When parents say they’re dissatisfied with our education system, I don’t think the solution is more school, which seems to always be the result of complaining about the state of things. It’s almost like a child complaining about not liking their dinner, and a parent saying “oh, so are you saying I didn’t give you enough vegetables? Because I could certainly give you more!” We have no intention of pushing our kids so hard academically that they graduate college by the time most kids are learning how to drive. I think school is doing quite enough already, maybe a bit too much, and headed in the wrong direction. I’m more for quality over quantity, finding the right balance so that there is less school and more time for them to enjoy their childhood and pursue their passions. Adulting sucks, childhood is way too short as it is, and as I tell my kids, “you have the rest of your lives to be a grown-up - you’re only a child for about 20% of your life.” Once it’s over, it’s over. Not only that, but some schools are pushing to extend the school day to a 9-to-5, so 40 hour school weeks to make it easier on parents, add to that the average 3.5 hours of daily homework, plus all those extracurriculars for your college apps, or jobs that some highschoolers get, and where did that childhood go? Will those kids even have “fond childhood memories” they can look back on outside of summer break? How much longer before they decide to extend the school year to go year-round to make that easier on the parents too? Can I just point out how wrong it is to make decisions about childhood based on what’s easier for the parents? What about making decisions based on what’s best for the kids? I mean, I get it, kids don’t get a say when it’s adults making the decisions for them without actually considering what might be in their best interest… No wonder kids go nuts at the first taste of freedom during those four years called “getting a college degree,” which for most kids is more of a transition into adulthood with a “you successfully survived adulting with training wheels” certificate at the end of it at the cost of an entire home which they can spend the rest of their lives paying off… okay, okay, I’ll really try to stay off the soapbox.

that weird in-between period

During the first 5 or so years of a child’s life, there’s really no difference between a typical stay-at-home-family and a homeschooling one. Yes, there are a few curricula available for preschool years, but there are just as many parents out there who don’t worry about that until their kids reach school age. Whenever meeting others, we always introduced ourselves as homeschoolers, because we knew that that was always the plan for us, but we made plenty of friends with families who had no intention of homeschooling.

It’s interesting when you look at it this way. Many people think “Oh, I can’t homeschool” but think nothing of staying home with their kids before they start school. There were aspects of the transition from home-to-school-years that were hard for us - because most of the friends we made those early years had no intention of homeschooling or later changed their minds. For that early age group, there’s a lot of mixing between the families who plan to homeschool and those who are not, since moms will often set up play dates locally for their kids while they’re home and invite other local moms to come join them. When you’re a stay-at-home-mom, you’ll jump at most opportunities to get together with other moms and kids the same ages as yours, if at least to get out of the house and not be the sole entertainer for an hour or two. When it was time for those kids to start going to school, my daughter felt like she’d lost a lot of friends. Of course we do still have friends, maybe not as many as we did during those early years, but to a child it feels like everyone’s left.

Things are different now than when I was a kid - we don’t live in a neighborhood, so all our hang-outs with others are planned. But even if we did live in a neighborhood with kids, schools assign a lot more homework, especially in early grades, than they they did when I was in school. Kids can’t really run free like they used to… or I guess they can, but it’s highly frowned upon, and I have no idea how my parents didn’t call the cops to report a missing child every time I would randomly march my toddler-self out the door and wander over to a friend’s house without letting them know. Weekends for most families are reserved as family time - even for us homeschoolers. After all, that’s when daddy’s home, and we prioritize time with him (especially since we barely see him during the week). It is heartbreaking when you see your kids make close friendships with some kids, and then those kids are no longer around. So in a way, I was really excited for us to be “official” homeschoolers when I could be a bit more sure about the bonds my child was making with other kids who were also “official” homeschoolers. The reason we would introduce ourselves as homeschoolers even when my kids were toddlers was in the hope that we would meet other parents with toddlers who also had the intention to homeschool once their kids reached school age. I always thought there was something special about growing up with one or two close friends whom you’d known since you were a baby - especially since I didn’t really have that myself - and I wanted to at least aim for that for my kids. While it is possible for homeschoolers and brick-and-mortar-schoolers to mingle and be friends, it’s a lot harder to pull off because our schedules are so different. From what I’ve seen, those two groups really don’t mingle all that much.

I don’t know what most families do with their toddlers, but things aren’t that different for us now (as homeschoolers) as opposed to before (as a stay at home parent of toddlers). If you were a stay at home parent, you likely were coming up with fun, educational activities for your kids to do. Your shelves are likely lined with many wonderful children’s books. Your home is likely filled with all sorts of craft supplies, or educational toys like LEGOs or wooden blocks, or children’s instruments, dolls for imaginary play. You likely saved up to pay for memberships to museums and zoos so you could make regular trips with your kids, or picked up museum passes at the library if yours has them. One of those weekly trips may have been to the library, maybe for their story time, or to just go play with the puzzles and on the computers there, or peruse the aisles for books. You probably watched documentaries together on tv and online, or spent time going on hikes and exploring the natural world around you. Maybe you signed the kids up for various classes available to them.

Once you switch to homeschool mode, it’s pretty much just more of that. Those years don’t end with a back to school photo and a school bus ride to spend the majority of their weekdays sitting at a desk in a classroom. When most parents are busy packing lunches, signing permission slips, checking homework, dropping off/picking up or waiting at the bus stop and so on, we homeschoolers are still doing much of the same thing as we did those earlier years, looking for fun, educational activities (which may or may not come packaged with a curriculum), calling up other families doing the same thing to meet up for hikes or group homeschool lessons (yes, they exist!), form activity clubs with each other, and so on. It’s just geared more towards their knowledge level and academic ability. Less sensory bin stuff, more science fair projects. Obviously this is just a very simplified, generic description, because every homeschooling family is very much catered towards their own personal needs.

We were allowed to touch this stalagmite - as you can probably tell from the look of it.

so all of this brings us to the present

I wanted to make sure I had a little preface for you before I start writing more about homeschooling - this way you have some idea of where we are coming from. My kids have never set foot in a formal school environment. On the other hand, my husband and I both went to school from kindergarten through senior year, so neither of us have any prior homeschool experience (at most, I did have a few friends who were homeschooled for at least a portion of their lives, so I wasn’t totally new to the idea). My daughter did spend one year going to a nature preschool at the age of 3, the year my son was born, because I thought it seemed awesome, I was getting a lot of outside pressure about things like “socialization” (which I’ll get to in a later post), and I thought she might appreciate having a lot of play time with kids around her age (it was a mixed age classroom ranging from 3 to 5 year olds) while I was busy nursing a baby ‘round the clock, changing diapers, and struggling with nap times. I don’t count this as a formal school environment, however, especially since there was zero kindergarten prep involved, it was a reggio-inspired school, and their classroom was mostly outdoors. Rain, snow, shine, as long as it wasn’t hazardous weather, they were outside hiking and exploring. So, it really wasn’t all that different from how we’re set up at home. Even then, towards the end of the year she was asking more and more to stay home (she only went two days a week), and at the end of the year, my daughter said that while it was fun, she would much rather be home with her family (a sentiment that has remained even when she’s gone to week-long summer camps more recently). Anything I share about homeschooling will be from our personal experience of what works for us, and will be totally subject to change as the years go on. That’s the beauty of it - nothing’s set in stone. If something doesn’t work, or maybe if it worked for a short while but no longer serves a purpose, find something different!

If you read this far despite being here for the fiber posts, I wanted to say thank you! The next post will be a fiber post, as promised. I have a few crafty ones in the works as well, including child-related learning tools, if you will, and some book reviews as well! Really, I just have tons of ideas written out for this year. If you are here because you’re curious about our experiences homeschooling, or if you have any questions you’d love for me to address in future posts, feel free to leave a comment below or send me a message.