I recently read a blog entry written by a mother who confessed she was beginning to think that she was not cut out to homeschool her children. She had had several children in quick succession and was seriously burnt out physically and emotionally. There were many comments on her post, but one stood out to me.
The commenter was admonishing the mother to basically suck it up and homeschool. This person said (and I think this is pretty close to the exact quote): “This isn’t about you. It’s about your child.”
I’ve thought about that comment for days. Mostly because I don’t agree with it.
It isn’t JUST about the children. Nothing in a family should be JUST about the children. The choice of schooling should be about the family. The children. The marriage. The father. The mother. It is a decision that effects everyone. To boil the question down to only what is good for the child… I don’t agree.
What a terrible burden to place on someone – to tell her that she basically has no choice and she is a selfish woman for being limited by her physical and emotional exhaustion.
Agree? Disagree? What would you tell someone in this position? Does the need of a child override everything in a family, including the health of the marriage or the mother and father?
Three and a Half Year Old Drama (and a Child Who Doesn’t Want to Go to Church)
Interesting. I don’t really understand women who say these sorts of things. It’s ludicrous, but, then again, I gave up homeschooling after three months because I couldn’t handle the stress of being both mom and teacher, so what do I know! I’m just one of those selfish moms.
Actually I think the type of woman who makes these comments is someone feeling very insecure. Instead of that commenter facing facts and accepting her own limits, it’s easier to live in denial and kick someone else who can openly admit hers. The commenter probably just feels threatened by the blogger’s honesty. Sad.
Goodness! These kind of women make me mad….so get ready, here’s my rant:
It’s NEVER about one person when you’re talking about a family. NEVER. I remember 20 years ago when a close friend was researching the Home school package by Bill Gothard. The entire premise was that it was about the family. The Mom may teach parts of the curriculum but Dad helped out in the afternoons with science, or nature, etc. I recall there was even a segment about integrating siblings; everyone had a function in that program. It’s beyond me (and I won’t use the word crazy, but push me and I will) how anyone with half a brain could talk (or should I say patronize) down to someone like that. Maybe she was PMSing? Or, maybe someone brow beat her into some crazy form of submission? Where is grace in all of this? Where is the Christ in the Flesh in this? I wanna know! Don’t even get me started about the way we shoot our wounded in the body of Christ….. yeesh, I give up.
Nuff said, goodnight all from the soggy southern part of Nashville.
If the mother feels like she cannot homeschool, but decides to anyhow, it isn’t for the good of the child! If the mother is too tired, doesn’t have the time needed, etc. the child’s education will falter.
I do not believe that decisions that affect the whole family should be made based on the child’s needs alone.
When a couple has a child, the child joins the parents’ lives, not the other way around. That being said, of course a child’s needs are important. But, are a child’s needs primary? No.
If a mother is too mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted to homeschool, it’s HER choice and decision. Why people feel the need to insert themselves in the business of others is beyond me, especially in something so personal. No wonder so many secular people are turned off by many Christians. The rush to judgment about another person’s matters such as about homeschooling is beyond me.
Oh dear. Such unhealthy expectations to place on a mom who feels overwhelmed. And every mom feels overwhelmed at one time or another. I homeschooled my 4 children in elementary school. It was wonderful at first. But things changed, I had a melt-down, I couldn’t continue. But I felt that I had to continue, precisely because of comments such as the one this lady made. Then I realized that it was no longer good for my children. Now they are all grown, my baby is in college, all of them products of public school education for the majority of their school years. They did fine. God is big enough to watch over our children in homeschool and in public school. Parental involvement is essential in both options.
As an aside, I’ve observed that many times people worship at the alter of homeschooling, as if that will make them more holy or godly. That is so not the case!
Oh dear. I guess if you believe that the only right way to educate a child is to homeschool them, then this comment makes perfect sense. If homeschooling is the ONLY way, and she does not want to homeschool anymore, then yes, the mother is wrong and should self-sacrifice (according to this logic).
However, if there are other right ways to educate, or “good enough” ways, then everyone can be taken into account.
It’s kind of an offshoot of the SAHM debate. If the only right way to raise a child is to have a full-time mother home with them, then everything else has to be wrong.
Oh wow. I have so much experience with this I could spit. (seriously)
As you know we homeschooled for 3 years, quit and put our kids in public due to economic factors (aka husband lost job, mommy has to work!). Now next year I’m going back home and we’ll be hybrid homeschooling, meaning our oldest is homeschooled but the younger two will stay in public school for another year or so.
I have lost friends over the homeschool issue. I had so many well-intentioned Christian homeschool mom friends totally DUMP me when I quit homeschooling. They felt it was a slight to them and that somehow by me putting my kids in school I was making a statement about God, religion, homeschool, them, etc.
It is sad.
Each family does what works FOR THEM. Period. Every one has to learn to keep their opinions to themselves.
It hurts the cause of homeschooling and the children being homeschooled if their mother is not into teaching them. I have at least one homeschooled friend who thinks that her relationship with her mother was damaged by the fact that her mother homeschooled her. If this mom thinks that this would happen, I wouldn’t homeschool.
I think that sometimes you’re making the decision about whether or not to homeschool when you’re having your children. If you have a lot of them, and if you have them very close together, you MAY have made the decision not to homeschool them. You’ve already committed yourself to so much intensive, exhaustive mothering that you just can’t do anymore on top of the everyday.
I’m saying that because I’ve been seeing it in real life around me. And I’ve realized that if I’m committed to homeschooling… just me personally and knowing my personality type… then it is probably not possible for me to have more than 3 children more than 2 years apart. I think there are a lot of women out there like me… just as many as there are women who can homeschool many children at once without a problem.
Our pastor once told me that in a married person’s life, God comes first, their spouse comes second, and children are their third priority. Everything else comes from there. I think he was a very wise man. A home should not be child centered but God centered!
Replies like the one you mentioned make me embarrassed to be part of the same religion. Where is the grace of Christ and the comfort of the Spirit? Oh my
Lindsey – go ahead and spit, I give you permission! 😆
If the woman really believes that, I feel sorry for her family. If one desires to homeschool (as we did) through most of high school then she is in for years of misery if she is unhappy.
Homeschooling is hard work at times and even public school teachers can get burned out by the end of the year. However, if someone hated teaching in the public schools, we would tell them to find another career since it could not help but carry over to the children.
How much more if the teacher is also their Mom. Family life would have to suffer. We had to have my husband stop teaching math in the high school years when it threatened the father son relationship.
We had some challenging homeschool days but mostly the journey was very fulfilling for this Mom and that was with developing a chronic illness in the midst of it all.
I agree with a comment above that anyone who would make a comment like that is insecure themselves.
As someone who has homeschooled for many years but also used public schools (right now I homeschool a 6th grader and have two in public high school), I have found that often other parents don’t see your decision as your decision, but as a reflection on *their* decision. I have found this most often from public school parents, but it can happen on both sides of the fence. I think this is part of what motivates such comments.
Such a decision is not about the children — it’s about the whole family. It’s a lifestyle choice. I have some serious reservations about the public school system, especially for impressionable younger children (by high school they have confidence in their convictions and can critically assess what they hear during the day) — but I would never condemn anyone who felt they weren’t cut out for homeschooling, especially if they had given it serious consideration (as compared to a reflexive “Oh, I could never do that” which I hear from some people who really have no idea what is and isn’t involved in schooling at home). I have friends who have children in school and I am careful to phrase our choice along the lines of “This is what works right now for our family.” The needs of the entire family must be balanced, and God will walk with you whatever you decide!
Best wishes,
Laura
God knows the constraints of her situation, and what it is possible and not possible for her to do, and He’s the one she has to answer to.
More practically, I would tell her to think about a third option: taking a year to homeschool in a much more relaxed form, maybe even unschooling or skipping lessons entirely. She could call it a sabbatical if she wants. I suggest this because I think public schooling would not necessarily be all that easy for her either: getting children ready at early o’clock in the morning and out the door, and then losing all the older, more helpful children for most of the day, then having to deal with homework and school events and whatever else comes home from school.
I was going to bring up something similar to what Peggy mentioned. I am always saying that I am too lazy to send my kids to public school. I would have to have Kyle up and on the bus at 6:50 in the morning, or get all the kids ready and drive him at around 7:30. I think that we sometimes make this an either or situation, it isn’t really and there is going to be stressful things on both sides. I don’t believe that homeschooling is for everyone or that public school will automatically ruin your children. I also don’t think that the public school is going to be able to give your children what homeschooling can. I really hate it when people make mandates out of extra biblical ideas…ugg!
My first thought after reading this dear lady’s comment was the instruction given when one boards an airplane. If the pressure fails and the oxygen masks appear, put your own mask on first. Then assist the child who is with you. Shame on the one who made the heartless comment.
Peggy and Amie make a great side point in this discussion. I “found” hours in my day once I was no longer making trips to school to drop off, waiting to pick them up, filling out forms, volunteering, and supervising homework. I don’t think I actually spend all that much more time homeschooling than I had previously spent making the dropoff/pickup trips (which included multiple starting and pickup times depending on grade) and supervising the afternoon homework hours!
Best wishes,
Laura
Does the need of a child override everything in a family, including the health of the marriage or the mother and father?
Well, in my experience a child’s needs INCLUDE the health of the parents and the health of their marriage. It’s a whole package.