School. It's Not an Easy Decision. Let's Show Some Love.

This is a post that could be a book. Except that it can't. Because I have 20 minutes.

We all know I put my kids in public school last January after years of teaching them at home. Perhaps you hope I will be quiet about this already. I doubt that will happen anytime soon. This space is like a washing machine. I toss my thoughts and worries into the drum, suds it all up, shake it around real good, rinse, spin, and see what comes out in the end. 

Writing here helps me clean up some of the mental clutter that, unprocessed or "unwashed," makes me feel kind of frazzled and messy. And because I still have thoughts about this school thing, I'm going to keep spinning them around from time to time.

{I cannot believe I just compared writing to laundry. Laundry! The domestic burden I loathe above all others.} 

I have digressed already and am quickly using up those 20 minutes.

Back to the point of this post. School. 

We love it. It's working for each of my kids. It's working for me. It is not at all perfect, but the blessings are too many to count. I thank God every day that He used a difficult season in my life to reroute my kids into public school classrooms. I've quit trying to predict the future. It may not work for us or for each kid forever. I'm simply grateful for the now.  

Why? Because I'm a better mom and my relationship with my kids is better than it's ever been. To quote my wise husband again: Many people can and will be their teachers, but only you can be their mother. 

I am enjoying the role of just being their mother. I think they can appreciate the change as well.

We all enjoy some space from one another during the day and then reunite in the afternoon and evening in ways that are more meaningful and intentional. 

I sort of stumbled into something that's now become a tradition: "Friday Family Fun Night." The kids {and their parents} are loving it, and I feel like I've become reacquainted with the vision of motherhood I once had but then lost somewhere along the way. I'm no Mary Poppins but I have "found my fun" again, my love of planning special meals and activities for us as a family. It's great to know that part of me hadn't vanished forever. Apparently homeschooling just swallowed it up for about five years. 

We have time to miss one another, to move in and own of our own God-given "sub-communities" and talk about our days and friends and teachers with one another at dinner. 

It may sound like a paradox but sending our kids to school has brought us closer together as a family. Homeschooling did that for us in the early years. And then it didn't. Seasons and circumstances change and sometimes we have to change along with them. 

I know families who have taken their kids out of school in order to homeschool. For them, homeschooling provides balance, closeness, health, and sanity that sending their kids to school did not. And I think that's great. 

At this point, life is still just as full but it's more balanced. Like any mom, I keep the plates spinning but I'm slowly gaining a bit of sanity and rest that enables me to spin with more cheerfulness and gentleness.

There's plenty to say about why we need to be more accepting and less judgmental of the way we choose to teach our kids. Plenty to say. But I'm not going to get into the why's right now.  

My point here is simple: I see all kinds of school working for all kinds of kids and moms and families.

There is no one, right way. I repeat. There is no one, right way. 

This isn't the kind of post I usually write. I avoid preachy people and preachy posts. But this post is obviously a bit preachy...about not being preachy regarding this issue of how we school our kids. 

It's on my mind because I spent some time this week talking with a friend who "jumped ship" like I did and is making the switch to public school after many years of homeschooling. There's not a lot of support and affirmation. Which is unfortunate. Because truly, it's such a hard decision. You're breaking with the nostalgia of what's already behind you and letting go of a vision you once held dear and maybe still do. 

I cried for a month after we made our choice, even though I knew it was the right one. Yesterday I was digging around in the attic and came across some of the artwork and projects of homeschool days gone by. I cried. Some days are still sad like that. Moving on is a process.

When homeschool kids aren't thriving at home or when the mom or the marriage isn't thriving either, we {or others} may be inclined to think it's a "character issue." I have actually heard people use that term. It makes me sad. And then frustrated. Talk about heaping false guilt onto a mountain of false failure! 

I told my friend it's not a character issue; it's a "common sense issue." Perhaps we need to be a lot less ideological and a lot more practical. Sometimes doing what's "best" and doing what works are two different things. Sacrificing our mental or physical health or our most important relationships on the altar of educational virtue ends up undermining the values we treasure over and above education. 

We'd probably all agree that education is not an end in itself. But we don't necessarily live and think that way. I'm as guilty as anyone.

Heap grace upon yourself. And then turn around and heap it on others. Don't allow someone else's different decision to threaten your own or evoke misplaced judgement. We are blessed beyond measure to have choices that most parents in most countries don't have. Be grateful that your children and everyone else's children in America can actually receive an education. 

And may your gratitude and mine spill over with Grace to the kids and parents around us who may be doing things differently. 

There's room and reason for us all.