In an online group a woman recently asked why homeschoolers bother to homeschool anyway. It's more work, isn't it? It's time intensive and expensive and your kids don't go away so you're very stressed, yes?
Goodness, with that definition no wonder so few people are embracing it.
I fumed thought about this for a while and decided that despite my really wanting it to be so...no one magically knows the thoughts inside my head. I actually have to communicate them. I tell my children this all the time. "No one knows what you're thinking! Say something!" Anyway, without further ado, here are some excellent reasons that I homeschool.
1) I'm lazy. Okay, not really but sorta. Listen, I do not know how all you school parents do it. Every year I hear about the lists sent out of classroom supplies you're supposed to send with your kid, the back to school shopping, the mandatory haircuts, the SHOES, people. They have different shoes for inside the school! What insanity is this? More shoes? They wear shoes to school then they change into OTHER SHOES?? Do you know how long it takes my children to find shoes??? And then nine months of packing food, checking backpacks for papers, dealing with homework, fielding emails from the school, getting the kids UP and FED and CLOTHED and outside in the blessed-dark-before-the-dawn for a BUS. And then they come HOME again all upset about something or angry at Becky because Becky used to be their friend and now she called them a poopy head at recess and you're just like Janet, give mummy a break I am trying to make SUPPER. And as if that isn't enough now you get to spend the whole night doing homework or mandatory reading or checking off book logs or something. Baking for a bake sale. Volunteering to do something or other with the PTA. Ugh. Or driving! All the driving about! The child forgets their mittens, the calls from the office "Oh, Mrs. Smith, Bobby doesn't have a lunch today." Are you kidding me?? He left the house with a lunch!! Where is his lunch??? Where is your coat, child? Why did you leave it at school? What is this fresh hell, here? A class-wide Valentine's party and you must bring cards for everyone in the class!! GAH.
2) I'm really cheap. I know the party line is that public school is free and homeschool is not free so you should use the perfectly good public school system but my experience has been Really Not Like That. Sure, I spend money on school stuff, but man, I don't think it's anything like the public school parents do! Every day you need food your kids will eat, that is acceptable to the school; I give my kids whatever. Make a smoothie, kids. Have a peanut butter sandwich. Honestly, our whole house is covered in a microscopic layer of peanut butter, most likely. Your kids need to be in clean, socially acceptable clothing, appropriate for the weather. Not like my kids, who can sit around in a bathing suit in February if they wanted to. A bathing suit, a top hat, and aviator glasses. Under the kitchen table. Your kids need all these supplies, they cannot, apparently, practice their cursive on the backs of scrap paper with the free pen the dentist gave us. Every extra thing your child does seems to cost more money! Gotta give a deposit on the instrument, buy the special tshirt, pay for the field trip, fill up the cafeteria card for those forgotten lunches, give extra pocket money for the overnight excursion, the obligatory purchase of school play tickets and fundraisers! The fundraisers ALONE. I do not want to sell cookie dough or pizza coupons or candies to anyone! See reason #1 above!
3) I have things to DO! I don't know where this idea came from that homeschooling means you are stuck in your house. Honestly, the one month my eldest was in kindergarten was by far the worst month for staying at home. I couldn't go anywhere! I had to pick up a child at, like, 2:30 in the afternoon! I was constantly checking my watch and got nothing done and was a stress filled wreck. My children are home and you know what we do all day? WHATEVER WE NEED TO. We want to go wander around a museum for 6 hours, we can. We want to sleep in until 10am, we do. I need sour cream for supper and I forgot until the last minute? We just...go to the store! Whenever! Doesn't matter! I go to the dentist at noon, I visit the eye doctor at 2pm, we serve supper at 5, or maybe 6, or whatever. Maybe it's a really good night for star gazing so we just don't bother going to bed until 11. Doesn't really matter. Are you not feeling well, child? Well, fortunately I don't have to deal with an auto-call answering machine and attendance because, doesn't matter!
4) I don't like people. No, okay, that's not entirely true. I sort of like people sometimes, on my own terms. I do not like being forced into a relationship with people. I don't want to go to parent/teacher interviews and have someone tell me about my own child. I don't want to meet teachers. I'm sure they are very nice people, but I don't wanna. I don't WANT to talk to Mildred, the woman who is doing the set design for the grade eleven production of Fiddler On The Roof, and who wants to borrow my sewing machine. I already talk to so. many. people. all day, every day, and I just don't have any more spoons to give people. No, I don't want to go to another meeting. My life is meetings and paperwork. No, I don't want to chaperone anyone anywhere, and I don't want to obsess about whether teacher Jones should get a mug for Christmas when really, the poor woman does WANT a MUG.
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