A Letter to the New Homeschooling Mom

Dear New Homeschooling Mom,


Eeek! You did it! You made the decision to take full responsibility for your child's education and to homeschool them! I am so excited for you and you should be too, for you are embarking on one of the most rewarding adventures.

But I also want to be real with you. It is scary.

You will wake up excited one morning and terrified the next. You will have days where you wonder why on earth you thought you could this. You will worry that you are behind, you will worry that you aren't doing enough and you will worry that you are doing too much.

You will have days when your child refuses to do what they are asked. Where chores go unfinished and where math takes 4 hours and yet you accomplish nothing. Tears will flow and you will want to quit.

You will most likely start out with a very pretty picture of what your school will look like. You probably read books, researched learning styles and decided on what method you believe will work best for your child. Most likely, it will turn out to be the exact opposite of what your child thrives on. You will spend money on curriculum that doesn't work. More than once.

There will be days when you will envy, just for a moment, maybe longer, the moms who get to send their children off for the day. You will wonder what it is like to have so much time alone. What is it like to have a clean house? To take a hot bath or to go to the bathroom...alone?

There will be hard days. Mark my words, there will be days when you will want to quit.


But oh will there be joy! You and your child(ren) will spend days cuddling on the couch with good books, exploring nature in the park, learning, laughing and living together which result in a closeness that is more fulfilling than you could ever imagine.

You won't have to spend your days wondering who is influencing your child, or if they are being bullied. You will be able to speed up or slow down to meet your child's educational needs.You will be able to saturate every moment of their day in Christ and teaching them to live like Him. Their hearts will be yours to guide and their minds will be yours to mold.

You will get to watch moments of discovery that would have been relayed second hand to you if they were at school, if they were relayed at all. You will get to see the moments of delight as your child overcomes an area they are struggling with.

You will spend days relishing the fact that you can send your children outside to play during the cool hours of a summer morning or going on a field trip during the school year when the museums are practically empty.

You will get to watch them grow knowing that you were there for the entire thing and most of all you will know that your child is being raised in a Christ centered environment.

New homeschooling mom, you will have days of fear and doubt, but you CAN do this. Let the adventure begin!

Praise God for Those Perfect Homeschool Moms

Don't compare yourself to others. If I had a nickle for every time I heard that phrase I would be able to hire a self-esteem coach to remind me daily of perfect I am.

If you read my blog then you have probably seen a few of my posts about how I feel about how it being ok to do some comparison. Look, I get the heart behind the "do not compare" mantra. Ultimately, the only person I should be measuring myself up against is Jesus.  Here is where I have a hard time though, we homeschooling moms have made a career out of "not comparing ourselves". We have turned it into an excuse not to be better than we are. Not only that, we have made it an occasion to poke fun at moms who have managed to "do it all" or to make broad assumptions about how she must be neglecting other areas of her life.

She feeds her children healthy all the time? Well, she must spend so much time in the kitchen! I would much rather be making real memories with my children.

Her house is way too clean for her children to be enjoying any artsy craftsy time.

Her children must be afraid of her to be that well behaved.

There is no way she could possibly be that joyful all.the.time.

So why are we so jealous of those mothers who have found a way to make it all fit together? Why do we assume that they can't possibly be real? Or that what they have is so unattainable that we shouldn't even try?

When I see a mom who is doing a better job at something than I am, I often have that initial flash of jealousy and envy. Then, after a moment of repentance, I often find myself looking at her and wanting to pick her brain. How do you manage your meal schedule? Talk to me about how you discipline your children. Share your secrets with me!

Instead of tearing down these mothers, why aren't we asking for their "secrets" with an earnest interest in learning how to make our own homes run more smoothly? Why are we not praising God for placing these women in our paths so that we can learn from them? Why are we not telling them how encouraging they are to us? Why instead of looking at them as a rare exception to the rule, are we not looking at them as a rare gem?

My home may never be perfect. I am still very much a work in progress. It will never look exactly like someone else's. I have been blessed with my own unique circumstances, but God forbid that if I should become "that mom", any of my fellow sisters look at the result that God has produced through me, and tell me that it is unrealistic and then proceed to criticize me behind my back for being "too perfect".