Why we homeschool

We constantly get lots of looks when we tell people we are homeschooling. We get this from family, friends, acquaintances, even strangers. Most people turn their nose up. I guess they think they are "better" than us because they send their child off to be educated. Not necessarily.

So while the parents who are paying $7,000 to $25,000 a YEAR for private education think they are better. I ask "is it really worth that money? What can you do for your family with that money if you weren't spending it on that education??"

Some still have the "old mindset" that a home based education is inferior to a public education because the teachers are "more educated." Now, yes, this may have been true in the 1930s to the 1950's when children started to come out of the fields and go to school. Their parents were farmers and had the education that they needed. Not necessarily what would have prepared their children for the next generation.

However, we aren't in that generation anymore. We have access to many of the resources public education has - but we have more time to focus on it. We have access to foreign language programs, higher math & science curriculums, etc...

Take a look at classroom instruction another way. Let's take a general day:
6am wakeup
7am leave for school
8am to 4pm school
5pm to 6pm daycare/afterschool care/latch-key
8pm bedtime

In one school week's time the average public/private school student spends 50 hours a week outside of the home influence. In a time when MTV glorifies teenage pregnancy, Abbercrombie & Fitch are selling padded bras for elementary age girls, and modest clothes are hard to find in stores, is that influence able to be overcome with the roughly 35 hours (1 hour each morning, 2 hours each night, 20 hours on the weekends) that parents have with their kids? Most likely not.

Homeschooling is not for everyone, but it is for us. I love that my children are growing up in our loving influence. They are also getting a solid, Catholic education
that we are confident will provide them with a foundation for their higher learning later in life. We are raising saints, but we won't be disappointed if the become saints and scholars.

Blessings!!