Homeschooling had never been on my radar. And for a variety of reasons, my husband was adamantly against it. We loved our daughters’ private Christian school, and I loved having part of the day to myself again.
What I didn’t love was the pace of life we were caught up in. Here is a snapshot of our life at the time: Wake up at 6:30. Drag girls out of bed. Eat a quick breakfast. Gather up backpacks and lunches. Head out the door. Drop off at school. Pick up. Have a snack and a little free time. Do 1-2 hours of homework. Eat dinner. Take baths. Go to bed. Repeat.
One evening as I was tucking my 4th grader into bed, she started to confide in me about some things she was struggling with. It was heavy. I was taken aback because I had no idea all of that was going on in her little heart! But then again, when was there time to find out? We were racing through our days, happy just to keep up.
That evening my husband and I were sitting on our living room couch talking and praying about what to do regarding our daughter when he blurted out, “Maybe we should homeschool.” I genuinely thought I had misheard him. This was something he vowed he’d never be open to. “Excuse me, could you repeat that?”
Thus began our adventure.
I am not anti-public school, nor am I one of those people who thinks everyone should homeschool. I believe there are genuine advantages and disadvantages to every approach to education: homeschooling, public school, and Christian school.
We are three years in now, and we haven’t looked back.
Has it been hard at times? Yes. Do I have even a sliver of regret? Not. a. single. one. Our life was radically, beautifully changed by the decision to homeschool.
I will be honest, though. I miss my free time. I’ll be even more honest – I don’t really like teaching! But God has called us to take the road less traveled. And he has blessed us immensely. I know that our daughters would not be thriving the way they are right now if we hadn’t said “yes” and taken a huge leap of faith.
Your “yes” may look differently than ours. It might be an emphatic “yes” to allowing your child to continue on in public school where they are currently thriving. It may be “yes” to the financial commitment and sacrifice of providing them with a private Christian education. But for us, “yes” meant taking on the task of home educating our daughters, with all it’s ups and downs.
If you came to our house on any given afternoon during the school year, you might see our older daughter sitting on her
bunk bed surrounded by art supplies listening to the Greatest Showman soundtrack, intently working on her latest piece of art. Or our twelve-year-old baking up some amazing concoction on her new KitchenAid Professional Stand Mixer (for which she recently wiped out over a year’s worth of accumulated allowance).
You might see us cooking together, reading, or having discussions about God, racism, or whether or not the snail that was recently brought into the house caused my daughter’s rash. 😂
Then again, you might see my oldest, who is now a teenager, slamming her bedroom door in frustration because she just can’t bear to finish her math assignment. Or my youngest getting out of her writing assignment again by cleverly inventing a way to procrastinate.
You’d see both the glorious and the difficult moments all wrapped together in this beautiful package of togetherness.
Maybe you, like me, have never considered homeschooling before. Maybe it’s never been on your radar … until now. Maybe your life is about to be radically, beautifully changed like ours was.
Has homeschooling been hard at times? Yes. Do I have even a sliver of regret that we took that huge leap of faith? Not. a. single. one.
Holli Aparicio is a homeschooling mom to Lydia (13) and Sofia (12) and a lover of all things prayer. She has served in prayer ministry roles at Substance Church, Prayer Ventures and Arise Ministries and is a guest writer for the Substance Moms Blog. When she isn’t busy homeschooling her two daughters, she takes great joy in equipping others to encounter God in prayer and hear his voice through workshops and retreats. She lives with her husband, Ricardo, and her two lovely daughters in Maple Grove, Minnesota.