I have never met a mother (in real life) who regrets home educating her children. Whatever the caricatures of the world, here is my mental image of the home educating mother (based on the wonderful mothers I know): she rarely complains, she had a warm affection for her children, she is amazingly resourceful and always seems to have ‘a bit more time’ to cook an extra dinner for someone in need, to get stuck in at church or to prepare an activity for other people’s children!
The truth is that we very often get far more out of the home educating experience than we had banked on. It is almost embarrassing that the reward should be so great when we have not even run the course. When I speak to mothers who are contemplating teaching their children at home I am often thinking at the back of my mind, ‘don’t miss out…please…don’t…miss…out’.
Allow me to help you think about what some of the fruit might be:
1. The Mother’s Education
I spent my twenties barely finishing a single book. Babies followed and then the sheer joy that is classical education burst into my life with Susan Wise Bauer’s book ‘The Well-Trained Mind’. At school I was a good student and I was excellent at passing exams only to forget everything I had crammed the next day. I never grasped the importance of knowledge and the feast that is understanding. Home educating my children has lit a fire. My bedside table currently holds books about Napoleon, maths, the Puritans, a Bronte Novel and something about dyslexia. I praise God that there is no boredom in the life he has ordained me. Every subject opens two doors: the door to understanding it greater depth and the door to learning how to teach it to the best of my ability. I am never done with learning or improving.
2. The Mother’s Relationship with her Children
Whatever happens in the future, I know that I will never look back and wish that I had spent more time with my children. It would be virtually impossible for me to gift them with more hours than I already do! At this point in our lives, our oldest son is eleven and people love to warn us about the ‘teenage’ years. While I am sure we will be in for some ups and downs, my point is that today we do have good relationships with our children. They know we are not perfect, but they also know that we love them very much and that we enjoy being with them. They ask us to pray for them at odd times in the day, they are affectionate with us and tell us that they love us (even in front of their friends!). We have our off-key days but we also have a whole lot of laughs. I hope they will have as many good memories of our days together as I do.
3. The Mother’s Sanctification
I write about this regularly because I think it is so important to understanding the ‘blips’ of life with little children. We want to be more Christ-like, but it is easy to forget that we become like him through the trials and testing. A small child asking for water at an awkward moment is an opportunity to respond in frustration or in love. How will we ever grow more like Jesus if our lives are plain sailing all the way? What better tool for God to use in our lives than that constant presence of little children with all their demands, wants, cares and worries?
I often wonder what might have happened if my husband had never suggested home education all those years back and in my mind’s eye an alternative path to the one we now walk is tinted grey. I would not give up the past few years for the world. It is true that we have had to make sacrifices in order to teach our children at home, but I can hardly even call to mind what these have been since the overriding note of our home educating lives is one of much fruit for the mother…
