Home Education: Allowing our Husbands to Lead

I bet you never would have guessed that I used to be somewhat of a feminist. I could argue that we women should be able to do all the same things as men and, in the same breath, I also would have told you that once babies entered the equation we needed to make home the centre of our work (whilst also pursuing a career and preaching on the Lord’s Day in our churches).

One day, I was talking to a friend about the passage in 1 Timothy where Paul writes, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet” (1 Timothy 1:12). She said the reason given that women should not teach men in churches was because “Adam was formed first and then Eve” (1 Timothy 2:13). The biblical reason for male headship went back to before the fall which is why the principle stands today. Over the course of about five minutes, I had a complete paradigm shift as the Holy Spirit graciously convicted me of twisting Scripture to say what I wanted it to say.

 

A couple of years later, I was married and the biblical teaching of male headship not only in the church, but also in the home (Ephesians 5:22) met reality as we started to work out our life together. Now Simon and I have been married for fifteen years and I can honestly say that submission has become a very real concept that has hugely helped me to navigate our life, particularly with regards to home education. In fact, I have come to view biblical submission as one of the graces that oils the way.

 

When Simon initially suggested home education, my first response was something like, “Great!! What is it?!?!’. I felt relief that he didn’t want me to put my precious boy into a government school and excitement that there could be another option. By the time my oldest son reached school age, I guess I was starting to feel wobbly. We had already marked ourselves out as different by refusing to use nursery schools. Now we were officially “home educating” and I didn’t know anybody in the same boat! My naïve fantasies of peaceful, joyful lessons and eager learners soon abandoned me. I began to doubt whether we had made the right decision except for this: Simon definitely wanted us to home educate.

 

Although I could not say for myself at that point that home education was the Lord’s will, I did know from Scripture that the Lord’s will was that I submit to my husband. Some days, this was all I had to cling to. I knew I couldn’t trust the workings of my own mind to discern whether home education was right or wrong because I could change my mind a hundred times a day. However, I held onto the fact that scripturally this was ultimately my husband’s decision to make. It was a tremendous relief to me that I did not have to second guess myself. If Simon wanted the children in school, I knew he would say so. Rather than putting all my energy into questioning him and arguing with him, I rechannelled it into working out how we could do things better!

 

Home education is much smoother for us than it once was. I mostly love what we do. But I still have the occasional day when I feel a little bit overwhelmed or tearful. Panic can rise when I realise I cannot map out the next five years of my child’s education, or when I am repeating a spelling rule to my slightly dyslexic child for the thousandth time, or when we begin the day to find a crucial maths book has thrown itself down the back of the radiator. Mostly, I am ok with these hiccups; sometimes I am not.

 

Guess what Simon tells me when I am feeling a bit overwhelmed? He says, “have a day off”. I’m like “did you hear anything I said??? Here I am telling you that it is impossible to fit in everything we need to do and we are miserably behind in every way and you are telling me to take a day off?!!”

 

Well, again, I have learned that this sort of decision-making is best left to my husband. He can see the big picture and knows I am fussing over the details. If he wants us to take a day off, he is not breaking any of the commandments as far as I can tell. I disagree with him, but I don’t need to tell him this. My default position is to go along with what he says unless I can see an extremely important reason not to. I take a day off and guess what? The break does me a world of good and I start to look forward to teaching again. Fear and worry abate and we are all better for it. I didn’t see my need for a break. My husband did, but I have to trust him to make these decisions.

 

All marriages seem to work differently when it comes to home education. Sometimes husbands are very “hands-on”. They are involved with curricula choices, and like to know how each child is progressing. There is nothing at all wrong with this, but I recognise that we tend to have slightly stronger lines between our various responsibilities. Rather than feeling offended that Simon does not take interest in exactly which of our children can multiply fractions, I have come to see that he trusts me with the minutiae.

 

I am not saying that Simon is not interested in what we do. He supports me in every way he possibly can. If I need some practical help with teaching (for example), he steps up to the plate. If I think it is necessary to spend a larger amount of money on curriculum, he hears me out and gives me a “yes” or a “no”. Over the years I have come to realise that by responding to his trust in a trustworthy manner, I am freeing him up to pursue his own calling.

 

The way headship in marriage generally works is that the husband is ultimately responsible for the major decisions (not without input from his wife of course). The task of the wife is to make it happen! We could, of course, follow his decision to the letter and yet grumble and complain so much that he is filled with regret for ever suggesting it! Perhaps there is wisdom in refusing to voice every worry and every complaint rather than inducing guilt in our husbands. When we force our lips to remain quiet, then the heart generally follows suit. Refusing to grumble starts to remove the desire to grumble.

 

The Bible is full of principles that must be thrashed out in a thousand different contexts. I am not exactly sure what submission would look like in a marriage where the husband is ambivalent to home education and I am not trying to paint with broad strokes, neither am I saying that I have thoroughly mastered the art of allowing my husband to lead! Nevertheless, it is true that submission is a help rather than a hindrance as we home educate. Simon is often able to make a clearer decision about the bigger course we take because he is not overly-emotional. He does not change his mind purely on the basis of a great day or a disaster day. Equally, he is not as skilled as I am at managing the nitty-gritty.

I could of course insist on “equal shares”, that Simon pull his weight in exactly every area that I do, but to do so would be to insist that we are all created as clones of one another, rather than uniquely-created in the image of God. After all, marriage is God’s design and by his design it is a covenant taken before him between two very different people…