I never ever had the desire to homeschool. Quite the opposite, actually. I couldn’t wait for my kids to go to school. When I had my second baby, I immediately put my two year old in preschool a couple mornings a week so that I could have some downtime with our newborn and get a little bit of a break. When they were both old enough to go to school, I was so excited to have some time for myself again. Time to clean the house, grocery shop, meal prep, run errands, make dr. appointments– all the fun stuff moms do, ya know? Having the boys in school gave me time to get shit done, because, let’s face it, moms have an endless list of shit to do. It’s just part of the deal. So, anyway, I looked at school as a gift. My boys were getting an education, hanging with friends and all was well with the world. Well…until I realized it wasn’t.

I think we can all agree that the past few years have been pretty wild. During this wild time on planet earth, my family has dealt with some major changes, one of which was my older son being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. At the time of his hospitalization and diagnosis (March 2021), children were required to wear masks to school. I hated doing this to my children and it hurt my heart so badly knowing that their sweet faces were covered for 7 hours a day. When I would pick them up from carpool, they would rip off their masks, tear them up and throw them on the car floor. I’m still working on forgiving myself for letting this go on for the 5 months it did until summer break began. What is most heartbreaking is that as a child is becoming sick with Type 1, they begin to experience a shortness of breath and shallow breathing. So as my son was slowly slipping into diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), he was having trouble breathing and had a mask covering his breathing holes all day long. How he must have suffered those long days at school. The guilt in my heart is so heavy whenever I think about my poor boy basically being suffocated on the daily as he went to school. So while I was against masking my children from the beginning, this additional suffering caused my heart to swell with a pain and rage it had not known before. The icing on the cake was when my son texted me from school that a teacher was putting check marks on the board each time a student lowered his mask to breathe for a minute and planned to add them up at the end of the year and subtract those checkmarks/points from their final grade. I remember standing at the kitchen counter, eyes welling up with tears, not believing what I was reading. How could this be happening? How could my son’s academic performance be negatively impacted by choosing TO BREATHE? I started crying and responded to my son that we will take care of it, and take care of it we did. My husband dealt with the school, and while it was pretty much brushed under the rug and the principal told him to email the teacher and sort it out with him, my mama heart knew that this whole situation was more fucked up than I could possibly imagine, and I knew that the time was coming for me to make a choice and stand up for what I believed in, which was unmasking the children–unmasking MY CHILDREN. This particular teacher also told his students who were trying to breathe that they cared more about being comfortable than saving lives, and that didn’t sit well with me either. I realized that day that some teachers put their beliefs onto their students and the last thing I wanted for my son was for him to believe that he was a walking disease and causing danger to others for wanting to breath for a few seconds. It hit me real hard how people I know nothing about are spending all day with my children and I have no clue as to what they are filling their innocent and highly impressionable minds with every day for 12 years. I told my husband that if masks were required the following fall, they were not going back. To my shock, they continued with the masking of children and we removed our kids from the system.

We are now nearing the end of our second year of homeschooling, and to say it has been an eye-opening experience is the understatement of the century. I do not regret this decision one bit. The only thing I do regret is not doing it sooner. I’ve learned a lot over the last two years and while I know it’s not for everyone, it’s been an amazing gift for our family and I treasure this time together like you wouldn’t believe.

Choosing to take your children out of a system that is all you’ve ever known your entire life is scary. The doubts and fears that you will mess them up and they will never be able to keep up with the “real” school kids are monkeys on your back every damn day, strangling you as they squeeze your neck and hold on for dear life. Every day I had to read something positive about homeschooling to bring me back to the belief that I was doing something good for them and not causing harm. We are programmed so deeply and it is so damn hard to let go of shit that no longer serves us, even when we know it’s no longer serving us or our children. My children were not being served by the system. I am sure of that today and I was sure of that when I took them out two years ago. I’ve read countless books on the history of American compulsory (public) education and I was blown away by what I learned. The truth of public education isn’t what I thought it was at all, but I’ll save that for another day. Needless to say, the fascinating history of American schooling only reinforced my decision to homeschool our boys. My husband and I are educated people. We have access to books and the internet, so basically, all information is at the touch of our fingertips. We can teach and learn anything we want. Most days, I find myself learning right along with my boys, because to be honest, I haven’t retained much from my own schooling days. And don’t even ask me what I learned in college, because besides two degrees, I also majored in alcohol and drugs and just paid off that 4 year long party a few years ago (in my 40’s!) I am so grateful for all the debt I incurred between the ages of 18-21. Such an excellent way to start of adulthood (insert sarcasm here). That’s another thing I’ve come to stop believing in: the big college lie. College is not the only way to become successful. We stress our poor kids out for 12 years, telling them that the grades and test scores they get are where their value lies and that they are screwed if they don’t measure up. I remember those grades and scores and how they determined my worth and I saw the stress and anxiety starting for my older son a couple years ago. The workload and never-ending homework were getting to him. He was being crushed by it all. He called school, “prison for kids,” and I’m just so glad that we were able to free him when we did. He was not benefitting from public school and that’s the truth. My younger son didn’t fit the mold here and was always being told to cut his hair. He’s a creative and wants his hair long. Why was that such an issue? He would also say how bad he was at math, but after homeschooling for two years, I see that that’s not true at all. The other week we got through 3 lessons in a half hour! When you can really focus and you have someone who can see how you learn best, things can move a lot quicker than they would in a classroom setting. Some days we get a lot of math done, and somedays we play board games and do puzzles. The freedom to do as we please when we please is the gift that takes the cake. WE are their parents and we know and love them best. WE are doing the best we can for them every day. WE want them to follow their hearts and dreams and whatever road that might look like for them. This homeschooling journey has brought us closer together as a family and I am so grateful for that. We are lucky because we all really like each other and get along. I love hanging out with my boys every day. I love that they talk to me so much and tell me that they love me thoughout the day. I hope this homeschooling journey continues to strengthen our relationships with each other and bonds our family for life. Our kids grow up so damn fast and I know for a fact that I will not regret spending every day with Tristan and Samuel. My family is everything to me and the blessing of homeschool is the unexpected gift I never knew I wanted. The path that brought me here was pretty dark, but the light that has been shown to me guides me and gives me strength to carry on. The days are not always easy and I lose my cool sometimes, but I am human. When my children are older and look back on these years, may they know that their very flawed mother, with all of her quirks and eccentricities, loved them dearly and chose them over all else on this sweet and troubled earth.

Some of favorite homeschool things:

1. slow, quiet mornings with no rushing around like crazy
2. my boys getting the amount of sleep their growing bodies need
3. reading aloud to them every morning
4. no more carpool line
5. no more endless texts and emails from schools
6. no more homework or school work on weekends– FREEDOM
7. taking time off as needed or desired without needing a doctor’s note
8. Choosing our own curriculum and ways of learning
9. Living life TOGETHER

Some of my favorite books on homeschooling and American compulsory education:

1. Home Grown by Ben Hewitt
2. Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto
3. The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto
4. Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto
5. A Different Kind of Teacher by John Taylor Gatto
6. The Call of the Wild and Free by Ainsley Arment
7. Unschooled by Kerry McDonald
8. How Children Learn by John Holt
9. Free to Learn by Peter Gray
10. The 5 Hour School Week by Aaron & Kaleena Amuchastegui

*This blogpost is based on my experience and I am not saying that homeschool is right for everyone. We all have to make the best decisions for our families and that looks different for all of us. My decision is not better than yours, it is just what works best for us at this time. Thanks for taking the time to read this post and if you have any questions about homeschool or how we do it, ask away. A friend of mine told me early on that homeschooling is not doing public school at home, but rather “living life together,” and I think about that all the time. There is such freedom in doing things your own way. Children are natural learners and curious about the world around them. If you are on the fence about homeschooling, I’m here to tell you to jump off and do it. You will not regret a single second of spending time with your sweet babies who have the nerve to grow up so darn fast. If it’s tugging at your heart, listen to it. You know your kids better and love them more than any system ever will.