A Friendly Place When You’re Scared to Homeschool

It’s my understanding that there are people who are going to make harsh judgments in every area of life. Homeschooling, by no means, is exempt. I have been to the support groups, scrolled through the forums, and poured over the comments, and I have witnessed conversations between parents that I bet they’d be ashamed of their children for having. I’m not surprised. The decisions we make concerning our children make us so nervous that sometimes it feels necessary to criticize someone else's choice so we can feel safer about our own.

Friends, this is scary stuff. We just need to own it.

Hi. My name is Brittney, and I am scared to homeschool my children. And I was scared when we didn’t homeschool my children. When we sent them to public school, I was scared. When we sent them to private school, I was scared. This decision to homeschool does not alleviate the fears I have about how they will grow up. It just lessons the amount of people I can blame if it turns out badly.

The last thing we need to do is turn on each other because beneath the details, we’re all in the same boat. We’re doing the best we can with what we have right now.

Call me non-confrontational, but this won’t be a place that tolerates that sort of negativity. If someone is considering pulling their child out of school, I want that person to know this is a place where we will offer our support. If someone is considering putting their child in school for any reason at all, I want that person to know this is a place where we will offer our support. The Internet is vast. If you desire a space where you can feel free to judge, criticize, or be cruel in the anonymity of a comment box, you will find it.

Here we encourage, we uplift, and above all, we listen.

In the writing world, there is a great quote by Anne Lamott that is just as applicable here: “Write what you’d love to come upon.” I would love to come up on a growing, engaging community of people bound together by this extraordinary task of parenthood who have chosen to take on the audacious task of homeschooling, not because it’s right, but because it’s right for them. I would love a place where questions are asked without threat of judgment. I would love a place that rises above diminutive differences to find commonality and build community.

At AOP, our mission is to “educate, inspire, and change lives.” Likewise, our mission in starting this blog is to inspire each other as we live out what we feel called to do. We want to hear from you. Talk to us. Tell us what inspires you.