Homeschool Goodies

CLARITY BEGINS AT HOME
Their parents won’t be overruled,
Nor their personal values retooled.
Their minds will grow strong
As they learn right from wrong,
‘Cause these children are being homeschooled.

My wife, Evann, and I have homeschooled our kids from the beginning. That’s six kids and 17 years now. Our youngest daughter, Audrey, is 8; our two oldest, Maria and Ida, 21 and 18, respectively, have graduated and have good jobs. Isabel, 16, graduates this year. Evann’s the teacher and I’m the principal. If you’ve always wondered what it is exactly that a principal does, I can tell you: nothing. So, when I say, “Evann and I homeschool,” I really mean, “Evann homeschools.”

Before all the homeschooling dads out there have conniption fits and start writing me nasty letters, let me hasten to explain that, by “nothing,” I really mean “almost nothing,” and even that’s not completely true. My wife and kids often take advantage of my background as an editor to clarify grey areas of grammar: like the difference between bring and take. (Please note that the commas I placed before and after Evann, in the first sentence of the preceding paragraph, indicate a restrictive clause (or is it nonrestrictive?) and are fraught with meaning, confirming — assuming I’ve used them properly — that I have only one wife.)

The burden of homeschooling, however, does generally fall almost entirely on the mother, and that has certainly been the case for us. My burden is primarily a financial one: the inadequacy of my single income. Because Evann is a full-time mother and homeschooler, the second income that so many families take for granted nowadays is not available to us. I’ve never been able to afford a late-model car or take my family to Disney World, for instance. I have promised Evann a 2009 minivan, however (to be purchased in 2015), and we both hate Mickey Mouse, so the burden has been relatively light.

The benefits of homeschooling, on the other hand, and of parenthood in general, are enormous.

As a homeschooling mom with a background in graphic design, Evann is probably the single best person in the world to establish and maintain a blog called Homeschool Goodies. If you’re a homeschooling mom, or dad, it would behoove you to visit this site on a regular basis.

If you think you’re not a homeschooling mom or dad, think again. All parents are homeschoolers, if perhaps only part-time, because all parents help their children with their schoolwork — and the most important things kids ever learn are the things they learn at home, whether they’re “homeschooled” or not.