This is totally not meant to offend any of my friends that are home school moms. I wrote this after I read another blog about how stupid you must be if you send your kids to elementary school. Those exact words were not used but after a long post on why we as a society think 5 year olds are able to "take care" of themselves, you can get the gist. I am not mad or anything, just in my humble opinion, I don't think that every situation can be handled the same way.
To assume that your children are going to be taken advantage of and/or a horrible member of society with no morals or values, just because you send them to public school, is ridiculous! So much depends on what kind of parent you are. It is not impossible to raise well behaved, self controlled, moral, God-loving children in public schooling. I have seen it done, my cousin did it, and honestly it really depended on what they did as parents.
I really did want to home school Baylee, believe it or not. I was looking forward to it. But there came a point where I was concerned with her needing that experience of going to school. Not that I plan to send her to school indefinitely, but we are at least going to try it out and see how things go. We are zoned for a really good elementary school and it was never really grade school that I was concerned about. I am more concerned with middle school and high school anyway. And to assume that I just stop teaching my child just because they're in school and that I only get 1 hour of quality time a day in order to teach them is ridiculous also. There are so many teachable moments that we have with our children, from car rides to brushing their teeth, to cooking with mommy, bath time, or bedtime. The important part is to always keep talking. There is no wrong place to teach a valuable or moral lesson. It is how you utilize your time, if you turn off the tube and get your child involved in the tasks that you are doing, it is totally possible to get those teachable moments.
One thing I am not looking forward to(and may quite possible push me back to homeschooling) is homework. I am trying to look at it in a positive way, like helping with homework will be teachable times also, but honestly I think they have way to much homework! Why should kindergartners have homework after being at school for 7 hours? Yeah, I am still trying to figure that one out too.
My thing is this, I don't think that all mothers are meant to be home school moms. I do think most mothers don't give themselves enough credit and they probably could home school their child if they tried. But I still hold firm that there are still some moms that aren't cut out for it. Everyone is different, and I am sure as heck not going to act like I have it all figured out. I am far from understanding everything and making good decisions all of the time. As sisters in Christ, we don't need to be condemning of whether or not someone decides to send their child to school, but instead, try to lift one another up like we are supposed to do. We are meant to encourage one another to do what is best, whether it be homeschooling or not.
1 comment:
Well said Abbey. I do think the kind of parent you are is much more important than where the kids school and we all have to make the choice and it is harder for some than others. I'm sure that Baylee will do well.
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