A few weeks back, my beautiful wife wrote a couple of posts about the homeschooling myths she believed before we started homeschooling (you can find them here and here). It got me to thinking about the feelings I had about homeschooling before we started down this path. In our case, it was rather different because I was the part of our family team who was leading the charge to homeschool, whereas, from what I’ve experienced, the wife is usually dragging the husband along toward homeschooling, kicking and screaming.
My First Concern
I had two main concerns that needed to be addressed before we started homeschooling, and my wife shared the first one in her blog post. I was concerned that removing our kids from public school would negate our ability to be salt and light in the world. I won’t go into the details about how I came to terms with this fear because my wife covers it very well in her post. Let’s just say I’ve found this reason to be problematic. For one thing, public school is not required for Christians to be salt and light in the world. Clearly, public school can’t be what Jesus had in mind when he encouraged his first-century followers to be salt and light. Secondly, I have experienced a lot more “evangelism” happening to Christians students by the world than the other way round, which is not to say that there aren’t some awesome young Christians coming out of public schools these days. There are plenty, and I’m thinking of a few right now. But, they are this way because of their awesome (and very involved) parents, not because of their schooling.
My Second (and most important) Concern
Truth is, I often hear the “salt and light” concern from many of my Christian friends who are considering a homeschool educational for their children. In fact, I would say it is probably the “number one” concern given when the subject of homeschooling is broached. That’s understandable. But interestingly, I’ve rarely heard my second concern ever voiced. That is, I was concerned about how our family finances would fare if we decided to take this path.
Wendy and I were a two income family. Sure, we paid for daycare, a cost that is usually negated when one parent stays home, but in our situation, the move to a single income family would have a high impact in every area of our financial outlook. It would affect the type of home we could live in, the cars we could drive, our vacation frequency, our vacation spots, how often we could eat out. Everything. No, it’s not going too far to say that we feel the financial effects of this decision every day of our lives, just as I knew we would before we took the plunge.
But, even though I hardly ever hear this homeschooling “con,” I imagine there are others who face this issue. If you’re one of them, let me say, yes, it has been, is, and will continue to be a difficult challenge for our family. As I said, being a single-income family these days is hard and scary. But let me encourage you, if you are like me and see this as one of the primary obstacles standing in your way, see it for what it is. It can be an incredible obstacle, but not an insurmountable one. Ultimately, there is only one question to ask when considering any challenge in life.
What is God’s will?
If you feel that God is leading your family toward an alternative form of education for your kids, then go for it. Maybe you’ll have to spend the next several months or years getting your finances in a position to do it, but the bright side is that there are many financial resources available today that can help you along the way, like Clark Howard, Dave Ramsey, and Crown Ministries.
Being in a position of continual dependence upon God’s provision is scary, but worth it in the end. And if, in the end, you make the decision to homeschool, His mighty hand will guide you through it. Hope this encourages you whichever way you choose to go!
In Imperfect Harmony 