A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Who’s the boss of you? You are.

Are Mr. Saxon’s spiral-math lessons in charge of you? Nope.
You get to skip a lesson or take a break or switch to a new program or hire a tutor. Mr. Saxon doesn’t decide for you.

Is Sonlight’s Instructor’s Guide the boss of you? Nope.
You get to pick and choose which writing project to do, which novels to finish and which to abandon due to boredom, which activities to complete and which to overhaul with your own imagination, what pace to go and what weeks to toss in the round file. Sonlight doesn’t decide for you.

Is classical education the professorial boss of you? Nope.
Ancient texts and four year history cycles don’t control what you study today. Written narrations in every subject don’t have you pinned. You get to act out a narration or never discuss a book or brush by 500 years of history, if you want, if stuff going on today in our world is more fascinating or more compelling. Your kids will get it all again in college, anyway. You can relax because you can decide.

Is your charter school the certified boss of you? Nope.
You can quit and go it alone, you can give up the state money to be free to do what feels right for your family, you can campaign for reform to get a charter school to match what you need and want. You can decide if you *want* to be affiliated with a charter school.

Is your best friend the boss of you? Nope.
She has enough to worry about. She doesn’t need to handle your homeschool too. You get to decide what works for you and your kids, no matter how smart she is, no matter how long she has homeschooled, no matter how good her advice.

Is the language disorder specialist in charge of your child? Nope.
You get to decide how much of the diagnosis you believe, how many of the therapies you apply, how much you let those diagnostic terms define how you see your child. You get to say your beliefs and stick to them, if necessary. You get to advocate for your kid. You’re in charge.

Is your cherished homeschool forum the boss of you? Nope.
The members are as likely to switch from one program to the next, and get confused about what’s the best, as you are. Don’t listen to them. Take their ideas, test the ones that sound good to you, and discover which can become your own. It’s not up to you to prove to them that you are “one of the faithful.” It’s up to you to be true to who you are and what you actually do at home, damn the torpedoes.

Is unschooling the unwitting boss of your unschool? Nope, nope, nope.
You don’t have to live up to the far-reaching ideals, but you can try to if you want to. Why not? Or you can go halfway or not at all once you see it and know what it is. No one gets to tell you if you are a legit unschooler or not—you decide for you. Definitions help groups cohere, but you get to define for you what happens in your house. You’re not a “group member.” You’re a mother or father with the most intimate knowledge of your family. You decide. Are you an unschooler? Maybe you are and maybe you aren’t. It’s up to you.

Are the Common Core Standards in charge of your homeschool? Nope. Emphatically no. This is why we left the state to begin with.

YOUR standards are the boss of you.
Your vision.
Your children.
Your beliefs about education.
Your aspirations for your family.
Your flexibility and your rigidity.
Your weaknesses and your strengths.
Your joys and your personal pains.
Your vision and your limited sight.

This is YOUR homeschool.

YOU ARE THE BOSS OF YOU.

You get to have the homeschool you choose. In fact, you already DO have the homeschool you choose.

Embrace it.
Love it.
Feed it brownies.
Share it confidently.
Live it boldly.

You do you.

Why not? No one else can.

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