The Lucky Ones
Is it possible to live your best life as a homeschooler? In other words, is homeschooling a sacrifice of self, giving up what could have been a rich adulthood? Or is it a means to your best adult life—the one you’d pick again because it was just so danged wonderful?
Jeanne Faulconer, Director of Brave Writer’s Homeschool Alliance, said to me recently that homeschooling is more than an education for kids. It’s a life-practice. It’s a path, a way, a philosophy of living that guides, well, everything while you are living a homeschool life.
I had a bolt of clarity. That’s how I feel about writing. It’s a practice, a process, it’s a way of life for me. Academic writing is important and we teach it, but it’s a subset of the vitality of writing. Writing is self-expression, a chance to engage your own mind and the responses of readers interested in your original thinking.
Homeschooling is the pursuit of knowing, learning, exploring the big bold beautiful world without the pressures of school. (Wow! Reread that sentence.) It’s a chance to nurture intimacy with children, not just marshall them into study habits. It’s a way of life because life and learning become one. We’re literally training our own brain chemistry to be curious over correcting, to go for insight over parroting.
We’re not martyrs.
We’re not giving up our adulthood for our kids.
We’re the lucky ones—each day we yield to not knowing yet in pursuit of knowing a little more that means something to someone in our homes. What an adventure!
In hindsight, I can easily say homeschooling let me live my best life. I hope we can help you say the same.
This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!
