Can I share?!?

by Angel
(WV)

I was talking to my oldest child this morning, my daughter Erin, age 26, whom I homeschooled from 6th-12th grade. She was telling me about a discussion she had just had with a couple who were asking about her education and onto homeschooling. In the end, she told me the difference I made in her life (as well as her seven siblings) was that I was always so involved with the courses I was teaching. She said she could see the efforts that I put into it (usually writing my own unit studies) and she said that it really showed her how much I cared and wanted to be WITH HER. She said she can tell the difference between the people who were homeschooled and whether or not the parents were deeply involved with what the kids were learning, alluding that the more engaged the parents were, the more these adult children have a positive and confident outlook on their education as well as life in general. She always proudly proclaims her homeschooled education to others, which is my reward for those many, many days when I was sure I WAS screwing up her life.

I say all this here to encourage you in your vocation and that we must often re-evaluate our goals. To me, the academics is just one part of life, not the big part by any means. My three adult daughters (all married) have told me independently and with conviction that the very best thing I ever did in raising them was that when they needed to talk, I would drop everything and we'd sit at the kitchen table and talk (okay, within reason, not as an excuse to get out of school, although it often did take away from school). I have asked them all if I should not have done that quite so much and they all shouted back, "NO, Mom, we needed you and you were there for us!"

Look, we can give them all the academics in the world, but what they need more is to KNOW that their hearts are firmly placed within our hearts. We can do that well through the means OF homeschooling, but we should look at ourselves to make sure that it's their hearts, and not their grades, that they see within our hearts.