We spend a lot of time thinking about how we want to raise our children. My degree is in Family and Human Development, and I spent years studying and researching and talking over ideas with other people about parenting before we had Minionette #1 join us. With our desire to reach financial independence at a young age (in comparison to our peers), we’re also thinking about how our habits, lifestyle, and mindsets are going to affect our children.
We’ve long talked about homeschooling our children. When we share our homeschooling hopes with others, we’ve been met with everything from disdain (“you really think you’re good enough to teach your kids what dozens of other teachers with teaching degrees could teach them,” “man, have you met homeschooled kids? So awkward!”) to over-zealous praise (“That’s so good, it’s your duty as godly parents to protect your kids from evil ideas like evolution and homosexuality,” “Schools these days are horrendous! Have you heard of Common Core? They’re trying to turn our kids into robots!”). For a long time, I knew those comments rubbed me the wrong way, and, aside from the obvious hateful statements, I couldn’t put my finger on why.
I eventually came to the realization that those comments were meant to encourage me to make a decision about my children’s education from a place of fear. Don’t homeschool! They’ll never make it in the “real world”! You’ll be a failure! Homeschool! Protect your kids from what I fear! The world is a dangerous place!
I make it a goal of mine not to make big decisions from a place of fear. Fear is a powerful motivator, but it can also be a liar. If we are going to homeschool, we want to do it because we are excited for what homeschooling can offer our children and our family. We want to homeschool from a place of joy, hope, and curiosity. So, why on earth would we want to homeschool on this FI path? Isn’t that keeping me from working a “real job” for years longer than necessary? Won’t it slow us down?
Well, yes and no. From the start, I’ve aimed to make it clear that FI is not our ultimate goal. It is a tool that we want to use to live into the life that we are designing. If becoming financially independent on paper takes a couple more years because I’ve devoted my time to educating our children, then it takes a couple more years. I want to live a life I love today, and a large part of that, for me, is spending the early years with my children. There’s no shame in being a working parent and not wanting to be a stay-at-home parent! Major props to those who choose that! But there’s also no shame in wanting to be home. Additionally, I’m not sure that I’d be able to work out of the home any time in the near future if we had our children attend public school. Minionette #1 will be old enough for Kindergarten in the fall, but I still will have 3+ kids at home. Childcare is not cheap!
As foster parents, it is also helpful, although not necessary, to have a stay-at-home parent. Children who enter our home via foster care have many needs, not the least of which is time. Two 2-hour visits with bio family a week, therapy, doctors appointments, meetings with the CASA, meetings with the permanency worker, meetings with the foster parent worker, court dates, and the list goes on. If we are to accept babies under 6 weeks old, one of us needs to be able to stay home as daycares don’t take babies that young. Homeschooling is flexible enough to work around various schedule changes, and it is a great way of exposing the younger children to concepts they may not otherwise be introduced to at such a young age.
By the time Minionette #2 is old enough for Kindergarten (in 4 years), we want to be close to hitting the road! Which brings me to why we really want to homeschool. If we really want to travel the US and visit all of our National Parks, and we do, then we need to be willing to also teach our children on the road. I would rather be in the swing of homeschooling before making such a big life change. There will be plenty of other changes we will be making at that time.
I believe that children learn best when they have as many “touch points” on a topic as possible. For example, a child might remember the Boston Tea Party by reading about it in a book or watching a documentary on it, but how much more fully will they understand if they are able to spend a week immersed in the history of Boston by exploring the historic sites, interacting with experts on location, and touching and seeing with their own eyes? A child could memorize various facts about volcanoes by reading about them and maker one out of paper mache. Or they could talk to park rangers discussing the history of volcanoes in and around Yellowstone National Park and Crater Lake, touch and feel igneous rocks in person, and maybe still make that paper mache volcano. While our homeschool curriculum may not contain the same breadth of subject matter, the depth will be exceptional. In today’s world, I value curiosity and learning how to discover solutions are more important that rote memorization and conforming to the status quo.
We will only have our children with us for a relatively short period of time. It is important to us that we spend as much time together as a family as we can while providing incredible experiences and memories for our children.
I’m sure I could think of 100 other reasons why we are planning on homeschooling our children (at least for elementary school). Essentially, it boils down to spending time together as a family, inspiring curiosity and a sense of adventure, and accommodating a lifestyle that may not be very traditional.
