The Long and Winding Road...

A common question I've been asked is "How did you come to decide to homeschool."
Here's my story...

If you had mentioned the idea of homeschooling to me a year and a half ago, I probably would've put my fingers in my ears and hummed really loudly.  In fact, I think I remember doing that exact thing every time Jay mentioned it.

I was looking forward to the day when the big yellow school bus would turn the corner and I would shove a piece of peanut butter toast (that's probably not allowed, actually.  I think buses are considered nut-free zones, aren't they?) into one of my son's hands and his half-zipped backpack in the other. 
I wanted to be able to say: "Bye! Bye! Bye!"

It actually is similar to how I got my start doing home church (homeschooling, homechurching, what am I, agoraphobic?).  We went to this conference on homechurch and I had very similar conceptions (notice I didn't necessarily say "misconceptions").  People who do those things wear bonnets or denim jumpers, or both.  They probably don't let their children eat sugar and each kid has some Old Testament Bible name...Anyway, I told Jay that this was my picture of people who had church in their house and he promised me that there would be no bonnets.  As soon as we step off the elevator at the hotel and headed for the ballroom where the conference was held, low and behold, the family standing right in front of us was wearing...wait for it...bonnets.  I grabbed Jay's arm and vowed never to trust him again.  Just kidding.

Both church planting and homeschooling have been my husband's idea but when I get done trantruming (or the humming thing), I realize that those are things that help me step out of my own comfort, my own reliance and make me trust Jesus more.  I'm not saying you have to do such things to be obedient to Christ.  He says: "Come Follow Me."  Where He's calling you to follow Him in your place and space and with your people may most certainly look different.  It just happens to be the way I think He is asking me to Love Him and Others at this time. 

In both pursuits, it puts my comfort at risk and my heart vulnerable to failure--but isn't that what Paul says, "I will boast all the more gladly in my weakness so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthian 12:9)"
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Plusses for homeschooling:
I think I originally bought into the practical reasons:
flexibility in schedule--we can go to Disneyworld in off months, relish the shorter lines and call it an "enrichment activity."
efficiency--we can cover in an hour or two what it takes a whole day and get done in four days a week rather than five.
we have a rather factious school system in our neighborhood.  If there was one community school, I may have been more inclined to become involved, but because the kids are spread amongst several schools, those are not quite the common thread that they were when I was growing up

Please don't give me the socialization argument---are you actually implying that all the socialization they receive at school is a good thing?

Weird parents make weird kids.  Sorry, sons of mine, you are just plain screwed.