The Greatest of All Home School Myths

The face of home schooling has change drastically since I was a kid. More and more people are doing it and they are doing it for a wider variety of reasons than they did twenty years ago. Because of that, some of the larger home school myths have really been debunked. Home educated children are going on to good colleges, having successful careers, getting married, and socializing with the general public on a day to day basis without issue. Twenty or thirty years ago it was feared that a home educated child would never be able to accomplish any of that.

The new myths about home schooling are different. They come up all the time in conversations I have with moms at dance, Cub Scouts, church and everywhere else. It goes something like this:

Her: where do your kids go to school?

Me: we home school.

Her: oh that's cool. I've thought about it, but you know, I'm just not patient enough.

-OR-

Her: Oh wow. You must have a big house. I wanted to home school but we just don't have space for a classroom.

-OR-

Her: I wish I was organized enough for that.

You get the idea. Non-home schooling moms have this CRAZY idea that all of us out there educating our kids at home live in mansions and are organized enough to pass for Martha Stewart. Oh, and we have the patience of saints. And since they fall short, they can never do what we do.

I'm here to tell you that's not true.

I live in a 1200 square foot home. We bought it when we didn't have kids and we always meant to "upgrade" but we are just happy here so we make it work.

We do school in our living room. Our very lived in living room. It has not perfect. Photos of my real life, realistic living room during a school day doesn't look like anything you've seen on Pinterest. It's not going to be featured in any magazines any time soon. But it's real. And real learning is happening here every day. Isn't that what matters?

Want proof? Here it is. The cold, hard proof that home schoolers do not have to be super organized neat freaks with a dedicated classroom.

As for patience? I have almost none. Ask my six year old. He insists on adding an "n" sound to every word he reads. "B-u-g... bung?  p-i-ck... pink?" Which inevitably leads to me breaking down in tears and sobbing, "Why do you read letters that aren't even there? WHY? WHY? Do you see an 'n' that I don't see? What is happening here?" That happened. Today.

Now I'm not saying home schooling is for everyone. I know it isn't. But I just want to make it clear that the stereotype you have in your head of the kind of person and setting it takes to "do it right" is false. It doesn't exist. At least, it doesn't exist in my house or the house of anyone I know!

And for the home school moms reading this, RELAX. You don't have to be perfect. Your house doesn't have to be perfect. Just do the best you can with what you've got TODAY.