Making Sacrifices But Gaining More
This week, I want to talk about sacrifices in regards to homeschooling, and my personal experience with it. Every family is different and has their own reasons for the decisions they make. For today, I want to talk about decisions my husband and I made together when we decided to homeschool, and some of the sacrifices we have made. Maybe some of what you read will be similar to you, or it could be completely different. Everyone’s homeschool journey is different and unique. There is no one right way. Come along with me as I share some of our experiences and sacrifices.
One of the biggest and most common sacrifices amongst homeschool families is a two income household. Now don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of families who have both parents working and also homeschool, but more times than not, it’s a one income family. I worked part time up into our third year of homeschooling, and then I felt God leading me to leave my current field of work and solely focus on my children and their education. It certainly was a decision my husband and I went into prayerfully, and I can say I am so glad we did it. If we didn’t make that decision, and I continued to work, could we be living a different lifestyle? Could we be taking more vacations? Could we have more free money to do and use however we felt? Sure. Could we be eating out more like some of our friends who are a two income household? Could we have bigger, fancier, and newer cars? Sure we could, but all of those things would not give us the many blessings that God has given us through prayerfully making the decision we made.
With all of that, said, none of those materialistic things are worth all the time that I have gained spending with my kids instead of spending it away from my children in exchange for a materialistic lifestyle. Now am I saying that vacations, nice cars, and things like going out to eat or wrong? Absolutely not! We still do some of those things, but not as often as everyone else. It was all a sacrifice we were willing to make.
Another sacrifice I have made is my own free time. Both of my children are at ages where if they were in public school they would be there all day. I could have all kinds of time to work, and/or do whatever I want. Again, I am not judging or speaking against anyone who has decided to do that. Every family is different, and makes decisions based off of their own situation, and needs. For myself, my day looks more like planning and teaching my kids. Guiding and nurturing their young hearts. I also coordinate and lead a co-op at my local church which involves its own planning. With all that said, I absolutely love doing it! Even though I don’t have a lot of my own time, I have gained so much extra time with my beautiful children by choosing to homeschool that many parents do not have. I have the opportunity to meet and help other homeschool families in our church co-op. I get to see, not only the rewards homeschooling has in my own family, but also in other families. I truly feel I am where God has directed and wants me to be.
The last point, I want to bring up, and it’s not so much a sacrifice but experiences I’ve had, criticism. I have stated before, in some of my other blogs, that when we, as parents, go against the “norm“ for school, we are going to experience criticism and\or comments from others. Sometimes it’s from friends, sometimes it’s from family, and sometimes it’s from complete strangers. I’ve had friendships change because of the decision we have made to homeschool. I constantly get socialization comments when I talk to others about educating our children at home. I’m sure all homeschool families can relate to that! In these times, I remind myself that most of these comments are said by people who are uneducated in the homeschool lifestyle. What I have learned is to take these comments with a grain of salt. I let my children and who they are, speak for themselves.
I could certainly list more sacrifices and experiences, but I’m not writing this to say “look what I’ve done” or “look what I’ve been through”. I write this to encourage you, whether you’re currently in your homeschool journey, or thinking about doing it. I’ve seen the benefits homeschooling has had on not only my children, but others. You and your children can experience them too! Sacrifices do not mean you miss out. In this case, our sacrifices resulted in us experiencing more!