A friend recently asked me if homeschooling is hard, and because this friend is NOT currently homeschooling his kids but would also love to convince his wife to do so, I found myself telling him that it’s not hard at all. The words barely left my mouth before a picture sprang to my mind of a toddler melting down in the middle of a complicated math lesson while the house is a scattered mess, and the fridge is broken, and everyone’s wanting lunch and, I’m knee deep in laundry, and, and…

“I mean, yes, sometimes it’s really, really, hard,” I found myself clarifying. “There’s always going to be bad moments and difficult days, but overall it’s so amazing and freeing that the good things you gain far outweigh the bad.”

I thought of that conversation today while also considering a typical homeschooling catalog. Every year they show up in my mailbox about this time as homeschoolers like me spend their summers planning and choosing their curriculum for the coming school year. 

Page after page of these catalogs showcase happy families and well dressed children with vibrant smiles as they tinker around with miscroscopes and beakers or bask in sunshine with a classic children’s literature novel in their hands, their toddler age sibling quietly and neatly scooping sand into a bucket nearby. No one ever looks grumpy, or frazzled, or like they’re about to set an entire collection of math books on fire. 

While these pictures are beautiful, and perhaps even display some shred of truth about a homeschooling lifestyle, just once I would love to see something a little more realistic…

Legos scattered all over the living room while kids and mom do read aloud in their jammies over bowls of oatmeal or cereal.

Toddlers melting down over, well, anything and everything.

Mom nursing a newborn while helping a high schooler write an essay. 

Siblings fighting over a tablet.

Shelves of curriculum (and science experiment supplies) still in plastic, waiting for ‘someday’ and/or hell to freeze over.

Library books ripped to shreds by a beloved family pet.

Art supplies left to mate and multiply and raise a colony of paintbrush babies all over the kitchen table.

Of course the risk in photos like these is, rather than selling the dream (and the shiny new curriculum that will of course make your homeschool, efficient, beautiful, and easy), they are more than likely apt to frighten prospective homeschoolers away. 

This week we barely met my homeschooling goals and plans at all.

On Monday my girls talked me into going to the library to claim the rewards they have earned with the summer reading program. Happy to make a day of it, I packed up the van with all six kids and drove the half hour it takes to get there (skipping nap time and afternoon school plans) only to ‘learn’ that the library is apparently CLOSED ON MONDAYS???!!!

The rest of the week, from a homeschooling perspective, was kind of downhill from there. 

Fast forward to today (Friday) and I was one discouraged Mama.

Red, recovering from his first real Man Cold, was fussy, and while I was trying to do kindergarten reading and math with Warrior, all he wanted to do was climb on deck furniture, eat bugs, pebbles, and food scraps from last night’s supper, or crawl in and out of my lap, all while crying or making his personal brand of high pitch squealing sounds at full volume. Not exactly a learning conducive environment.

Everything we tried to do felt blocked and/or pointless. 

Moments like these, weeks like this one, and days that go this way make me think of those catalogs, those pictures of smiling kids and science experiments and, FOR REAL, want to quit. 

They are just so hard. Impossible hard. Why the heck am I doing this? hard. 

And yet, also on this very hard day…

We ate banana pancakes for breakfast.

Blessing worked with her dad and spent significant time with a non-battery powered book.

I spent the whole day with my absolute favorite people on earth.

We did almost all our schoolwork outside.

We laughed out loud TOGETHER when Hank ran around camp naked in our current read aloud. 

Chosen fell asleep by herself in one of our living room chairs while I cleaned up the kitchen after a lunch we all ate together (including Mr. Wonderful).

When the feeling of wanting to quit (along with everything that had led up to it) passed, we regrouped, and my little women took turns taking care of Red while I did 1:1 time with each of them until he was ready for his nap and (almost) all our boxes were checked. 

And at the end of it all I got a snuggle with sleeping Red and a few minutes to drink a cup of coffee and enjoy a few pages in a book before laying him down and cooking supper while everyone did a chore or two and got the house back in order (for a few minutes anyway).

What I told my friend was true. The benefits of homeschooling far outweigh the moments, days, even seasons when it is hard. It can be incredibly difficult, stressful, frustrating, messy, challenging, complex, and grueling in every way. 

But so is putting your kindergartener on a bus for the very first time.

And going in different directions most days of the week.

And watching your children lose their childlike innocence way too soon.

And never knowing for sure who your children are with for hours everyday and/or exactly what they’re being taught by a system run and funded by the government.

While I sometimes think I want to quit, I know I would not give up our homeschooling life or trade it for anything. 

My homeschool may not look quite like the ones you see in the catalog, but it is mine. And it has its own sort of beauty. And I love it for all and exactly what it is.

Cue The Sound of Music scene when Maria goes flying back to the Abby because everything with the Von Trap family has gone so completely right it feels terribly wrong, and the Reverend Mother sings her that song about climbing mountains…

Climb every mountain,

Ford every stream,

Follow every rainbow,

Till you find your dream.

A dream that will need all the love you can give,

Everyday of your life for as long as you live,

If this is the criteria of a dream, then I know I have found mine. In my children. In our home, and in our homeschool. 

Bad days and hard things come and go, but the lifestyle we create by homeschooling stays. 

Indeed, it echos throughout eternity. 

And also, TGIF!