Not Why We Homeschool

For some time I've wanted to correct a misconception.

It seems that many people believe that homeschoolers - especially religious homeschoolers - are "sheltering" their children from an evil world.  For our family, as for many, many others, this is not why we homeschool.

Yes, at the very beginning we started out of (partly legitimate) fear.  We started from a fear that our children would be bullied and supressed as my husband and I were.  While I think it is fair and reasonable and even desirable to protect small children from some of the abuses that can occur in school (especially in a drug-infested, violent community such as we lived in), that is not why we homeschool.

We don't homeschool to protect and shelter our children, but to equip them.  Yes, one day they will encounter the "real world" and they will need to be ready for it, but it doesn't follow that throwing them into it will prepare them for it.  Would you send your five-year-old son to a brothel to prepare him to resist the temptation of porn?  You don't prepare for a marathon by running one, you prepare first by training for it.

Subjecting our children to immorality at an early age does not prepare them to resist it as adults.

However, that's not my main point.  We are homeschooling our children to give us time to instill in them the values that are truly valuable.  We are equipping them to face a world hostile to our beliefs by teaching them those beliefs day in and day out.  This is hard, and I certainly don't do as good a job at this as I would like.  I also appreciate that many families send their kids to school and diligently train their children in Godly, Biblical values.  I admire anyone who can do that.

It has been through much prayer and seeking guidance that we have concluded that really, the only sensible way our family can adequately and effectively equip our girls for the world they will one day face head-on is by homeschooling them.

I have sometimes heard the experiences of Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah (more commonly remembered by their Babylonian names of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego) in Babylon compared to the experiences of Christian children in schools.  There is a big difference.  These young men were taken into captivity as teens or young adults.  They were not children, and they were not sent there by their parents!

Coming back to where I started, we are not trying to shield our children from a hostile world, but to prepare them to face it with courage and confidence. We are taking this time while they are young to teach them Biblical values and truth, and to help them to see the hand of God in the world around them.  Even now, as our older girls reach the end of that time, they are gradually experiencing more of the world at large.  If we were trying to shield them from pain, suffering and antagonism, we have failed.  They have all experienced hard things - some very hard things - at home, at church, and in the world at large.  Sometimes the hardest things have been the closest to home.

Avoiding pain is not why we homeschool.  Equipping our girls to rise above pain and grow from it is why we homeschool.