Grateful for Homeschool

When I was adopted in 2006, my mother quit her job to say home with me. My sister was adopted a year and ten month later. When we were school age, our parents planned on sending us to the Christian school our Baptist church ran.

Well, the school had problems and ended up closing, and we left that church. I was like three at the time (so Lacey was two or three), so we had a few year before we needed to start going to school. (Actually, we don’t legally have to start school here until age seven.) Somehow, my parents decided to homeschool.

No, my parents aren’t well educated. My dad dropped out of school in ninth grade (he later got his GED), and my mom graduated high school and had a BA in counseling (she worked at a pregnancy care center until I was adopted).

Needless to say, I’m very thankful my parents decided to homeschool me! I don’t have to worry about bullying (well, I do, just not at school!), being taught things that go against what I believe, and school can be more than a textbook! I know both of my parents would have loved to have been homeschooled.

Have I always like being homeschooled? Nope. When I was in fifth grade going on sixth, I begged to be public schooled. I’m not sure why, but I think it had to do with a girl in my co-op class going to a private (Catholic) school because she wanted more friends. (I quickly learned friends didn’t bring happiness and wasn’t worth leaving homeschooling. Also, the school I was wanting looked like a jail and even has bad reviews on Google.)

Have my parents though about sending me to a public/private school? Yep. When my dad got laid off in 2018, my mom considered taking a job in the city and sending us to a Lutheran school. Well, between the price and it being Lutheran, we decided against it and started cleaning houses (a job I hope we can start doing again).

I told Mom once I was very thankful she didn’t let me have my way and let me go to public school. I know it would have pulled me away from Christ and expose things I did not need to know. I’m very thankful for living in a sheltered house.

The things I enjoy most about homeschooling is that 1) I can work at my own pace, 2) I can study things that interest me, 3) I can learn more about my Creator in all my subjects, and 4) I’m not confined to a certain space. I was (and still am) ADD, so sitting still in a chair for 8+ hours would be torture to me.

I am thankful for two parents who decided to homeschool. I know some of our relatives don’t agree with our choice, but we’re not their kids and our standards and beliefs are different than theirs. I am so excited to be able to say my sister and I are the first homeschoolers on both sides of our family, and I hope we won’t be the last!

gratefully,

Lilly