Can We Really Talk About Homeschooling?

(Note: This post was written as a rebuttal for an anti-homeschooling post that went up on a pretty popular mom blog submission site earlier this week. The original post was pulled from the website roughly 24 hours after it was put up. I sent in my rebuttal anyway, as they asked for one before pulling the piece, and received an email today from one of the editors saying the author of the post had been verbally threatened, so they pulled it for her safety. The original post was very belittling to the homeschool community, as the author did actually call anyone without an education degree who homeschooled their child an "idiot," but I find it disheartening that she was verbally threatened for sharing her opinion. We're all adults here, and as I understand not everyone would agree with her opinion or mine, verbally threatening someone who shares an different opinion than you is just idiotic.

So here, on my site, let's just all get along, please. Hold hands and sing kumbaya and shit, even if we don't see eye to eye. I felt my piece should be read anyway, as I took the time to put my heart and soul into it, so here it is. ~Morgan, aka Tatted Mom)

In January, I decided to homeschool my kids.

Why are you laughing? Kinda trying to be serious over here. I really did. No, seriously.

No, I didn’t bump my head. No, I’m not on drugs. And no, I don’t have a degree in education.

The public school system, as my family knew it, was failing my kids. We live in Arizona, which is currently ranked #43 out of 51 in the nation. Then, we live in Tucson, which is rated #228 out of 355. Statistically speaking, we’re at the bottom of the bottom here, and despite the valiant efforts of my kids’ teachers, it showed.

Instead of the “old method” of simply multiplying one number by another, my 4^th grader was bringing home some core curriculum BS of what looked like follow-the-bouncy-ball on a number line. I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to multiply it, or sing along. And he couldn’t figure it out, either. Note after note went to his teacher from me, stating, “He did the homework, I just taught him the simple way to multiply, because neither one of us could figure out what the paper was trying to teach him.” She was very understanding, unlike my daughter’s 7^th grade math teacher, who just constantly marked her work wrong because she wasn’t doing the 27 step core-curriculum-taught method, but instead was doing the 5 step method that has worked for me for 21 years now.

So, core curriculum- strike one against the public school system for my family.

My kids spent half of this school year in public schools, and when we kept getting notices in

Not Prepared for Parenting Older Kids... Or the Zombie Apocalypse

When you become a mom of older kids, like I am (mine are 13 and 10), and you see a mom with younger kids, I'm sure the same thing goes through all of our minds...

"Oh, thank goodness I survived that section of parenthood."

Now THAT's Being Prepared...
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No more diaper changes, no more wordless temper tantrums (now they are silent altogether, except for the sound of marching off and a bedroom door slamming), no more mandated nap times screwing up schedules, no more bottle feedings/stopping to breastfeed, nothing. Just older kids who can express their thoughts and feelings (somewhat) coherently, who you can tell to disappear if they are angering you, and who can wipe their own asses.

Bliss, right?

Yeah, not exactly.

Yesterday, we went on a field trip with the homeschooling group we are members of, to a waste water treatment facility. The tour was supposed to start at 10, but as this place was very difficult to find (everyone's GPS had us doing some crazy u-turns in subdivisions and crap) and somewhere around 50 of us total showed up, it took a while to get things rolling.

I *thought* this was the field trip that was supposed to last between an hour to an hour and a half. Come to find out (the hard way, yes), the timed one was not this particular field trip, but the one we have in 2 weeks. Not knowing this when we left the house, the kids asked if we should bring anything with us.

Why? We'll only be gone like an hour and a half max, we'll be home in time for lunch and to spend time with Hubby before he goes to work. Easy peasy lemon squeezey.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The guy heading the tour started his presentation (what? There's a presentation with this? Just thought

I'm Not Screwing Up My Kids for Life... I Think...

Every parent worries at some point if they are screwing up their kids for life.

When you start homeschooling, that fear and worry seems to triple.

Two and a half months now, the kids and I have been trying to find our place in the homeschooling world. At this point, I feel like Goldilocks:

We started out with an online school-at-home program "porridge"- Too Strict
We moved to unschooling- Too Relaxed (according to Hubby)
We started a more relaxed daily online curriculum program- Too Easy & Boring

At this point, I've thrown the homeschool porridge against the wall and am currently pouting in the corner, wondering if there's any porridge out there that's "just right" for my kids and I.

Two months now the consistency has been rather spotty. They do math at Khan Academy everyday, we've found literature and grammar curriculum that we've stuck with, and they write posts for their blog each week, but as far as science and history are concerned, we're just bouncing around.

I'm totally screwing up my kids' lives, aren't I? Why did I start homeschooling in the first place? Why did I think I was qualified to do this?

These thoughts stay in the back of my head like poison, seeping forward every once in a while to drive me bat shit crazy.

Needless to say, I've been stressed beyond belief lately.

My readers and my friends tell me that we'll figure it out. They say homeschooling takes adjustment

Regaining My Nerd Status

I was a nerd in high school.

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Ha! Who am I kidding? I'm still a nerd now.

I'm a nerd, though, with a pretty big secret that was revealed to my kids this week. While they didn't fully understand the scope of the secret, Hubby looked at me like I had grown a second head and said, "Seriously? Whoa."

I never read 2 of the books that are some of the top books on pretty much any required reading or greatest books ever written lists...

"Lord of the Flies" and "The Catcher in the Rye." Never read either book.

Yeah, yeah. I know. Every single conversation in the last 15 years or so where either one of these books has been brought up has gone something like this:

Person: You know, like in "Lord of the Flies"/ "The Catcher in the Rye."
Me: Oh, yeah, I understand, but I've never read it.
Person: (blank stare) What?
Me: Yeah. I've never read it. But I know the concept of the story and all.
Person: (continued blank stare) What do you mean you never read "Lord of the Flies"/ "The Catcher

The Kids Now Blog, Therefore, I Blog

Lest ye be warned, internet goers. My children now have blogs.

Ye have been warned...

They aren't public (yet- we'll see how this goes), and they were created for homeschooling purposes, but nonetheless, they still have blogs.

I've been reading my ass off lately- homeschooling books, unschooling books, curriculum standards. My poor Sarah Addison Allen novel has been quite lonely, sitting untouched on my bedside table while I reach for the non-fiction books beside her. But at the moment, it's a necessary evil.

I'll run y'all through a quick timeline of recent events, which can somewhat explain why I've been MIA lately.

• Beginning of January- Hubby left for school for 6 weeks and the kids started homeschooling with k12.com.
• 2 weeks later- Kids and I were highly frustrated with the rigors of k12.com, and went to our first local homeschooling group, where I learned about unschooling. Our lives changed forever.
• Beginning of February- Withdrew the kids from k12.com and let them start the unschooling thing. 
• Middle of February- Hubby came home, having graduated with the top GPA in his class (this, from the man who slept through high school- we were shocked and thrilled beyond belief). When his structured-military-trained brain saw unschooling in action, his headache began. He