Why We Shouldn’t Homeschool

My dad is out of the ICU as of tonight – awaiting test results and probably heart surgery. And I have an uncharacteristic sense of peace about everything.  So I’m going to go ahead with my plan to list reasons that we should put the kids back in school next year.

1. Both boys qualify for IEPs.  (Those are Individual Education Plans for kids who have special needs.)  They may get more services if we were in the school system. Especially if we chose schools that specialize in working with kids with different learning profiles.
2. It would save us nearly $25000.  I’ve given up on tracking the costs of homeschooling.  It’s too depressing.  I could quit work, and fire the AuPair.  And we could stop ordering cool math games and taking swim classes and driving to colonial Williamsburg and buying beehive supplies.  But then it wouldn’t be the homeschool we all currently love.
3. My kids are so rotten some days that it’s hard to be around them.  On those days, I lose it. Now maybe I could get rid of all of my sin in the next few weeks. I could be a good mother even when my kids are being jerks.  But that’s probably not going to happen.  And I worry that they are getting so much more of the angry, controlling, anxious me than they got in the past.
4. The competition between them is fierce.  I imagine that all kids compare their performance to the other kids in the class.  But I think it’s more intense when there is only one other student, and that student is your brother.  This year, absolutely everything has become a competition.  Who solved the math problem faster?  Or write a better a story?  Who can poop faster?  Or cut up his pancakes more quickly?  I worry about the long-term effects of staying steeped in these comparisons because we homeschool.
5. I am not quite ready to quit working.  So our lives are chaotic and busy and stressful.  Something’s gotta give.
6. I miss the other moms from the boys’ school.
7. Zach misses his friends.  (Ezra not so much.)
8. The boys’ school is undergoing a lot of change, most of it for the better.  I would love to be a part of shaping the changes.
9. Jeff is still not 100% convinced we are doing the right thing.  This comes out when he asks me what we did all day and wonders if the boys are going to fall behind in academic subjects.  Or when he worries that Ezra stands on his head through most lessons these days.  Or when he says, “So do you think we should put them back in school next year?”
10. The house is a mess.  But you can’t have bee stuff and art stuff and life cycle posters and giant timelines and hundreds of books and curriculum kits and math flash cards all over the house and maintain order.  None of us can homeschool in one room all day without going crazy.  And I don’t have time to put things in order because I rush off from school to work.  So our home has turned into one of those houses of piles.
11. Both boys miss the peanut butter and fluff sandwich that came with their school lunches.
12. Finally, when they were in school, we could blame all of their unseemly behavior on their no-good school and the no-good kids who went there.  Some days, that scapegoat just looks too good to resist.

Geez, rereading that list is daunting.  I’m going back to the first list before I start to drink.