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I protest.
This is not a fair question.
It's especially not fair to ask it of a rookie homeschooler, which I happen to be.

As a homeschooling newbie, I precariously juggle my schedule, my toddler, my kindergartner, the curriculum, the housework, and my insecurities as a teacher. If you want to see it all crash down from the great heights of my homeschooling ideals, just ask me, "What made you decide to homeschool?"

Call me picky, but the semantics just throw me off. I can answer "Why do you homeschool?" with grace and dignity and about ten thousand words. But the "What made you . . . ?" question just slays me. Probably because I don't just know. I can't identify any thing or things that made me decide. There was no while-on-the-road-to-Damascus experience or a voice booming at me from out of nowhere. There was no bolt of lightening. There wasn't so much as a spark of static.

Well, maybe there was a bit of static.
When I was expecting my first child, the issue of education, quite naturally, came up between my husband and myself. I'm the appointed Chief of Research in our household, so it fell to me to check out the private schools. (I worked with "problem kids" at the time and already knew public schools were out of the question.)

One day Jon came home, quite out of breath. He'd been listening to a talk radio program in the car (as usual) and wanted me to catch the rest of it. It was about homeschooling. I didn't get a lot out of what little I heard, but he was all excited about it and wanted me to put the private school research on hold.

"Check out this home school stuff and let me know what you come up with."

Usually, it takes me a few weeks to warm up to his research suggestions enough to actually begin digging around, but he persisted harder than I procrastinated and the research began.

I was quite skeptical at first. That soon turned into downright fear. The more I read, the more convinced I became that this was the best thing for our kids and for our family. The problem was, it didn't sound too good for little ol' me. After all, my role as researcher was about to expand to teach-searcher. I'd never taught anyone to tie their shoe, much less read. And what about algebra?

Well, I'm a little wiser and my kindergartner is reading now (although she still can't tie her shoe), but I'm still struggling with my role in all this. Teach-searcher seems easy compared to defense-searcher and being asked to defend my decision is a situation I find myself in more often than I like.

I suppose this is one of the natural pits new homeschoolers fall into. How many of us can do this without bashing school schools? Every list of reasons to homeschool I've come across, most written by veteran homeschoolers, includes reasons why school schools are bad. Whittle out those and what's left?

• Religious reasons:
  There are moral and spiritual benefits to homeschooling. These were once included my former tirades, but I have a penchant for getting preachy and found my audience had, once again, tuned out.
• Family unity:
  If you want to lose an audience fast, just suggest that your family has more unity than theirs because you homeschool and they don't. Besides, most mothers who ask me that awful "What made you decide . . ." question, prefer their sanity to family unity. "I'd go nuts if I didn't have Johnny in school. I need that time." Since I have no sanity to value, I prefer having my kids at home.
• Academic reasons.
  Non-homeschoolers often believe that anyone not employed by an accredited school is not capable of teaching anything to their children. Who am I, having no credentials, to educate these folks to the contrary?
• Social reasons:
  The concept of a child being better socialized at home versus in a classroom full of people he's not supposed to be socializing with (Aren't they still supposed to sit quietly and not visit with their neighbor?) is lost on some people. Every once in a while I am able to effectively explain the concept of peer dependence to a listener, but this is usually someone who is only listening because she thinks everyone else is still listening.

Don't misunderstand me. I am now okay identifying why we chose to homeschool. I used to have a problem doing this. The problem was, after all that research my list of reasons to homeschool grew so long my audience either got bored or annoyed with me. My soapbox is actually a crate and I like standing on it. The view is nice. But, people don't really want to hear everything I have to say on the subject, so I soon realized the need to cut my discourse down by, oh, roughly ninety-nine percent.

In my research, I once ran across an idea that I thought would work in answering the question, "Why do you homeschool?" The trick here is to have the question phrased properly or to rephrase it yourself before answering. Simply put, the author suggested you reply with, "We homeschool because it suits us."

Initially, I thought it was a good answer and I tried it out a few times, but it sounded a bit haughty when I said it. Since I don't wear the mantle of haughtiness well I quickly abandoned this and resumed my search.

In truth, my search continues. I still haven't hit upon a good answer for the "What made you decide . . . ? question and I feel awkward with answering that question with this question: "Are you asking why we homeschool?" Especially since I don't really have a short answer for that one either. I have this fantasy that one day there will be nobody left who cares enough to even bother asking.

Right now I'm resigned to let things go at this:
"So, what made you decide to homeschool?"
"I don't know. But I'm really glad we do!"
- - - Carol Moxley

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Children are better off learning at home, away from the traditional teaching techniques offered by public and private schools. Unschoolers contend that none of us excels at everything, and to expect children to excel in all subjects is unrealistic and harmful to a child's self esteem, drawing children away from feeling useful, productive and involved in the mainstream of the community and society in general. Unschooling parents discover that there are many ways that different children learn the same things, that each child's view of the world is unique, and that choice of methods, tools, etc., can be in constant change. Find out more.

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