Homeschooled or Hoping To Be? A Parent’s Honest Take
The question came up at a backyard birthday party last fall, the kind where parents stand around in a loose circle trying to remember which kid belongs to which adult. A woman I’d met five minutes earlier asked me where my kids go to school. I said they’re homeschooled, and she gave the look—half curious, half concerned—before asking, “So you’re their teacher?” I laughed, because it’s the most common response, and also because on a good day the answer is kind of.
I didn’t have a clean answer. Some days I’m actually teaching. Last week we spent an hour building a bridge out of popsicle sticks for a science unit. Other days my nine-year-old watches a documentary about volcanoes while I fold laundry. A lot of days fall somewhere in between, and that’s the part I didn’t fully understand before we started.
Mostly, though, people want to know the same two things: how I manage it and whether the kids get enough social time. I’ve answered those questions so many times that my responses feel rehearsed. But lately I’ve been thinking about the question hiding behind them. In online groups and on co-op sign-up sheets, the numbers get thrown around—how many families are homeschooling, how many more are thinking about it. But the question nobody asks directly is this: How many of you actually chose this, and how many of you are just trying to make it work? That distinction matters more than any schedule or curriculum.
We started homeschooling the year my daughter finished first grade. She was reading well and loved school, but the afternoons after pickup were a wall of meltdowns and homework tears. Her classroom teacher said it looked like sensory overload. The school counselor suggested a rewards chart. I tried that, and it worked for about two weeks, until the novelty wore off and we were back to sitting on the kitchen floor while she refused to put on shoes. The decision to homeschool didn’t come from a big philosophical belief. It came from a Tuesday afternoon when I realized we were both crying before we even got to the parking lot.
Those first months were rough. I wanted a schedule that looked like what I saw on social media—whiteboards, color-coded bins, kids eagerly raising their hands. What I got was a kitchen table covered in cereal crumbs and a child who announced she would not be participating in phonics that day. So I made adjustments. Not the sweeping kind, just small ones. The whiteboard never happened. Instead, I put a daily list on the fridge with three things we had to do before lunch—reading, math, and one thing she chose. She chooses a lot of art projects. I’ve accepted that not everything I plan will get done, and I’ve learned to leave thirty minutes of open time every afternoon for the inevitable conversation that starts with, “Mom, why do people die?” or “Can I show you something I made?”
Math was the hardest part for me to let go of. I had this image of us working through a workbook page together, patient and calm. In reality, the workbook page triggered the same tears as the old homework routine. I tried sitting beside her, then switching to the couch with a whiteboard, then letting her work on the floor with a clipboard. What finally worked was the timer—ten minutes of work, five minutes off, no exceptions. Now we do that three times in a row most mornings, and the timer is the bad guy, not me. It sounds small, but it was the first real sign that I could solve a problem without abandoning the whole plan.
I’ve also learned that the social question isn’t really about socializing. It’s about whether my kids know how to function around other people. They do. We have a weekly co-op where they do group science and art with other homeschooled kids. We go to the library on Fridays and the same playground every Saturday morning. They negotiate with a kid twice their size on the monkey bars and order sandwiches at the deli counter. But the truth is, social skills take longer to build at home. I have to be more deliberate about it. Where school gives kids twenty-five hours a week of unstructured peer time, I have to schedule that. It doesn’t happen on its own.
For parents who are thinking about homeschooling, or who are in the middle of a bad week and wondering if they’ve made a mistake, here’s what I’ve settled into. Start with one subject you actually enjoy teaching. For me, that’s reading. Everything else can be done with audiobooks, videos, or a co-op class. Give yourself a morning rhythm instead of a hard schedule—ours is breakfast, outside time, then table work. And don’t answer people’s questions like you’re defending a position. Just say, “We’re trying it this year.” That sentence has saved me more times than I can count, because it reminds me, and the person asking, that this is a season, not a verdict. If you can find even one other family to meet up with once a week, it’ll carry you further than any curriculum you buy. The family down the street that’s been homeschooling for six years and the family that just pulled their kid out last month are both doing the same thing: figuring it out as they go.
I still have days that fall apart. Last Thursday, no one would do anything I asked. The kids argued about a marker. I shouted, which I hate, and then we all sat in silence for a while. I’ve learned to let the silence happen instead of filling it with a lesson. Eventually my son came over and asked if we could read his library book together. We did, and then we made lunch, and the afternoon was fine. Not perfect. Fine.
So if you’re the one asking the question—whether aloud at a party or quietly in your own head—I’d say this. Homeschooling doesn’t have to be all or nothing. It doesn’t have to look like the photos online. It just has to work for the people in your house, and figuring out what that means takes longer than you’d expect. Some days I still wonder if we’re doing the right thing. Most days I’m sure we’re doing something close enough.
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