As a homeschool mom, I typically don’t like to be out and about with my four children, especially during the school day. It just brings too much unwanted attention and questions.
But, with Keith gone, there have been times this year when I’ve had to bring the kids with me to do things that I would ordinarily try to do when he was available to watch them.
Times like yesterday morning when they had to go with me to have the van serviced. I was told that the appointment would take between two and three hours, so we came prepared with enough school work to keep them busy.
I was so proud of my little students!
They worked steadily during the time we spent waiting on the van. EA and MC were able to complete their math lesson and got started on their grammar as well.
Will also made a big headway on his math.
And Jenny even completed some of her Explode the Code workbook and I was working on phonics with her when we were told that the service was complete.
As we were walking out, a lady probably about ten years younger than myself stopped me and asked if we were homeschoolers. I responded that, yes, we were. She told me that it brought back lots of fond memories for her. Then she related to me that she was homeschooled herself and remembers having to do school work in waiting areas like my kiddos did.
She talked about how much the work of homeschooling would pay off in the end.
She talked about how much fun she had being homeschooled.
She was a huge encouragement to me as we walked out of Honda.
I was feeling so good about our morning that I decided to reward my students with lunch out at one of our favorite restaurants in Leavenworth, Sis’ Sweets.
We had a lovely lunch together ending it with a delicious cookie from the bakery.
As we were on our way out of the restaurant, an older lady asked me if they were out of school.
I responded by telling here that we were homeschoolers.
And then she said, “Well, I sure am sorry about that! They are missing out on all of the fun.”
Oh, boy…I was left quite speechless…but I was able to manage a smile and a polite goodbye as we walked out the door.
These two responses to us as homeschoolers strike me as vastly different.
One was encouraging and uplifting.
The other was simply rude.
Neither had to respond to us at all.
For the first I am so thankful.
For the other, I am just regretful.
It reminds me of the power of our words.
Words have the power to build up or tear down.
They have the power of life and death.
If we cannot use our words to build up others and encourage then maybe we shouldn’t open our mouths for them to spill out and stain those that they carelessly touch.
I am thankful that in seven years of homeschooling, this was our first truly negative encounter with someone being so disapproving of us and the choice that we’ve made to school our children at home.
I am proud of my children.
And I am confident in the choice we’ve made to homeschool them and live out our calling to be salt and light in this world as we do so.
Jinny Newlin says
Keep up the good work, Monica! We’re out all the time, mostly for Ezekiel’s other homeschool activities, but it forces me to be running about with the littles. We get lots of questions and receive mostly negative responses, but I just have to keep smiling. By the time I’m done with my speech about how Ezekiel has scored PHS (post high school) on all his SATs, since he was in the sixth grade or how he gets to have a relationship with his two-year-old brother or how both he and Adina were reading in Preschool or how we’re establishing a Biblical foundation that will stick with them for the rest of their lives… I could totally go on… I mean, my niece is getting ready to graduate high school and has never been required to do any kind of library research report… What?! That’s not college prep! Anyway, it always gets them to close their mouths and start thinking ;). I was a teacher, in both public and private school, and there is SO MUCH time wasted in a school day. Imagine if every student had the one-on-one attention that ours are getting or even learning the foundational life lessons ours are carrying into adulthood. Our world would be such a better place. We’d have too many great Presidential candidates to pick just one for each party. LOL! Imagine….