Ok But How the Heck Do You Homeschool If...
I feel like, if I have one, singular role in the homeschool community it’s this: to reassure every single parent out there who wants to explore alternative options for their children’s education that no, you do not have to be a wealthy, full-time stay home parent with a breadwinner spouse and a teaching degree to homeschool your kids. This is... honestly something that comes up in my conversations (both online and in real life, back when that was a thing) with alarming frequency amongst parents that are curious about homeschooling.
So here I am, your favorite homeschool mom here today, ready to lay all my cards out on the table and let you in on all the secrets to HOW, I, 100% the exact opposite of what you pictured when you read the words “homeschool mom” am actually doing this.
Now, I feel the urgent need to put a big, fat disclaimer above everything I am about to say after this: This is how I am able to homeschool, shared with the hopes of encouraging others to think outside the box and feel more confident in tailoring homeschooling to their unique family needs. This is, by no means, a post of me telling you how you have to homeschool or any kind of implication that my way is the only way or that it’s guaranteed to work for you. I may be a 2nd generation homeschooler but am also a 2nd generation Libra who wants to be very clear that while I acknowledge that homeschooling may not be the best fit for every family, it CAN very well be a great fit for far more “kinds” of families than one might assume.
With all of that said, Victoria, how the heck do you homeschool if...
YOUR’E SINGLE
I’m coming right out of the gates with the elephant in the room. Yes, I’m a single mom. It is just me and my offspring in this apartment day in and day out and I do not have any kind of regular childcare, although for pandemic reasons, I haven’t had much need for it. I’m just killing it juggling everything all by my lonesome. Ok that was a bit of a misrepresentation. The kids actually go to their dads house every other weekend and some holiday breaks, which means I structure a lot of my work and errand time into those weekends so that I have the time to be present with the kids’ schooling.
YOUR’E POOR
I hope I was clear with that first one but in case I wasn’t, being single means I do not have a breadwinner spouse. Because I was a full time stay at home mom before my divorce, my income is pretty limited. Less than a year ago I was on welfare, and these days I’m comfortably scraping by on a combination of child support, income from my jewelry brand, food stamps, and pandemic unemployment on the weeks I don’t make too much money selling jewelry. So you may ask yourself, “Victoria, I have heard all my life that schoolbooks are exorbitantly expensive how do you afford this?” and my answer is, 1. They’re really not but that’s my privilege of having BEEN homeschooled and knowing a bit more about how to look for and plan out curriculum, and 2. We are in a homeschool charter which, in exchange for monthly teacher meetings and keeping our official records through them (which I wasn’t about to do on my own anyway), provides a substantial amount of educational funding per child which I can use at my discretion for approved books, supplies, enrichment, and almost any other homeschool accoutrement you can imagine (except, specifically, bees. I don’t know who was buying bees with the homeschool charter money but it had to be someone because it’s in the rules twice that we can’t buy bees and I need to know what happened with bees that that is an official policy).
YOU WORK
I’m sure you noticed in that previous paragraph that I specifically mentioned owning a jewelry brand. So, while I DO work, I don’t have a rigid schedule and I don’t have to leave my house/kids unless I go to sell at a craft market (which I generally schedule on weekends I don’t have my kids in the first place). This allows me to have a chunk of time in the day that’s specifically for homeschooling, and a separate, more flexible chunk of time that I can devote to work tasks (I’ve also developed a weekly rhythm in which certain tasks like posting new items, packing orders and going to the post office happen on the same day every week so it’s easy for the kids to follow).
I’m also just, extremely fortunate in the specific kids I have and what ages they are. My oldest reads at like, an adult level and pretty much never stops so I don’t worry too much about whether or not she’s learning, my youngest is in Kindergarten so his “official” school day is super short and he mainly learns through play and copying anyway, and also both of them are old enough to not need constant involvement but young enough they still play together.
YOU’RE NOT A TRAINED TEACHER
Look, I didn’t even finish my BFA. From the outside, I am by no means “qualified” to educate anyones children. HOWEVER. Qualified is in quotes because, and this is I think the biggest misconception that people have about homeschooling that I really want to clear up here, I am not teaching my kids from scratch only using tools and information that I already know. I, and most other homeschoolers that I’ve ever met (which is a lot seeing as I grew up in a church where basically everyone homeschooled) in the 20-ish years that I either was homeschooled or was homeschooling, use curriculum that is already made by experts in that specific field and have additional resources at my disposal to help both myself and the kids understand anything we run into that’s giving us a challenge.
Another thing is that, in general homeschoolers are rarely working in a vacuum. Because of the aforementioned charter school, have an assigned homeschool teacher for support, accountability, and referrals to additional services (like speech for my kid that stutters). We’re also in a co-op with other families who can support each other with advice and curriculum recommendations.
YOU DON’T EVEN OWN ONE SINGLE LONG DENIM SKIRT
Ok I’m a little bit joking about this one but... if you know you know.
- Victoria AKA “Homeschool Mom”
