by Julie Helms

Created on: February 10, 2009   Last Updated: November 18, 2010

Attending an annual homeschool conference at a giant convention center is intensely awe-inspiring. As I walk into the convention hall the sights and sounds of hundreds of vendors and hundreds of children fill my senses to overflowing! It is a wonderful feeling to realize that I am not the only one who has made this decision to buck the system and take on the responsibility of my children's education. This is all the more important since I do not have a supportive extended family or a local support group.

So with my newly buoyed confidence I head off to the first of a day full of seminars directed at every conceivable aspect of homeschooling. At the first seminar a woman who is the mother of seven, speaks on organizing your house and your day, while simultaneously educating your children. As I walk away at the end I marvel at how she makes her own bread, volunteers at three or four charities weekly, crosses the country 6 months out of the year giving lectures on this topic, AND still manages to educate her seven children to genius status. I have two children at home and sometimes none of us make it out of our PJs by three in the afternoon and my sink is always full of dishes. The first feeling of doubt begins to wiggle into my mind.

At the next workshop I attend, a lovely 17 year old girl, who has always been homeschooled, confidently and coherently explains the blessing of her home education, how she assists her mom in schooling her siblings whom she loves dearly and that Harvard requested her attendance at their esteemed institution this fall on a full merit scholarship. Hmmm, this morning in our household my younger child screamed bloody murder at the older child while being dragged around by her hair. Apparently if we homeschool long enough this sibling rivalry stuff will disappear and my kids will become smart and go to an Ivy League college.

Then I attend three more workshops through the day that are selling specific curriculums that are the best thing for every child. They sound so well thought out and just perfect, so I buy each curriculum for my children. By the end of one month I shelve all three curriculums because they were totally impractical, hated by the kids or hated by me.

Later in the year we watch the national spelling and geography bees: both won by homeschoolers!

I leaf through my current issue of Homeschooling Today magazine, with its typical cover of a homeschooling family with no fewer than six kids and all the girls in matching dresses

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>