Monthly Archives: June 2013

Promise Walk 2013: The Good, the Bad, and the Hopeful

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I’m home from the Promise Walk. I want to get all my thoughts down now so I can do something on it during the announcements in church next week so I guess I’ll do my normal method of post-mortem on this event.

The Good
[+] A good weekend with my parents.
[+] Getting to have coffee with Rebecca.
[+] Perfect weather — it was cloudy which meant that the morning was cool.
[+] Excellent speakers. The mission family was one who had lost a baby at 35 weeks. The doctor who came to speak was excellent. He referenced the Downton Abbey episode where Sybil dies of eclampsia and talked about the changes in the last 100 years.
[+] A chance to go walk on the creek trail where we used to walk in high school and where my parents found their Maine Coon cat.
[+] A decent shirt this year.

The Bad
[+] Being woefully out of shape due to being sick for so long.
[+] Blisters from my shoes.
[+] My legs and back are killing me.
[+] Poison oak along the trail.
[+] The kid who crashed his bike into the back of my leg… and didn’t apologize. (His mom did but he didn’t.)

The Hopeful
[+] Raising almost $20,000 which can fund a study on preeclampsia.

7 Quick Takes: How Many Controversial Things Can I Say This Week, Promise Walk Sponsorships, and Grumping About Basketball

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

o.O I will readily admit that I had never pondered the theological powers of Superman before. The questions posed by Cari’s oldest son sound like the question from teaching Confirmation about whether or not God could create a boulder so big that He couldn’t lift it Himself. For the record, I’m with Lotus — Jesus is stronger than Superman.

— 2 —

The “Why I Am Not Homeschooling Daniel” post series. Post #1 started some good discussion and brought a few trolls to the blog. Post #2 served as some kind of explanation. Post #3 was all about my reasons for not homeschooling him. I’m also inviting people to email and tell me succinctly (75 words or less) what decision you made (public/private/parochial/homeschool) and why you made it so that we can crowdsource some ideas for Bonnie. Email me by Wednesday of next week (the email address is jen @ this domain) and I’ll print all the things that fit. **UPDATE** Someone just emailed me to tell me that Elena rebutted what I had to say to her. In the interest of fairness, I’m linking the rebuttal here. I still stand by everything I said 100% but I also would rather let y’all see what she has to say and let you draw your own conclusions.

— 3 —

More obsessing about food. Actually, it isn’t really obsessing as much as it’s reporting that if I eat in such a fashion as to not irritate the ulcers (which may have healed by now), my IBS symptoms go away. If I eat one thing on the forbidden list, I return to IBS hell. I haven’t had any Coke in almost a month and I still miss it even though I’ve found some alternatives that have less of a carb load and aren’t going to corrode my insides. I haven’t checked to see if I have celiac issues yet, mostly because I’m already having to limit my diet and I’m trying not to do too much at once. I’ll be with my parents this weekend and they have a scale so I’ll see if I’ve actually lost any weight at that point.

— 4 —

Orphans. Do you see these three adorable munchkins?

First row: Brett and Iris.
Second row: Kaia.

BrettIrisKaia

Brett still needs a mama. Iris finally has a family committed to her. Kaia has a family committed to her who will be traveling to her country at the end of July to meet her on July 26th! Click on their names to see their Reece’s Rainbow pages.

— 5 —

Hmph. Wipeout! was pre-empted by some stupid basketball game. NBA basketball is overrated and I say this even coming from a city that just fought tooth-and-claw to keep their team.

— 6 —

*facepalm* Could I ask a favor of the Catholic blogosphere? Could you please actually *READ* a news story in its entirety and not look for random soundbites to use as evidence that Obama is Satan? The FULL TEXT of the quote that everyone got so flipped out about yesterday is…

If towns remain divided ?? if Catholics have their schools and buildings, and Protestants have theirs, if we can’t see ourselves in one another, if fear or resentment are allowed to harden ?? that too encourages division. It discourages cooperation. (Source)

The word “theirs” in the phrase “Protestants have theirs” replaces “their schools and buildings”. He is referring to the fact that in most places, Catholics and Protestants live in separate neighborhoods divided by “peace lines” — barricades made of bricks, steel, and barbed wire. (I actually saw these in Belfast when I was there in 1998.) He is not calling for an end to Catholic education in general in either Northern Ireland or in the USA — he is calling for Catholics to integrate with Protestants for the purposes of working for peace the same way whites had to integrate with blacks in this country 50 years ago. Mining articles like that for soundbites is juvenile and shows an inability to play well with others, so can y’all please behave in a Christ-like fashion? I refrained from mining stories for Romney soundbites during the last election and I know y’all can do the same regarding Obama.

— 7 —

Promise Walk for Preeclampsia. Wanna sponsor me in the Promise Walk this weekend? Preeclampsia affects 1 in 8 pregnancies in some fashion and 1/5 of affected women lose their babies because the only cure is to deliver the baby, regardless of how premature they are. I’m blessed in that I had a doctor who caught it in time and got me transferred to the BIG hospital in Great Falls where my awesome high-risk specialist could do an emergency c-section and where there was a Level III NICU for Daniel. If you can’t sponsor me, please at least keep me and the other participants in prayer on Sunday morning.

Daniel and I at the 2012 Promise Walk.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

Why I Am Not Homeschooling Daniel (III): My Reasons

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Bonnie of A Knotted Life left this comment on last week’s Quick Takes:

I would love to read that homeschooling post. I had a great public school experience, we live in a good district, I see a lot of perks to homeschooling, and I??m very drawn to the nearest parochial school. The way I see it, there??s someone waiting to guilt me no matter what decision I make for my kids?? education, which is especially difficult because there are great benefits for all three of my choices and the negatives all are of about the same weight.

I think it would be cool if we could kind of crowdsource an answer for Bonnie. If you are so inclined, please email me (jen at grace-filled dot net) and in less than 75 words, tell me which one you picked (public/private/parochial/homeschool) and why you made that decision or why you would make that decision if you either don’t have kids or haven’t had to decide yet. I’ll run all the submissions fit to print next Wednesday. Sound like a plan?

Onto *MY* decision and my reasons for making it.

If you didn’t already know, Daniel was a preemie and has global developmental delays as a result. In November of 2011, our Regional Center worker was doing her 6 month check-in with us and asked us if it had been suggested that he was autistic. I said “no” and she suggested that we get him tested, saying that the Regional Center would pay for the test. Fast forward to January 3, 2012 at a developmental pediatrics consult with the MIND Institute and the team came in and told me that Daniel was very clearly autistic and if we didn’t already have a test scheduled, they’d be having us come back so they could administer the ADOS. A week later, a psychologist contracting with the Regional Center administered the ADOS and formally diagnosed Daniel as being mild to moderately autistic. (For those whose kids are suspected of being autistic, I just want to warn you that the test takes around 4-5 hours and they don’t want you to interact with your kid so bring a book or two.)

In California, per the Lanterman Act, the school district assumes responsibility of any child receiving services at the Regional Center once they hit their third birthday. I met with one of the school psychologists in early January 2012 and we talked through what the process would be. They did their own evaluations and I signed a bunch of releases for Daniel’s pediatrician, the Regional Center, and Easter Seals to give reports. We met for Daniel’s IEP (individualized education plan) meeting in late March and were given three options: the autism class at the preschool, the special needs class at the preschool, or just receiving speech and possibly occupational therapy through the school district while either homeschooling or putting him in a private preschool.

Our decision: The autism class at the preschool.

Why did we decide this?

[+] I am not patient enough to homeschool Daniel. Usually, people just laugh when I say that and say something about how I must be kidding because they’ve seen me with Daniel. Yeah, the patience I have with Daniel is an acquired skill. It is not my nature, to which my husband Jon and anyone who has ever had to live with me can attest. When I want something, I want it NOW. Not in five minutes. NOW. Kids like him tend to take their time with milestones and because he isn’t verbal yet, I would have a really hard time in figuring out if he actually understood a concept like the color green and it would drive me crazy not to be able to figure this out. Also, take your worst day with your kids throwing a tantrum and that’s a normal day of summer vacation/Spring Break/Christmas vacation for us because Daniel has communication tantrums. Last week, I had a number of days where I was curled up in a fetal position by 3:00 p.m. with “Winnie the Pooh” playing on the DVD player because I had been screamed at for so many hours straight. The tantrums have gotten better as I’ve taken him by the hand and gently led him over to his PECS book, asking him to please point to what he needs and then cheerfully offering to get it for him. (This is taking every ounce of self-control I have.)

[+] I hate being a housewife and stay-at-home mom. Note: I do not hate being a mom. What I hate is not being able to work outside the home and contribute to the finances. I loved my job in Montana so much that I went back as soon as they could medically clear me after I had Daniel. (I was supposed to be off for 6 weeks minimum and I think I went back after 5 1/2.) When my maternity leave was up, Jon and I worked our schedules so one of us could be home with him while the other was working and we had back-up people if that couldn’t happen. When we moved up here, my plan was to go back to school to be a respiratory therapist or a nurse once Daniel was in school. (That plan has been altered by the circumstances.) I would be horribly depressed (or even more horribly depressed than usual) if I was always home doing school with Daniel and he would likely be miserable because he’d be around a mom who was not her best self. Yes, there would be field trips and all that but that wouldn’t be every day. It’s necessary for me to be home right now just with everything that has to be juggled for Daniel’s care but it isn’t my preference.

[+] I don’t have the education or skills necessary to give Daniel the best education. My mother-in-law homeschooled my husband and his sister 30 years ago when it was the weird hippie thing to do. She had to pretty much invent her own curriculum and patch together whatever she could find. Today, there are hundreds of resources, curricula, and even online charter schools so I could pretty much buy something pre-packaged and use it. That isn’t my issue. I don’t have a bachelor’s degree in human development or early childhood education, a master’s degree in Occupational Therapy/Speech Language Pathology/Behavioral Sciences or a Doctorate in Physical Therapy. I would need all those things to adequately teach Daniel because his learning processes are completely different than they would be for a typically-developing child. While I’ve had a little bit of training in Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA for short — it’s the methodology used in Daniel’s autism preschool class), it’s only enough to reinforce what he’s learning from school or his one-on-one therapies that start next week. His preschool teacher is beyond wonderful and all the aides in his class are ABA-trained. He has access to speech during his school day instead of separately and I seriously don’t miss being there for speech therapy — it was the most aggravating hour of my week!

[+] It isn’t a necessity for us to homeschool him. If we lived in a place where the schools were abysmal or we morally objected to what Daniel was being taught, it would be a consideration. Our public schools are fairly good, the local preschool with Daniel’s class is on the next block, Daniel is thriving in his class, and I have no moral objections to the curriculum being taught. (Yes, I do live in California where they actually do mention great historical figures who were gay but I really couldn’t care less about that.) With preschool, they aren’t learning anything incredibly controversial and once he gets into grade school, we’ll keep tabs on what is going on in his classroom. I’m married to a pastor and Daniel has one of the largest collections of Bible story books known to man — I think we can manage to pass on our faith and our values. If there’s something morally objectionable being taught in one of his classes, we’ll deal with it at that point.

So anyway, that’s why I don’t homeschool Daniel. This post didn’t come totally out of feeling judged or anything — it was a random post seed that came into being with last week being really difficult.

Five Favorites: Miscellanea (VII)

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Five Favorites

One

The Promise Walk for Preeclampsia. I’m walking on Sunday the 23rd in the Promise Walk for Preeclampsia in San Jose this weekend. I’m a HELLP Syndrome survivor (HELLP Syndrome being a nasty variant of preeclampsia) and Daniel was born at 29.5 weeks because they had to perform an emergency c-section to save both of our lives. I’m all in favor of other mamas not ending up with their lives threatened by preeclampsia or losing their babies because doctors have to deliver the baby to save the mother. If you’d like to sponsor me, click here.

Two

Trader Joe’s “Hold the Cone” Ice Cream Cones. Think of these as mini Drumsticks. I inhaled a box of them yesterday, 7/8 of it in one sitting. Can we just say that I was menstrual and leave it at that?

The empty box.

Three

Subway. They have a nutritional app on their website where you can effectively build your sandwich and it will tell you the calories and nutritional information. This is great if you’re having to enter everything you’re eating on a site like FitDay because you’re trying to keep your calories down below a certain level. Of course, it might actually help if I owned a scale so I could see if there has been any weight lost but I figure that I’ll end up seeing my doctor soon for something anyway and will find out if I’m doing any good at that point.

Four

Mani-Pedis. I got a pedicure last Friday and my pedicurist talked me into letting her do gel nails on my hands. This is me we’re talking about so my toenails are a light sparkly pink and my fingernails are a slightly lighter pink. My nail diva is awesome and did some freehand designs on my big toes, my thumbnails, and my ring fingers. I am blown away at how pretty my nails look. I know the polishes and gels are OPI but I have no idea what the numbers or names of each of the shades are.

Five

Last week’s episode of “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me”. They had Buzz Aldrin on as their “Not My Job” guest and he had to answer three questions on “mooning”. I learned more about it than I think I intended to… EVER. Their “Bluff the Listener” game was on cats and it was fun to listen to while I typed this and obsessed about the fact that my Internet is down. 🙂 Oh yes… I also loved when they were doing the “Listener Limerick Challenge” and Faith asked the pastor who called in if she cursed. (The answer: yes.)

Go love up Hallie and the others.

52 Weeks of Blogging with a Purpose: Who Am I?

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Because I totally need another meme to help me post, right? 🙂 I’ll be joining Becky’s new “Blogging with a Purpose” link-up.

The topic this week is “Who Am I” and it brings the Casting Crown’s song to mind.

The last line, “I am Yours” is especially significant to me because of my identity as a child of God, one redeemed from sin by the Precious Blood of Jesus. God loved me so much that He sent His Son to die for me so that I could enjoy life with Him. This is amazing beyond words.

In addition to being a child of the living God, I am also…

-a mother
-a wife
-a daughter
-a blogger
-a reader
-a computer geek
-a HELLP Syndrome survivor
-a lover of baroque sacred music
-a singer
-a pianist
-a scholar of religions and Biblical languages
-an advocate for orphans
-a Trader Joe’s addict
-a cat slave
-a CBS junkie, especially relating to NCIS, The Big Bang Theory, and CSI

All these things contribute to who I am but not one of these things is solely the totality of me.

Why I Am Not Homeschooling Daniel (II): About That Last Entry…

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For all those who are engaging in discussion on the first post in this series, right on! I’ve appreciated what almost all of you have to say. There has been one person whose comments have been marked as spam and then I.P. banned for spamming me but that’s been it. I’ve been impressed that the discussion has been civil and I don’t know if y’all know how much I appreciate that.

Of all the people who have commented, the only two I specifically asked for feedback are Sara of A Shower of Roses and my friend Crystal. Sara has homeschooled/is homeschooling all 6 of her kids up until high school. She seems to have seriously found something that works for her family and which I thought people might appreciate knowing about. Crystal was educated in California public schools from K-college and teaches English at a private Catholic school. I figured that she could talk about curriculum and how decisions are made.

“Zelie Martin” raises the point that Elena isn’t here to refute what I’ve said. The reason for this is that she was I.P. banned last Friday for leaving me a really hateful comment here that went into moderation. I don’t tolerate drama in my combox and while I’m fine with people disagreeing with me, I have zero tolerance for people attacking me personally. Additionally, a friend of mine from college attempted to refute Elena on that entry over at her blog and had her comment deleted. (I personally went over and checked. Katia commented twice and only one comment is there.)

The commenter “Zelie Martin” (whose username is profaning the name of Bl. Zélie Martin, mother of St. Thérèse of Lisieux) went over and attacked my friend Katia, mentioning me as the cause. Her comment has now been marked as spam and she has been I.P. banned. Seriously? Drama is not necessary.

Tomorrow, I’ll post my personal reasons for not homeschooling my son Daniel.

Why I Am Not Homeschooling Daniel (I): The Post That Triggered This

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I will readily admit that I am a snarky evil wench and Elena pushes buttons in me that are pretty hard to push. This post (which I’m refuting below) is what triggered the whole “why I’m not homeschooling Daniel” post seed. If you choose to click over and discuss this with her, pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease be civil and do not pick a fight. As she said in her Simple Woman Daybook post this week, she “[has] a tendency to hold a grudge and to ruminate over things” so please don’t piss her off.

Onto my refutation!

I have two kids in homeschool high school, and one kid about to leave eighth grade. I also have two sons who have graduated high school, one from my homeschool and one from a local digital school after being homeschooled for eight years.

When I attend homeschool high school events, I discover that many, many of the student participants ARE NOT HOMESCHOOLED ANY MORE!! They were at one time and they have made many homeschooled friends, but they are now either attending a public or private school or doing their school work through a government funded digital school online, which means they have to follow the rules of the state of Ohio for their education and degree.

My children are keenly aware of this.

Sometimes their parents put them back in school because the parents were afraid that they wouldn’t be able to teach high school. Sometimes they put them back in because the parents thought there were better opportunities for their children in the institution of school. Many times they put them in because they want to play sports. I know one mom who has her daughter in a school that will give her an associate degree when she’s done with high school.

OK… she’s laying out the reasons here for why some of the homeschooled kids went into regular high schools. Nothing here to refute.

But what I never hear from these parents is what they gave up to put the students into regular school after homeschooling. And having done both and after comparing and contrasting the results, I think what is given up is worth at least considering!

Am I sensing a bit of a grumpy temperament here?

1. You’re breaking up the family. Literally. The best parts of the day the regular schooled students will be away form his or her parents and siblings. And yes I realize the rest of the society already does this and accepts it as normal. But if you’ve been homeschooling it might be a bit of a shock. No longer will the opinions of the parents and relationships with siblings be the most important part of the high school student’s life. Teachers will also get a say and have sway. And so will peers. Having and keeping “friends” will be more important than keeping up relationships with parents and being with siblings. It’s just part of the price.

I honestly would not agree that my mornings are the best part of the day — I’m not a morning person and would be positively bitey if I had to deal with schooling my kids then. Sports and such usually happen in the afternoon so that would be out. Truthfully, I miss working outside the home so I’d be pretty miserable if I was home from 8-3.

This also assumes that it is impossible to have family time with both parents working and the kids in school. The good parents I know *MAKE* the time. It means that certain activities don’t happen and certain nights are non-negotiable family nights. I know families that actually *gasp* sit around the table and eat dinner and take turns talking about each other’s days.

As for the opinions of parents and relationships with siblings suffering, that’s fear-mongering at best. I was in private school for elementary school and public school for middle school, high school, and attended a public college. I always respected my parents’ opinions even if I may have disagreed. My relationship with my evil twin was actually *better* when we weren’t in the same classes and in college when we saw each other monthly. Yes, teachers get a say in things but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the teacher becomes the ultimate authority. Ditto with friends. Having and keeping friends never replaced my family. EVER.

I know Sara of A Shower of Roses manages this pretty well. Sara, could you please share your secrets in the comments?

2. Mom and Dad will no longer control the curriculum. Oh, there can be meetings with the teachers and principal and maybe there will be attempts to sway the school board from time to time if things get too out of hand, but for the most part, you won’t know what’s in the novels that are assigned (because for the most part, they won’t be classics that you’re familiar with!) and you won’t know what’s being presented in class that’s NOT on the syllabus.

Yeah… this is pretty suspect because it’s a pain to cover the material that *IS* on the syllabus, especially as teachers now have to “teach to the test”. Anything not on the syllabus usually isn’t covered. As for the novels, I’ve checked with my English teacher friends and they’re more than happy to have you read the same books that your kids are reading in class — heck, I actually read a couple of the books on my own years before I encountered them in any of my classes. (I taught myself to read when I was three. I read graphic novels of some of the classics on my own in elementary school and read others because I heard them mentioned in books and was curious.)

Regarding curriculum, any high school worth its salt will show you their curriculum and how it measures up to state standards and the standards of the various public universities. In California, my school showed the graduation requirements next to the entrance requirements for the CSU and UC schools. If you want your kids to have any kind of post-secondary education, you need to follow those guidelines. This doesn’t mean that you can’t teach your kids about something like woodworking, auto repair, music appreciation, or cooking outside of their school day. Lots of parents do. It’s called “spending quality time with your kids”.

One of my friends was buying a book for her daughter that she needed for a literature class. While waiting in line, she opened the book and started reading about a pretty explicit sex act! She had no clue something like that was going to be covered in class at this particular Catholic School.

I’m mentally going through the list of books that I read in my English classes that didn’t have some kind of sexual subject matter in them. Shakespeare is chock full of sexual references and we encountered the subject numerous times in my junior honors English classes and AP English. Sex is part of life. Did we focus on the sex? No. Was it in context? Yes. I can name a few books where I don’t remember anything sexual (Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn come to mind) but if you’re going to read American literature, you’ll find it.

But more importantly, if the student comes to something in his or her studies that they find fascinating, there won’t be any time or inclination to study it in depth and even if there is, there won’t be any credit for it! at least not in this class. What the school, teachers and school board feels is important is what will be presented for study. Everything else will fall by the wayside.

This is where I seriously call “bull feces!” The Internet didn’t really become a thing until my junior year of high school and yet I found lots of time to pursue my own interests through Girl Scouts, reading anything and everything I could get my hands on, checking out piles of books from the library… I knew more about geography and world politics as a 5th grader than some adults do because I was fascinated by countries and cultures. I had pen pals from all over the world and I explored my interest in Broadway musicals through piano and choir. When I got Internet access, I stumbled across Celtic Christianity… and met my husband Jon because he had a webpage on it on his student site at St. Olaf.

Anyone want to tell me that it’s impossible to explore one’s interests now?

3. Lots of parents give up because they think they can’t teach this that or the other thing. Well news flash – there are teachers in schools that can’t teach them either. I still remember Mr. Ball, my 9th grade religion teacher that made discussions of theology so dull and boring that I didn’t want to take up the topic again until I was in my early 30s. Then there was Mr. Drum the math teacher – not so affectionately known as Mr. Hum Drum. But my favorite of the unfavorites was a science teacher with a Ph.D. behind his name that giggled when he was trying to explain to me about fruit flies mating and passing on genetics. Seriously. And I’ll bet if most of these parents who are so willing to pass on the task of teaching thought back, they could think of some not so stellar performances from their academic background as well. It’s not like we’re homeschooling back in the 80’s! If you need help teaching a subject, there are plenty of ways to find help! This is one of the lamest of excuses these days.

We’ve all had crappy teachers. I didn’t love chemistry until I took it in college and I think that I would have loved it if I’d had a certain chemistry teacher in high school instead of the loser that taught me. Ditto with geometry. However, I had some teachers in high school (my teacher for Algebra 1 and 2) who was passionate about making sure her students learned and who would meet with kids before school, during T period, and after school if they needed help. I was a peer tutor in my high school and tutored a number of subjects. Yeah, there are stupid teachers but there are also teachers that LOVE their subject so much that their students learn.

4. Passing on morals and values. My 9th grade son and 8th grade daughter do not know what twerking is. I’d like to leave it that way.

I actually had to go onto Facebook and ask what this was. (Thanks to Paula linking a video of it, I now have the desire to pour bleach on my eyes.) According to my teacher friends (both parochial and public schools), it is verboten at dances and at some schools, it will cause you to be suspended. And seriously, how are you going to keep them from finding out? Lock them in an ivory tower until they turn 30? If they do any kind of post-secondary education, the term will come up. Why not explain now why it is unacceptable behavior?

They also know what the church teaches about sexuality and marriage, something even their Catholic high school counterparts seem a bit shaky on. Which is not to say that they’ll always stay on the right path, but if they veer off it will be a conscience decision and not a straying due to ignorance.

I’m pretty sure my LifeTeen leader friends are pretty clear with their kids on what the Church teaches regarding sexuality and marriage. (Actually, I *KNOW* they do. I’ve seen videos of their talks on this.) There’s this entire thing called “Theology of the Body” and I have friends who specifically study it and teach it. Again, is she planning to cloister her kids until age 30?

5. You won’t reap the values of all of your hard work to date. The hard part of homeschooling is getting these kids to read, write and get to grade level in math. The rest of it is cake. But we get these kids to master the mechanics of reading and English Grammar, and then we pass them off to someone else to reap the benefits!!

Wow… so my brother learning math and being able to calculate area/volume to build raised beds for my mom’s garden doesn’t count? My brother composing an entire impromptu speech on the color blue for his “Communications” merit badge is irrelevant? My mom proof-reading my “Project B” (a 30+ page research paper for AP US History) on “The Scopes Trial and the Debate over Creation and Evolution Teaching in America” was minor?

Why?

After all of these years we can finally read the great books and delve into them for analysis and discussions with our own children! Our kids can finally write something that is actually interesting!! and the science and math are actually challenging! Why on earth should I let someone else get my students when it’s finally getting to be less of a chore and more of a pleasure? It’s like being in a two man relay and letting someone else finish the winning lap and get all the glory. Nope. I’ve enjoyed crying through Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Call of the Wild and next year I can’t wait to do Shakespeare and read my kid’s research papers. I’m invested in the curriculum financially, intellectually, spiritually and emotionally – a lot more than I would be if I was just waiting for grades to come out a few times a year.

By the way, The Call of the Wild is on the 7th grade required list in California. You might want to reconsider your comments on “getting your kids to grade level”. I’m also a bit amazed that your kids haven’t done Shakespeare yet as we were doing that in 7th grade at my middle school and Greek tragedies in 6th grade. Did I mention that my parents had read the plays before and could actually discuss them with us? Did I mention that I’ve read a few works like The Little Prince and The Stranger (Camus) in both English and French because of my crappy California public school education?

I’d also assert that my parents were quite invested in my schoolwork and it wasn’t just about grades that came out every 6 weeks. My dad helped me with my trig homework and my mom proofed my English papers. My dad was forced to learn some French because my evil twin and I would have conversations in it when we were out with him. 🙂 (This led to some really interesting adventures.) My mom went over our resumés in Social Studies with a fine-toothed comb and talked me through some of the personal statements I had to write for college applications

And that’s what I would give up if I gave up homeschooling for the high school years.

Yeah… I think I’ve made the point that my parents didn’t lose out on any of this. 🙂

**NOTE: I AM NOT SAYING THAT YOU SHOULD NOT HOMESCHOOL YOUR KIDS THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL. THAT IS YOUR DECISION TO MAKE. THE POINT OF THIS ENTRY WAS TO POINT OUT FALLACIES IN HER ARGUMENTS**