Honey, I am homeschooling the kids

This is going to be a long one, so allow me time travel down the memory lane to the period of our lives where the homeschooling path was not so very clear to us.

Many have asked if we always knew that we would be homeschooling our kids. Not that we didn’t know that or even consider it, it was as far away as anything could be at the point when our oldest was at the age of six (when kids in Denmark start their school year).

Our journey into homeschooling came out of my willingness not to send her to school anymore when she questioned the benefit and the whys behind our decisions (that was not a deliberate ones but more just going with the stream of collective norm). I also came to the point back then, it is now 6 years ago, where I just couldn’t go against my gut feeling and my motherly instincts.

I did that part for too long, I will understand, so with taking our child out of the school system I said no to others and yes to myself.

It felt good. But scary too.

How will we figure this out not knowing one single thing about homeschooling?

We didn’t know other homeschoolers either.

There were so many questions and no answers.

But I started digging. Reading. Listening to the podcasts. Feeding my hunger for more alternative ways - understanding that path I never knew before was now open ahead of me.

My partner and I like to say how I often run a marathon while he is casually walking behind me and eventually we are ending at the same point - me patiently waiting on him and him giving me all the credits for getting him there where I already was way before him.

Taking a leap into homeschooling and then very fast to unschooling, was for me a relief and soon something I will embrace with my whole heart. After a first rocky weeks and then more and more confident dance with all that unschooling is and brings (including deschooling), I was very much convinced that this is our path from now on - no end date.

My husband had a different way of seeing on it. He believed it was a best solution at that given moment until we find a better one - meaning a new school appropriate for all our children.

The more time passed by, more freedom we had and it tasted sweeter, more certain I was this is the right path for us to continue on. But I needed my partner on board with this and that needed a lot of patience. Slowness.

I worked with him while I also worked on my own agenda: showing more and more benefits that homeschooling had on our lives and way our kids were learning and developing.

I needed time. But there was a deadline.

You see, we signed our middle one for an alternative school in Denmark and against all the odds she got a spot the year she was touring 6 (just 1,5 year into our homeschooling).

For those that know our story, also know how that period of time was devastating and hard on a completely different level. And then in the biggest despair to help my partner with his traumatic experiences with a house we bought and renovated (and eventually sold but that is a whole different story) we got an offer to rent our house and travel abroad for 8-10 months.

We took that chance.

Scared and not sure. But still, brave enough to endure on something completely unknown.

3 months before our middle was supposed to start in that school, we traveled out. In the middle of a lockdown and all the global uncertainty, we found our own “because”.

I was sure that universe had a greater plan. And I have promised myself that I will never again live out of fear or take any decisions that builds upon fear.

That was not an easy one to hold onto.

You see, 3 years ago, there is a memory, a big story in our history where my husband and I are standing on the big crossroad (how symbolic) in Zagreb, Croatia having what will become one of the most important arguments in our lives. He was willing to dismiss our travelings and go back to Denmark to send our child and eventually all our children to that school. For him it was life or death decision.

For me too. But in a different way. It was choosing the life of freedom and not acting out of fear or crumbling down to nothingness and continue living the fear by going back.

I cried. I felt like I would either loose my self or my partner and I wasn’t willing to do any of those.

A bit longer from that intersection where we stood and poured our hearts in the public, stood a policeman and I did wonder for a moment if he will come and arrest me as crazy as I acted that day. But you see, us women have our own lioness hidden in the depths of our being and when we most need it, we find the way to wake it up.

The day after that argument I had a call with my therapist and we talked about this happening and fears and wishes and our hearts wisdom and she told me something I will keep reminding myself many times after: “Sometimes there is time in our lives when we hold very important and unique visions for our lives and sometimes we can compromise and find alternative ways, but there are those moments in our lives where those visions are matter of life or death and we hold them tightly and strong no matter what and we keep fighting our fights until we get others (who ever need to see them too) to understand and then hold the same vision with us."

That one was one of those most important visions I have ever had.

It was so big and powerful and already had the life of its own, I just needed to hold onto it.

And I did. I even got to the point where I calculated how much I would have if we got divorced and how I will sustain my and the kids lives.

Lucky it never came to that point.

But it was hard fighting this fight alone for a while. At the end we turned down that “amazing” school and went on our travels that we ended prolonging and at the end chose as a permanent lifestyle.

A half a year after that “crossroad” argument , my husband saw a living evidence that unschooling is the right choice for us. Our Dominican adventure happened and it opened up for so much deniable evidence that we are on the path that is right for us.

But was sealed it mostly was seeing our children healing and thriving - being the humans they are and in they way they are.

This year travels, co-living and all the interactions our kids had - showed a different side of this way: they are the “popular” ones among their friends - not cause they achieved that “status” but because they are themselves - authentic and free to be.

To witness that makes my heart be in peace.

I love them for who they are and now I am pretty sure no one can take that away from them or make them give up on their essence .

Yesterday, I had this moment witnessing one more time how our two youngest can’t sit still for more than couple of minutes. I asked my self multiple times if they would by now had some kind of “label” or a diagnose if we did end sending them to schools? I will never had a sure answer to this, not that I really need it, but I wonder how many kids “out there” are similar to ours and are given their own “box” to fit in just because they are different and can’t sit still like the system asks from them.

There is a great podcast called “Honey I am homeschooling the kids” out there, that gave me the inspiration for the title of this blog post.

And as a reply to that one, my husband said yesterday: “ I am so glad we didn’t send them to school.”

My shoulders are back at their place and so did is my heart- resting peacefully in this acknowledgment.