Dear Mom,
You never sent me to preschool, but I learned my ABCs and 123s. I never enrolled in kindergarten, but I learned colors and shapes. I never attended elementary school or middle school, but I learned so much more than anyone could have ever taught me because no one loved me like you.
This week Newsweek came out with an article about parents who are choosing to home-educate their children. It was interesting to see two highly educated parents discuss why they have opted to not send their children to a formal school environment. The article was fascinating, but the entire time I couldn’t thinking about you. You, wonderful you, who sacrificed your life for me and your four other spawn.
People would ask me as a child—and even as an adult—what I learned and who taught me during my seven years of home-education. The truth is many voices spoke into my life to teach me skills for living, but none as pronounced as yours.
You taught me skills for life and being alive. Skills for navigating the world. To cover my mouth when I sneezed, say thank you when given a gift, and to think of others more highly than myself. You taught me deference, not difference. Love, not hate. Joy, not sorrow.
You taught me to be creative and make my own crayons, sandwiches, and plays. You instilled in me the value of knowing truth rather and regurgitating answers, wisdom over knowledge. You let me write stories with misspelled words and grammatical errors while applauding my plot line and character development.
You fought for us to have a normal childhood with science labs and dissections [remember when you forced us to dissect a frog? I still haven't forgiven you for that!], and theater and poetry, and art and literature, and soccer and tennis, and play-dates and vacation bible school.
When people asked me as a child if I was socialized or if I had a hard time talking to other kids, I found their logic comical because if I had engaged in a 20 minutes discussion with them on the benefits of engaging with my peers, I doubt they should have been concerned with my social skills. And just in case they doubted my educational development or normalcy, I ensured to use big words and make eye-contact to prove that—I, indeed—was exceptional. I knew who New Kids On The Block AND the apostles were. I could sing the lyrics to MC Hammer’s Can’t Touch This AND classical hymns. I wasn’t just socially capable, I was a renaissance woman, thanks to you!
People want to view homeschoolers as odd because it’s easier to classify us this way. But we, like our educational instruction and classification, cannot be defined by a box or a test or a blue book. I loved baking bread with you and discussing measurements as my requirement for mathematics. Or learning about chemical reactions in our backyard with Dad and a random science experiment book. Or discovering that the world was so much bigger than Meeker Avenue or California. That the world consisted of broken people who needed more than a desk and teacher… they needed love.
I never thanked you for all you gave up for me. The fits of hysteria when Jasmine and I would fight in the kitchen, the hiding of math books to get out of homework, the rolling of the eyes and the badttitudes. Yeah, I haven’t said thank you for all you gave up for me.
People wonder if homeschooling creates socially inept, intellectually stunted, religious bigots. I’m proud to say that I’m 85% normal, can hold on a conversation with someone with impeccable eye-contact, and believe that Jesus is the hope of the world… not just the good ol’ USofA.
Though my GPA in graduate school was a 4.0, I never felt like I had more potential than when I sat with you as you taught me how to read on our light pink couch. Thank you for sacrificing your life, your dreams, your goals… for me.
I love you more than tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches,
Bibee
