Telling people

Last Christmas I screwed up my courage and told first my dad and then my mom that we are planning to home school by next fall. My gathering of courage was because both my parents were/are teachers at heart - my mom and her mom were/are public school teachers who have had great impact on their children and students. I was relieved and impressed with my parents' responses to our carefully-researched and prayed-over decision.

I have told a handful of other people since then, with mixed results. One retired school teacher friend of mine took time to ask me why and allowed me to explain our reasons. When I finished she was very positive about it and I asked her to be a teacher-mentor to me. But just today I told one of my sisters and her response was as I expect others to be - challenging our reasons and decision.

We did not make this decision quickly or off-the-cuff. My husband and I do not approach major decisions without a great deal of prayer, research, and discussion. And we do not make major decisions quickly. Home educating our children was not even on my radar a year ago, so this has been a long discernment process for me and a total paradigm shift. But we are responsible for raising up our children in the ways they should go and we believe that this is the right choice for our family at this time.

There are people I've been cautious about mentioning this discernment process to because I was (am) afraid of what the decision may do to our relationships. I have dearly loved friends that may stridently disagree with the decision. I love these friends and I do not want to jeopardize our friendships. I hope that if they will consider our reasoning they will (at least) "agree to disagree" or even support us in whatever way they can.