I almost hyperventilated tonight. Except no one noticed it but me.
I had a memory pop into my mind of my elementary school years. I was in music class in the third grade on the stage in the cafeteria/auditorium with the accordion divider pulled shut to form a classroom, and my class was singing posada Christmas music, in preparation for some school concert, I’m sure. I could smell the room and the furniture, and the other students in their sweaters, and the heater coming from the vents, because even in Houston, after all - it WAS fall.
My adult self was transported back to the couch, where I sat, rocking back and forth in my mind from the memory, and wondering if I was somehow cheating Mary Judah out of certain experiences because I have chosen to homeschool her.
It’s incredibly amazing how much guilt one can rack oneself with at the mere thought of not doing right by one’s child. Of somehow managing to completely screw up one’s children because of choices one made for them as a parent.
I wondered if I am ruining Mary Judah’s life because I have not put her in public school with most of her peers. Is this a selfish choice I have made? Perhaps this is brought to the forefront of my mind because today is the last. official. day. to register one’s private school with the state, and my paperwork has been filed, received, and printed for my own record-keeping. We are officially, official Homeschoolers, with a capital “H.”
Perhaps I have these thoughts because being officially official scares the living shit out of me. I never planned on making this choice. I never planned on being so committed to this. I said I would never do this.
Never say never, obviously.
But as for ruining my child…
I had a pretty good childhood, overall. Really. It had its moments of playground torture, but for the most part, I received a good education, had loving parents who looked out for my best interests, had good teachers, a radius of family members, a safe neighborhood, a traditional church environment, and - let’s be honest - a solid, suburban, middle-class upbringing. I don’t remember having lived in a house my parents did not own, ever (we moved once, my entire childhood).
And I don’t regret that at all.
But the reality is that that is not the path I have laid out for my children. We live in an incredibly urban environment, separated from family by drastic measures, we participate in house church and global community, have moved seven times in seven years and always rented, and I have rejected, in one way or another, the way I was brought up. Let me be clear: I have not rejected them out of spite or rebellion, but I have rejected them by means of having not chosen them for the way I live my adult life and raise my children; by means of having chosen something different.
This does not mean that I turn my back on how I was raised, but simply that I am not raising my children the same way; in the same environment.
I must remember this when I am tempted to think that I am failing my children. I am not failing them. I am choosing a different path - not one how I was raised, but one how I choose to raise my own. And I must trust that I am doing what is right by them, and what is right by me.