[M.M.14] professional fence sitter.

Welcome back to Monday Mamalogues!

'Linking up to share the beauty and breakdowns of motherhood'.

 Today I'm just going to 'put it out there'...as I've been hesitant to write on this topic for about, oh, two years now.

Because it's a daunting topic to me.

Because there's pros/cons to both sides of it's debate.. and passionate contenders on each end.

Because I'm still stuck right in the middle... the fence sitter expert now.

 Soooo:

To homeschool, or not to homeschool.

That is the question.

See?  The very issue already has those familiar buzz words likely coming to mind?

'socialization vs. isolation, education vs. indoctrination...'

Let me first say that I don't think there is only one right answer here.

Each family makes their decisions based on their convictions, I respect that.

I'm just trying to lay out our concerns/goals/hopes about this issue.

I've avoided it.

Stalling the need to address it.

 Trying to hold back the clock.

But, our little girl is getting bigger... and we can't hide from the decision much longer.

I keep trying to weigh out the issues.

Filter them according to 'right' and 'wrong' motives.
Trying to live out 'grace-based' parenting instead of fear-full reactionary approaches.

But, there's still a lot of fear mixed in there... muddying up my clarity to decide.

(Though, when I read articles like this I start to wonder...)

 Ben is always more pro-active and wise in his approach, I'm a bit more emotional... and debate it out with him every so often:

"What if we send her to school and she gets her poor widdle feelings hurt??!!"

or

"What if we keep her home and I can't teach past 2 + 2 ?!!"

Highly logical thought processes happening here, as you can see.
At a deeper level though - we really want to be intentional about being present with the community God's placed us in (i.e. schools/neighbours) and not 'cloister' ourselves away.
Although I know that IF we did homeschool.. we'd be sure to do it in a co-op/group approach.
Back and forth my heart sways...
 

Anyway, all that to say, I don't know what to say!

We still feel lost in transition here too.. in that we may attempt moving in a couple(?) years and wonder if we should just *keep* her until we settle somewhere.  But that's not even sure yet either.

Ok, I've shared where I'm at... the debate still continues.

Now I'm curious, if you have kids - what motivated your decision to homeschool or not?

Even better, if you've blogged about it in the past.. feel free to link it up below today!

Thanks for hearing me ramble,

it still motivates me to address this decision afresh.

muddled mama,

mel ;o)