Homeschooling was a given for us. My husband and I never sat down and had a conversation about it. We never methodically weighed the pros and cons. It just made the most sense to us, intuitively. So we went for it, and never looked back. 

Part of the ease in our decision came from my own inclination towards teaching. I am not a certified teacher (though I did teach one year in South Korea), but it has always run in my blood. Despite my aversion as a kid to waking up at the crack of dawn to sit at a desk in a white-washed room for six hours a day, in a building with terrible food, stringent rules, germs, and crowded restrooms where it felt a bit too uncomfortable to do my business—yes, despite all these insurmountable obstacles—I always got good grades. I always engaged with new material, and loved learning new things. I devoured both fiction and nonfiction, and would spend hours a day captivated by books. And, I always desired to share and discuss what I was learning with others. So you can see how this would translate remarkably well to teaching!

One thing I didn’t do as a young girl, was spend time dreaming about my future husband or children—probably because in my precious free time I was too busy running around outside, biking through the neighborhood, catching salamanders, swimming in the creek, picking blackberries, playing soccer, losing my shoe in a waist-deep pit of mud…but once I did get married and have four children of my own, I knew I didn’t want to subject them to the same tedious torture I went through as a kid in school. (Don’t worry Mom, I’m joking!) No, in reality there were plenty of benefits to attending public school, plenty of good friends and teachers, plenty of valuable lessons learned.

But what I might not have anticipated as a first-time Mom is the riveting front-row seat to the awe and wonder of my child exploring the world for the very first time. Not only that—but the realization that I had the primary responsibility to shape what my children would explore, and the context in which they would do it. And there was something decidedly un-appealing about picturing my young kids under fluorescent lighting, surrounded by workbooks, being taught by a stranger; while there was something greatly appealing about picturing them together with me and my husband, making a local mountain trail their classroom for the day. My own appetite for learning and exploring had not diminished a bit since childhood—and so it was a no-brainer to homeschool in order to satisfy my own longings, as well as to enjoy the privilege of sharing that sense of appreciation and wonder for our Creator and His Creation with my children. I love it. 

It helps, too, that my husband has always worked remotely. He is very involved in our day-to-day activities and gets to join in, between emails and phone calls. (Imagine—he even gets to change diapers during his work day!) We love being able to dictate our own schedules. We value the flexibility we are blessed with on any given day.  We are able to plan day trips, weekend trips, weeklong trips, and some—even longer!

For us, homeschooling wasn’t a well-thought-out plan, it was the outworking of our natural tendencies and priorities. But I have since learned of the many empirical benefits of a lifestyle where kids have the freedom to play outside as much as possible, most notably in a book called Balanced and Barefoot. In this book, Angela J. Hanscom documents the vast difference between the kids of today and the kids of fifty, thirty, even just twenty years ago! Between the drastic increase in diagnoses like ADHD, allergies, colds, vision problems, sensory issues, anxiety, and the decrease in strength, agility, independence, social and emotional skills—it seems we’ve got a whole new set of problems on our hands. But the remarkable thing about her argument is that she recommends just one solution to solve all of these seemingly unrelated problems: spending more unrestricted play time outdoors. 

These things rang true for me before I had objective evidence to prove it, or even the vocabulary to articulate it. I’ve always had a passion for the outdoors, a prioritization of flexibility, a love of learning—which nudged us toward homeschooling before consciously settling on it. In fact, it wasn’t until I had to sit down and write my “Religious Exemption” for the state of Virginia that I fully considered the biblical implications. 

For the first few years of homeschooling my oldest, I complied with the law in the state of Virginia by giving my “Notice of Intent” to homeschool in the beginning of the year, and by providing a “Proof of Progress” at the end of the year. I viewed these formalities as minor inconveniences, and consequently decided to switch to a Religious Exemption, which, upon approval, would allow us to never have to check in with the state again. Freedom! So I sat down at my computer to write out why we wanted to completely remove our children from the purview of the state based on our religious beliefs. 

We had always taught our children about the Lord from a young age. We had always understood that it was no one else’s primary responsibility but ours. Yet, I struggled to make one succinct biblical argument that captured the essence of our lifestyle and beliefs, while simultaneously building a case for homeschooling. Until somewhere in my long and exhaustive 5-minute journey of frantically Googling “Bible verses for homeschooling”—I landed on Deuteronomy 6:6-9:

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

This exhortation from Moses to the people of Israel, after giving God’s Law, immediately stuck out to me. While our context is quite different from ancient Israel’s, and we are under a New (and better!!) Covenant, the truth and wisdom of this passage remains: the spiritual formation of our children, as passed down from our lives to theirs, happens all the time, every hour, every day. There was the crux of my reasoning—we’d be hard pressed to send our kids off to school where most of their waking hours would be spent with others who do not possess the same conviction and ability to teach our children about our God that we possess. Especially, since we had the means, and the flexibility, and the desire to do so. 

Don’t get me wrong, though—I was never motivated by the “negatives.” I’m not scared of the “dangers” that lurk in public school. I’m not interested in sheltering my children from reality. While I do appreciate the ability to grapple with deeper problems in society at our own pace and timing, I understand that my children will have to learn to navigate life on their own one day. I will do them no favors by concealing the brokenness of our world. Homeschooling (or not) wasn’t a decision I felt I needed to “justify”— because there are many different paths for godly parents to take. 

Rather, what motivates me the most—and what is laid out in Deuteronomy 6—is the power of culture keeping. It’s not just the practical point of maximizing the fleeting time we have with our children. This is true—and I wouldn’t want to outsource that time to anyone else; but more that, notice the small directives given in the passage: talk about the Lord’s commands when you are home, when you go out, when you lie down, and when you wake up. Wear His Word as a symbol on your body, inscribe reminders in your home.

These little acts that help to keep, and maintain, and remind us of our beliefs—of the treasure we have in our relationship with the Lord—these are what inspire me the most. Having our kids home with us all the time allows me and my husband to create traditions that center around Jesus. We can have unrushed time in the morning, reading and praying together. We can have quiet time before bed, singing together. We can initiate a project to “draw the Psalms.” We can keep rich traditions like Advent and Lent, taking entire weeks and months to focus our hearts on Christ. We can pray together when we’re happy. We can pray together when we’re upset. We can model what it is like to acknowledge our mistakes, and seek reconciliation. 

Whether we’re cooking, or practicing sports, or identifying plants and animals, or creating (and they create A LOT of stuff, trust me, it’s all over the house!)—in everything we do, our children have a firsthand example in us of what it looks like to walk with the Lord. 

In his book “Culture Making” Andy Crouch explains the idea of the circles of influence that we possess. The outermost circle is the impact that we have on world-wide culture; and then, going inward towards the middle, the circles getting smaller and smaller: nation, state, town, community, extended family, and then finally, nuclear family. The author makes the point that we should never set out to “change the world”—because for the vast majority of us, our worldwide influence will be entirely nonexistent. But the smaller you scale down the sphere of culture, the more your individual ability to impact it increases. “Family is culture at its smallest—and its most powerful” (Crouch, p. 46). 

This means that I, through the small decisions and practices implemented daily, have the opportunity to profoundly influence the spiritual development of my children. I have the capacity to create a nurturing and life-giving environment around them. I can help to foster curiosity, awe, worship, morality, kindness, forgiveness. I can show them what it is to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to follow His leading, and help to create a thirst for Him in their own lives. 

Of course, this doesn’t mean it’s always easy. Some days are more of a struggle than others. Kids misbehave; we have to discipline them. Parents misbehave; the Lord humbles us! We get sick; I fall behind in lesson planning. Everyone clambers for my attention at once; I grapple with over-stimulation. Many days, I have no idea where the time went—between school, planning meals, laundry, dishes, and basically meeting all the practical needs of small, growing people. Sometimes it seems I don’t have much time for anything else, and I feel like other aspirations are stifled, forgotten, left on the back burner for too long. 

So in much the same way the Israelites were called to remember what the Lord had commanded them, in much the same way that we are called to practice the presence of God (an excellent book by Brother Lawrence), I also make a practice of reminding myself how important this work of raising and educating children is. This is holy work. This is where the Lord has me right now; and frankly, this is where I want to be!  

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).

There may come a time that the Lord calls us to expand our “circle of influence” by fulfilling other desires and callings that He has placed on our lives. And in the meantime, He is continually preparing us and equipping us to be able to handle our future together. But for right now—for this fleeting season of life—if the only thing I get done in a day is to instill a love of God and a love of learning in my children, that is a day well-spent.