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Monday, July 7, 2008

What's normal anyway?

My kids have been homeschooled going on two years and they love it. Each has been in public school and we all decided that it just wasn't worth it. My husband travels for his job and we decided to pack up and go with him. We live in an RV full-time and although it is sometimes inconvenient it has really made our family closer (literally). I don't understand why people still raise their eyebrows at us when they find out that how we live. They may say nice things but you can see it on their faces "that's just not normal". So tell me what is normal anyway? Before our lifestyle change we lived day to day stressed out, over worked, and never had anytime to spend as a family. Now (besides my husband) we have no set schedule, no gotta go here, no gotta do that, it's just a slower pace of life. We have time for exploring, time to just sit and wonder, time to be kids. But of course that's just not normal. We don't each have our own rooms to hide in and vegg-out in front of the the tv. We have to sit down and eat together, we play outside together but that's just not normal. Most people have told me that all that togetherness would drive them insane. Why? You married your spouse to spend all your life with, you had those kids to take care of and love, so why is it so hard to spend time with them? I think people have become so dependent on other distractions like, meetings, church functions, ball games, dance recitals, karate, etc. that they don't know how to just be. Now don't get me wrong I do like to be alone at times but my kids are 10 and 8. I can let them go play without me and we do have friends that travel with us but I still keep a watchful eye. That's my job. Before we homeschooled we hardly ever were asked "how are the kids doing in school", but now it's like they assume the kids are struggling. Why would they? We get to go as fast or slow as we need. My kids are excelling and learning life experiences too. Besides the regular academics I teach them music, Spanish, art, computer skills, and we go to the library. We don't have to worry about being held up by unruly kids or sticking to a cookie cutter education. We make our learning environment the world around us instead of a classroom of 25+ kids. I guess most people have forgotten that some of our most influential people have been homeschooled. But of course it's just not normal.

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