by Rhonda Barfield

Imagine: It's Monday morning, 7:00 A.M. , and your children are up, dressed, washed, breakfasted, and sitting at the kitchen table, math books and sharpened pencils waiting. There you are in your embroidered apron, finishing the last of the early-morning dishes, with a beef roast and peeled potatoes already simmering in the slow cooker on a spotless countertop. "I can sit here and help you all the rest of the morning," you say, smiling, to your little angels. "Let's start with that math test." Cheers erupt all around as your family begins yet another day of perfect homeschooling.

Have you ever fantasized about a homeschool situation like this? If so, you know that it only takes a few moments of daydreaming before reality sets in. Then you're back to unswept floors, scattered toys and clutter, a ten-foot-high pile of laundry, grumpy toddlers, hormonal teens . . . and the list goes on. But surely, somewhere, you think, even if it seems all wrong for you, there must be homeschoolers who are doing this right , homeschoolers who are perfect.

Aren't there?

The answer is no.

Last year, when I researched and wrote a book called Real-Life Homeschooling: The Stories of 21 Families Who Teach Their Children at Home , I never found a perfect homeschooler. True, some are better organized or more experienced than others. Some have children with easygoing temperaments. A few are blessed with floors that don't show dirt. But nobody, not a single family, had reached perfection.

Sounds silly doesn't it?  This idea that other people are perfect. Yet homeschoolers, in particular, seem to share a tendency to believe that if they just work hard enough, they can produce the perfect homeschool. We compare ourselves to others, and we often note how much better another family "has it together," rather than understanding that they, like us, also struggle.

I believe we need to remember four important points.

(1) There is no perfect curriculum.

A friend of mine who sells books at homeschool curriculum fairs reports that desperate mothers often come to her for advice on buying the "right" curriculum. It's hard for these women to believe that there is no right curriculum. I thought it amusing that some of the families in my book recommended one particular math curriculum as one of their favorite resources, while other families found it tedious. Is that curriculum, then, a good or bad curriculum? It all depends on your particular family's goals, methods, learning styles, and a dozen other considerations.

And how does one know whether a curriculum will work or not? Most homeschoolers I interviewed said they simply chose something, jumped in and began using it, then made adjustments as they saw the need arise. One family, for example, started with one and abandoned it when they discovered their children learned better through using a more hands-on approach. Another family tried a different one, but found their daughter was distracted by the colorful pictures on the pages; they returned to their former program and have been perfectly satisfied with it.

One interviewee, now a college student, told me he wished his well-meaning mother had chosen one curriculum, however imperfect, and stayed with it, rather than jumping from program to program. In response, his mother explained that she always believed she could solve all her problems by finding the perfect curriculum . . . and finally had to admit that there was no such thing.

(2) There is no perfect method of teaching.

I interviewed families who use a variety of teaching methods, such as traditional textbooks, unit studies, the Charlotte Mason method, and the classical approach. One woman utilizes a video school. Other families "unschool," encouraging their children to lead and structure their own learning goals, with parents acting primarily as resources rather than teachers.

Interestingly, many of the families I profiled started out "rigid" and "school-like," as they described themselves and then relaxed considerably through the years. Those using textbooks, for example, often supplemented with other books and activities and sometimes made a break with the program to discover other areas of interest.

Others found they needed more structure as their children grew. Susie, one of the parents I interviewed who formerly used an eclectic, casual approach to homeschooling, wrote, "We completely switched gears and started using (a program that was organized for us), a big change but a major relief. I couldn't keep up with schooling and was getting very concerned about it." Susie says the family had "no trouble at all switching from a very loose approach to a complete curriculum."  

(3) There is no perfectly clean house, especially when homeschoolers live there.

One of my interviewees, Janice, observed that our houses are naturally messy because so many of us live and interact there all day as well as all night. Families who work, school, and play away from home should find it much easier to keep their places clean and tidy.

Several mothers I interviewed have elaborate chore systems and charts in place. Others (usually those with smaller families) simply "pick the kid who happens to be in the room at the time," as Lynda said, "and he's the one who gets to do the job." In Bobby and Nina's family of eleven children, a child who complains that he doesn't like a job has the "opportunity" to learn to like it by doing extra duty until he stops complaining.

Still, as Angie lamented, "My house is always messy, even though the children do have chores." One interviewee's husband often reminds his wife that "the house will be clean some day . . . after the kids have all left home."

(4) There is no perfect family.

Some families do get up earlier than yours. Some may actually have dinner in the slow cooker by 9:00 A.M. And there really are some days when a few homeschool moms have time to sit down with their kids all morning, helping with assignments. This doesn't mean the families are perfect or even better than yours.

As I wrote about twenty-one families' lives, I found it difficult to convey that each had struggles. Describing the good stuff was easy; in fact, when these homeschoolers' accomplishments were listed on paper, the lists were truly impressive. It was much harder to convey the frustrations, irritations, and occasional deep disappointments of daily living.

How does one fully describe, for example, the effects of sleep deprivation caused by a colicky newborn? The tiresomeness of dealing with a child with ADHD? The feelings of vulnerability that come in the midst of a financial crisis? When the inevitable pressures of life are added to two full-time commitments, parenting and homeschooling it's no wonder that we sometimes "lose it."

I had to laugh when Susie described a time when she was pregnant with her fourth child: "I was so tired and sick and grouchy, I found I was overreacting to everything," she says. "A child would spell a word wrong and I'd cry, feeling that he'd never learn." I can remember going through times like that, and worse.

Last year I got a Christmas letter from a friend, a homeschool mother of five, who now lives in another state. It was quite an impressive letter. Fran's children are active in Scouts, substitute teaching, babysitting, camping, backpacking, family trips, canoeing, summer camps, and of course, homeschooling. As I finished reading the letter, I couldn't help but compare my own homeschool with that of this supermom's. I wondered how she did it all. I also questioned, a little, whether I was doing enough.

Then I received a letter from Fran in response to our family's Christmas letter. "I get dizzy reading all you've done," she said. Ironically, that had been my reaction, exactly, to her letter. How tempting to compare ourselves to other homeschoolers, the ones who have perfect curricula, teaching methods, families, and clean houses!

But again, perfect people don't exist. God has a way of reminding us that we are, after all, fallen creatures. Not perfect, but real.

Rhonda Barfield is the author of Real-Life Homeschooling: The Stories of 21 Families Who Teach Their Children at Home (Fireside/Simon & Schuster, 2002), Feed Your Family for $12 a Day (Kensington Publishing, 2002), and 15-Minute Cooking (Lilac Publishing, 1996). barfield@aol.com

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