Chapter 1 - Our Story

I never thought I’d be writing a book on homeschooling—in fact, who would have thought that we’d be homeschooling our children for eights years strong and counting?

Yet, I can’t imagine going back and doing it any differently.

I remember Maria and I laughed a little bit at the start and joked that we were morphing into “mountain folk”—that’s how backwards our concept of homeschooling was back then. Surely only families who wanted to segregate themselves from mainstream society would advocate homeschooling for their children, right? Wrong!

In many ways, it seemed like Maria and I were taking gigantic steps backward from what our generation had come to expect and strive for: two incomes, a big house, multiple cars, exciting careers, traveling the world, 1-2 kids…

Instead, we were surviving (survival is the key word) off a single income (the husband’s at that—so not PC), living in a modest-sized house, driving a hardworking ’97 Dodge Caravan with over 236,000 miles (and counting), spending more time on family than career (where’s that corner office now?), taking a vacation every 3-4 years, and oh, did I mention, having four kids!

What were we thinking?

Well, by some divine intervention, Maria and I ended up doing the smartest, most fulfilling thing that parents could ever hope to do for their children—homeschooling.

I would be lying if I said it’s been a breeze—not quite. But, we’ve spent more time with our children than probably most parents spend in a lifetime. These are precious years that flash by in a blink of an eye. I’m convinced that Maria and I will look back and thank our lucky stars that we had this opportunity to spend productively, educationally, and lovingly with our children—worth more than all the bikes, vacations, cars, and big-screen TVs I could have bought them if we took maybe a more conventional path.

Now, I can’t help myself—I’m a total homeschooling evangelist. I light up when I talk to other people about my family’s experiences—and trust me, my enthusiasm is contagious. Conversations that start off with, “Hmmmm, interesting,” and eventually end with, “Wow, that’s really terrific,” have convinced me that more people might benefit from the homeschooling experience if only they had the courage and inner trust to take the plunge—or in our case, dumb luck!

The title of this book is not made up—many parents I speak to are quite enthralled by my homeschooling escapades and they all think Maria is a saint to be both parent and teacher (not to mention dependable chauffeur) to our four children separated in age by only a couple years. But, almost without exception, the conversation ends with, “Oh, but I could never do that,” followed quickly by, “I simply don’t have the patience.”

We said the same things ourselves, and yet here we are eight years later with a good 10 years more ahead of us (Nicholas is only four).

Maybe you simply need a little more nudging from a couple who took an unexpected detour off the fast track and never looked back. Read on.