Questioning the Decision to Homeschool - When You Give Everything and Feel Like a Failure

There are many days I feel like my decision to homeschool was not everything it was cracked up to be. I had images of close-knit, loving families whose children excelled at everything they touched.

All I ever wanted to be when I was growing up was a mommy, and maybe also a teacher. When I had my first child in 2000, I quit my job in order to stay home full time and raise him. We also decided to begin homeschooling as the years went on.

This meant that I gave up everything I had known in order to stay home and raise my baby. I poured everything I had into him, and soon a little sister came along for him to be followed eventually with another, after losing 3 babies to miscarriage.

During those days of miscarriage, my womb ached for a baby, and I longed to be able to hold and nurse another. You see, all I ever wanted was to be a mommy! I continued on until God granted me another healthy baby who would complete our family.

From the very beginning, I viewed motherhood as a mission field for me, pouring everything into my babies who grew to be toddlers, young children, and eventually, two are now teens and one rapidly approaching that status. Next year, I will have 3 teenagers in the house.

This year in May, we graduated our first homeschool graduate of the clan. He is the one who read fluently at age 3 and taught himself how to program, building his own computer at age 14. He held a lot of promise, but he doesn't do transitions well. He never has.

I have memories of dragging him away from the library toy train table kicking and screaming because he wasn't ready to transition from play to the car. I have many memories like that. Transitional times have never been his friend. So, transitioning from child to teen to adult has not been easy. In fact, upon graduation, he had no idea what he wanted to do with his life.

Enter, the gap year!

I get it! I really do. Not everyone is ready to go to college. College isn't for everyone. And, if anyone can forgo college for a successful life and career, it would be my son. But, nonetheless, here we are at a gap year.

Yes, a part of me fears the gap year will turn into many years and him never knowing what he wants out of life. I hope that's not the case. I mean, the boy doesn't even want to get his driver's license yet and even though he is registered, has no desire to vote in his first available election.

His sister is now a junior in high school and running full speed ahead. She couldn't wait to drive, got her license on the first try, is plugged into the expressive worship team at our church, is planning her ACT and possible dual enrollment in college during her senior year of high school. She's moving on with her life. Yet, I often feel shut out like she's doing it all in spite of me and scared every step of the way feeling as though no one is really there for her.

Then, we have the youngest who is much in the mold of her brother.

Regardless, here we sit. I literally spent 24/7 with my babies, even sharing a bed with most. So, I can't help but feel that I have failed in some way when they seemingly have no plan for their future and two out of three of them don't even seem to ever give their future a second thought or put any effort into making it happen.

I don't know what their future holds. I pray for my children every day. I'm not sure what more I can do to plug into their lives. In the case of my middle child, I often feel like the hands-off approach served her better than anything I could ever do, as if I was never really needed in her life. In the case of my other two, I often feel as though everything I dreamed and poured my energy and love into didn't turn out the way I thought it would.

We are not the Duggars. We are definitely not keeping up with the Joneses, not on one self-employed salary. But, where does that leave me? Did I give up my life for children who choose to trample it underfoot like the story of the pearls before pigs in the Bible? Did I do them a disservice by homeschooling them? Where would they be if I had instead put them in public school and gone back to work? I can't fully answer that, but despite my children's words of encouragement otherwise, that they are all glad they were homeschooled, I can't help but feel I did something wrong.