6 Reasons Why I choose NOT to Homeschool

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about homeschooling, and I said these exact words:

“I don’t think I am the homeschooling type of mom.”

She responded, “I don’t think any mom feels like they are.”

It really got me thinking about why I don’t homeschool my kids, and I came up with a few reasons why it just doesn’t work for us right now.

Here are the 6 reasons why I’ve chosen NOT to homeschool my kids right now:

1.) We have a very affordable Christian School that is a few minutes away from our house. The class sizes are small (under 12 kids), and my mother in law is the principal. I know all of the teachers personally, and my kids LOVE going there. I pay roughly $850 per month to send three of my kids to school there, which in my opinion is a STEAL! If we did not have this option, I would have really prayed harder about homeschooling.

There are sports, extracurricular activities and fun school plays, like the Christmas play Kaylee was a sheep in this past year. And they actually use a lot of traditional homeschooling curriculum.

2.) I was NOT a good student. Growing up, I was a C student. I did not do that well in school, and much of it was because I have a horrible memory. If you were to quiz me on our US history, I would get a big fat F… seriously, I am not proud of this fact at all, but I cannot remember one lick of history. It was not until I got to college that I started taking subjects that I enjoyed and my grades started to improve. My first semester of college, I got a 2.4 GPA, and by my junior year, I was getting consistent grades around 3.5. I am smart, but have always had a hard time applying myself when I was not interested in what was going on around me.

3.) How in the world would I handle homeschooling, working full time, and a crabby 20 month old named Abby?  I just don’t know how that could all work. I know there are many full time bloggers who also homeschool their kids. How in the world do they do it? Hats off to them. For real.

4.) I have the attention span of a two-year old.  The thought of sitting down and teaching for three hours makes me want to SCREAM. I don’t think that would go over too well when I am supposed to be the teacher.

Have you watched the movie “Up”? You know that dog that gets so distracted easily – he yells “Squirrel” throughout the movie? That is me – ask anyone who knows me. If I have a BIG IDEA, I usually am in the middle of telling someone about it when I get another idea and totally move onto another topic.

5.) I need a lot of ‘me time’.  I will say proudly that I am a great mom, but I also am a better mom when I work a few hours a day away from my kiddos. I may appear to be an extrovert, but secretly I love to be by myself. When Mark decided to quit his job and work with me, I had a hard time working next to him at first because he talked to me too much.

6.) I am NOT organized at all – the thought of picking out homeschool curriculum and having lots of papers around my house makes my skin crawl. I am a messy person by nature, and have to work SO hard to keep my clean presentable (which most of the time it isn’t).

I am not opposed to homeschooling in the future but at this very moment in our life, we have chosen not to. I’m also not against public schools at all either – our kids will probably go to the public high school.

Trust me, I’ve really thought and prayed hard about home-schooling, but at this point I just don’t feel like it’s my ‘thing’. It would become ‘my thing’ pretty fast if I thought one of my kids would do better because of it – but as of right now they are all thriving in the place where they are. But if that time ever comes, I know that I will have to change a few things about myself (which wouldn’t be a completely bad thing).

If you homeschool, I would love to know – how do you stay organized and motivated? What curriculum do you use?