The Hardest Part of Homeschooling

"The hardest part of homeschooling is that it is so boring."

So said my brilliant, virtuous, talented, devoted, homeschooling mom-friend one afternoon over a cup of piping hot anise tea. 

But she didn't speak the words as a confession; She spoke them as a fact, the most obvious observation between peers.

So I haven't forgotten her words or how they stunned me at the time. 

She and I were both learners, so we had the best conversations. 

But she had receive an unparalleled education when she was young. 

I was much farther behind her intellectually. 

So at the time, I would have agreed if she had said, "Laundry is so boring." 

I had enough mastery over my laundry that it felt mundane.

But as far as Classical Christian homeschooling went for me then, I was still far too unsure of myself, too uncertain of what I was doing, and even why I was doing it that way to assent to my friend's statement. 

I did not have enough intellectual margin to consider anything about Classical Christian education boring... yet. 

Fast forward ten years. 

Add copious reading in the greatest books on Classical Christian homeschooling and reading and rereading in the greatest Classical and Christian books themselves. 

Multiply thinking, writing, conversing, training, and teaching experience, and I've gained a lot in that time. 

I've given myself a Classical Christian Liberal Arts education as I've been giving my daughters that same sort of education. 

Now I can check Algebra without a key, and I enjoy Euclid's proofs, but I can only do so if I get up early enough before it's time to drill multiplication flashcards with my ten year old. 

I can read Latin, and I'd enjoy translating Virgil, but at this point, I'm too busy checking someone else's Latin noun declensions. 

So begins a rub I hadn't started to feel till now, and my friend's words come true. 

When I started this journey, homeschooling Classically was an overwhelming but exhilarating, fulfilling intellectual pursuit. 

Now that I have a different mind, homeschooling is quickly becoming something else. 

It's more like a call to faithfulness. 

I'm totally sure what to do and even why to do it now; Now I must simply do the work of my calling day after day after day. 

It's more of a call to sacrifice than it ever was before. 

I have to put aside more interesting intellectual pursuits that beckon my brain and opportunities that appeal to my ego so as to make myself available to walk with my younger daughters where they are on the journey. 

And homeschooling is more like a call to virtue. 

But this really fits, since Classical Christian Liberal Arts education exists for the sake of not only knowing what virtue is, but also doing what is virtuous.  

So now I apply this education I have given myself, and I'll continue giving my daughters the education they deserve regardless of how hard homeschooling can be for me.