Remarking on the “pressure to deliver exceptional days,” Kim John Payne laments the loss of ordinary days. Why does it have to be a great day? “If we hold on to the exceptional—if our children adopt that as their measure of success—most will fail, and almost all of them will feel like failures,” he explains. We can’t have “uncommonly good” be our daily ideal. “There’s freedom,” Payne continues, “in embracing the ordinary: freedom, and possibilities.

“Please don’t make it into schoolwork!” is the plea from my child. She wrote a delightful essay for a contest. I was so happy she did it of her own initiative. I appreciated her reminder to “tread lightly.” She is right. I am too often guilty of “making it into schoolwork” which too often means “making it drudgery.” I am glad I have this reminder! I want our learning to be enjoyable.

Expecting only excellence denies the scope of authentic situations. “To demand perfection is to turn our backs on real life, the full range of human experience,” explains Kristin Neff. We benefit from being conscious of the reality of our blemishes. I’ve noticed that I tend to use either/or language about my own attempts to homeschool. Either I am succeeding or I am failing in teaching my children. When I make a mistake (by being impatient, or distracted, or neglectful) I struggle to keep my flaws in context; I find myself overemphasizing them.

Homeschooling cannot be shown step-by-step. There is no way to give precise instructions. To rephrase a message from Seth Godin in his book Linchpin about other creative endeavors, “The reason that [homeschooling] is valuable is precisely why I can’t tell you how to do it. If there were a map, there’d be no need to wrestle with the task of [homeschooling]. If we were following prescribed steps, we wouldn’t be navigating; we wouldn’t be finding our own way.

Are our fears about homeschooling possibly misplaced? The stories we hear about homeschooling have been handpicked—largely because they are unusual. What do you fear about your homeschooling? I noticed this unusual sign inside the Aquarium du Québec. I was captivated by their clever presentation of unjustified fears. While I stroked the stingray in the child-friendly tank nearby, I read the list and considered how many of my own fears are unfounded.

In my local Asian market, I saw this sign hanging above the freezer section. It reads “Frozen foods can prevent the decay and deterioration in the oven.” The concept is mostly there, but the key details were lost in translation. We preserve the things we want to keep. Preservation makes the transient last a little longer. Preservation is the fleeting interval between freshness and storage. Preservation allows it to be enjoyed again in the future.

As a homeschooler, time can feel unwieldy. Our freedom can almost be debilitating. “If you have struggled with a sense of inadequacy—wondering if you are good enough because you cannot seem to do it all, or do it well—maybe your only shortcoming is how you schedule your time,” teaches minimalist homeschooler Zara Fagen in her book, Minimalist Homeschooling. I believe our discouragement in our homeschooling can often be overcome by structuring our time differently.

The creativity of homeschooling can’t support comparison; there are too many differences. Comparison shatters the lens that makes gratitude possible.

Feeling like no one understands my life experience leaves me weary. If I consistently feel, “I am different” and “my experiences aren’t like yours,” I am disheartened. None of us want to have to explain “why we’re doing this” or “what we do all day long.” We want empathy. We want camaraderie. We want to have friends that understand why we choose to homeschool. We all have stories to tell, feelings to confess and ideas to express to an audience uniquely situated to resonate with us.

EdChoice, in partnership with Hanover Research, conducted a survey of homeschooling families in 2021. Their results are summarized in the Homeschooling Captsone Report. The most salient obstacles to homeschooling cited by current homeschoolers in the survey include concerns about instructional quality and children’s future prospects, the time and financial burden of homeschooling, and difficulty accessing resources and support One of their questions was, “how problematic have the following obstacles to homeschooling your child been?