Your Children Will Stand and Bless You

Chapter 31 of Proverbs describes “a truly good wife.” In addition to the description of this woman, the chapter also contains some promises to such a woman. One of those promises is, “Her children stand and bless her.”

This is pretty heady stuff! Yet, because we know that all of God’s promises do come to pass, we also know that if we live up to those standards, our children will stand and bless us. For most of us this probably brings to mind a picture of a large formal gathering with us in the center surrounded by grown children who take turns standing and proclaiming our many virtues to all within earshot—sort of a “let’s all stand and bless Mom party.”

I must confess that as a young woman when I read Proverbs 31 I imagined a scene like the one described above. Now I am old, and no version of the above has ever played out in my life. Of course, I have had individual children tell me that they thought I was “a good mother,” but most of the time the compliment resulted from my wishing aloud that I had done a better job in one area or another. 

It is also true, however, that I no longer would even want a “let’s stand and bless Mom party.” I now know that a mother’s responsibilities never end. We never stop being deeply concerned about our children. We never stop praying for them concerning their jobs, their spiritual lives, their spouses, and their children. There is simply no expiration date on being a parent, and I now believe that we must finish our lives before our worth as a parent can be accurately evaluated.

Then what about the promise, “Her children stand and bless her?” Like all of God’s promises, it is literal and certain. It just took me a while to understand that the “standing and blessing” was of a much more powerful and heartwarming nature than I could ever have imagined.

My children never complained about being homeschooled through all educational levels, including undergraduate and graduate degrees. They never implied that they wished that they could attend the schools from which they earned their degrees. They were very good children, but after they were grown I became aware that as adults they sometimes felt that they did not “fit in” as well as other people who had not been homeschooled. They had to “explain themselves” to those who believed that homeschooling equals truancy. Even though they have been extremely successful in highly competitive professions, the homeschooling discussion still arises among their colleagues. Consequently, I have sometimes thought that there was a little part of them that wished they had never been homeschooled.

I was surprised, therefore, when my first grandchild was old enough to go to school and her mother never even considered NOT homeschooling her. When her siblings came along, they, too, were homeschooled. When my other children had children of their own, they also homeschooled. I never asked them whether they were planning to homeschool. I never tried to “sell” them on the idea. They just never considered anything else. One of my daughters did enroll her oldest child in a private Christian school for first and second grades, but after a while she concluded that she could do a much better job at home. She has now been homeschooling for the past two years. All of my grandchildren who are old enough to attend school are being homeschooled.

I now know what it means to have my children “stand and bless me.” The blessing is not about compliments. The blessing is having them do for their children what I did for them.  It is having them look at all of the educational choices available to them and deciding that Mom got it right. It is having them know that not everyone is going to approve, and many people will never understand the value of what they are doing, but choosing to do it anyway because it is the best possible gift that they can give their children.

On those days when you are feeling under appreciated, remember that one day you will teach your last lesson and close your homeschool. You may have a few years when you are uncertain whether your children appreciated all that you sacrificed to teach them at home. But one day you will have grandchildren, and when it is time for them to go to school, you will be blessed to discover that your children are following in your footsteps. When you see your grandchildren thriving in their loving, Christ centered homeschools, you will truly experience what it means to have your children stand and bless you.

                                        

My Homeschool/My Ministry

Unless things have changed a lot since I was homeschooling my children, the majority of people with whom homeschooling mothers come in contact do not take homeschooling very seriously. I realize, of course, that homeschooling has taken on an air of “respectability” that it did not enjoy in 1975 when I launched my homeschool, but I suspect that homeschooling mothers are still something of an anomaly.

Have you ever been criticized for not spending enough time working on projects outside the home? I certainly was, and today I want to share with you how I made peace with myself over not being able to be involved in all of the activities that other people thought that I, as a Christian, should be incorporating into my life.

For a long time I was embarrassed when the subject arose. I lamely defended my position by saying that I just did not have time to do more than attend church. In addition to Sunday services, I gave the children a good deal of spiritual instruction at home. We had daily Bible reading and daily family prayer. As they grew older, we added scripture memorization to this list. However, I could not volunteer for committees and all sorts of other church-related activities and still take care of my rapidly expanding family. I gave birth to ten children in twelve years and added a new student every year for quite a long time.  Nevertheless, I received few breaks from my critics—even though they had families of only two or three well-spaced children, and none of them was homeschooling.

After several years of unsuccessful, red-faced stuttering and stammering when asked to defend my position, I came across the perfect answer. It may not have satisfied my critics, but it satisfied me completely. From that day forward, I no longer felt embarrassed or guilty when asked about my apparent lack of Christian Service.

One day one of my little students’ vocabulary lesson contained the word “vocation.” The Calvert manual said that the world “vocation” comes from the Latin vocare which means “calling.” As I read that simple definition, for the first time I realized the significance of my homeschool.

Teaching my children at home was not an experiment; it was not a job, it was not even a career. Homeschooling my children was my vocation—my calling. It was real missionary work. When I began to understand that my homeschool was my ministry, my perspective changed. The work had suddenly taken on a much deeper spiritual quality. I was working for Christ, and He deserved my very best.

Today I want to challenge you to look around your schoolroom. Think of your little students as future missionaries you are preparing for service. In other circumstances you might never have the opportunity to train anyone for ministry, but as a homeschooling mother you have the opportunity to influence your children’s thinking on literally every level. You are in the unique position of being able to bring Christ into everything your children study. What a privilege to be able to pass on your love and passion for Christ to the people you love most. In preparing them, you are touching not only their lives but the lives of everyone with whom they will come in contact as they reach adulthood. You have a tremendous opportunity; don’t fail to act on it, and never feel that you need to apologize for having chosen to make that most important commitment to your children.

                                                                                                       

When is the “Wrong” Answer the “Right” Answer?

When I was homeschooling my children, I always listened carefully to their answers, and no matter how outrageous they might seem on the surface, if the child could give me a good reason for coming to a particular conclusion, I would agree with him that the answer had merit and might even be the more correct answer, but I then explained why the textbook answer was the one the school wanted.

The following are some examples of situations from my homeschool that really made me think:

Example 1: When Christopher was six years old and in the third grade, the Calvert course introduced science. One of the first lessons showed pictures of a tiger, a tree, and a rock. The student was asked to identify which was an animal, which was a plant, and which was a mineral.

Christopher did this part of the assignment without difficulty, but then the book asked the student to identify the group to which people belong. Christopher immediately responded that people do not belong to any of those groups. I was surprised that he could miss something so obvious so I tried to steer him down a path that would help him come to the right conclusion.

I asked him to look again at the three different groups. I commented that both people and animals eat, and sleep, and have babies while plants and minerals don’t do any of those things. When I was certain that I had helped him see that people are part of the animal group, I asked the question again.

Immediately, Christopher answered that people do not belong to any of those groups. This was followed by more explaining on my part and more trying to help him see the obvious. Finally, after numerous attempts by me to help him come to the “right” conclusion, I told him that the answer was “animals. People are part of the group of animals.”

Christopher remained unconvinced. “No, they’re not,” he replied. "People are not any of these things. They are something different. They are in a group all by themselves.”

The light came on in my head! I realized that he was right. I had always held a strict Biblical Creationist Worldview, yet, I had been so indoctrinated by my own public education that, without hesitation, I had agreed that people are animals.

I told him that he was absolutely right. We talked about how people are God’s special creation and that they are in a group all by themselves. I then told him that they really just wanted to know which of these things people are most like, and he answered, “animals.”

Example 2: When Stefan was seven or eight years old, he had this geography question, “If the world were made of glass, and you could look straight down and see through it, do you know what you would see?” The point of the question was to help the student understand that China is on the opposite side of the globe, and he would see China.

The question was hardly out of my mouth when Stefan replied, “Of course.” I was certain that he did not know that in this scenario he would see China; therefore, I told him that I wanted him to think about his answer for a minute. I then asked the question again, and he instantly replied, “Of course.”

I realized that I was going to get nowhere with this line of questioning so I said, “Okay. What would you see?”

“Hell,” came the immediate response. “Oh, yes, you would,” I responded. I then told him that the point of the geography lesson was for him to understand that China was on the other side of the world. I then told him to imagine that we could move Hell out of the way so that he could look straight through to the other side. Then he would see China.

I want to encourage all homeschooling parents to take the time to find out not only what your children are thinking but why they are thinking it. It is easy to become impatient and provide a “correct” answer that is obvious to you. However, if you take the time to find out why your little student is coming to a different conclusion from that of the textbook, you may be pleased to discover that his answer is the right one after all.

Excerpted from Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother by Joyce Swann.

                                            

Why No Parent Can Create a Successful Homeschool

In 1975 when I began homeschooling, nearly everyone I knew told me that teaching my children at home was a ridiculous idea that was doomed to fail. They said that I could not possibly teach my children every subject they would need to graduate and that as soon as I encountered a subject that I had not studied when I was in school, my whole program would come crashing down like a house of cards. These naysayers simply did not believe that I had the “right stuff” to succeed; as it turns out, they were right.

Nevertheless, I homeschooled ten children from first grade through master’s degrees by age sixteen, and they all made exceptional grades. What was my secret?

When I understood that I could never hope to prepare myself well enough to do all that was required of me to succeed, I had to stop trusting in myself and my own capabilities. One of my favorite scriptures was Zech 4:6 “…Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts—you will succeed because of my Spirit…” I applied that scripture to nearly everything in my life. I knew that God was calling me to homeschool—although homeschooling was so new at that time that the term had not yet been coined, and I did not meet another homeschooler for eight years.

My life seemed impossible. I had my ten children in twelve years. In addition to adding a new student every year, for a long time I was also giving birth every year. Each day was a challenge. I studied constantly and prepared myself daily to teach the following day’s lessons. However, I was always aware that, by myself, I could never get it right. As a result, each day I learned to trust more in God’s strength and focus less on my own weakness.

One simple “trick” that I learned was to not look too far ahead. Of course, I set goals and worked to ensure that they were met, but I did not allow myself to worry about what I was going to do when I encountered something that I simply could not do. I reminded myself that I could do those things that were necessary for today. Tomorrow would have to take care of itself. Thus, I learned to live one day at a time and not to focus on a future that existed only in my imagination.  Looking back, I realize that most of the things that I feared never materialized. I also realize that if I had given those fears a place in my thoughts, very early on I would have been defeated by my own imagination.

Most homeschools are back in session this first week of the New Year, and many of the mothers who head up those homeschools are scared. They dread the next few months as they feel themselves put to the test to finish another school year with their children. You may be among those who feel the pressure to succeed and fear that you may fail.

My advice to you is this: Don’t be afraid! Yes, you have taken on a monumental task, but God knew your frailties when He called you to educate your children at home. He is with you, and He will sustain you. You will not succeed because of your own cleverness or intelligence. You will succeed because of Him. Trust Him; rely on Him, and He will give you everything you need to finish the work He has given you.