I never planned to homeschool my children. 
If I’m being really honest, I never planned to have children at all.

I was told pretty young, by doctors, by family, by circumstance, that motherhood wasn’t likely in my future. There are whole other posts buried in that sentence. Years of medical complications, grief, uncertainty, trying not to want something too much. But at twenty-seven, my partner and I found ourselves at a crossroads where “maybe” suddenly felt possible. We decided to try.

What followed was long and painful and complicated in ways I may write about someday. But it also led to my first child being born when I was thirty. I remember her enormous eyes. Curious in a way that felt almost startling. Alert. Present. Already studying the world. I also remember shaking from exhaustion and emotion, handing her to my absolutely beaming partner because I could barely believe she was real.

Then somehow fate, and a lot of luck, handed me another child. Then a third we intentionally chose. Then, after a great deal of loss and work, a fourth we fought so hard for. They are exhausting. Loud. Funny. Intense. Curious. Entire universes of need and personality and contradiction. They are the most intense part of my life. And the strangest thing is that I never imagined any of this for myself until my late twenties, and even then, I could not have imagined how it how it is.

The homeschooling part wasn’t planned either. When my oldest was five, I went to the local elementary school tour with a four-month-old balanced on my hip, as well as my 5 year old and 3 year old in tow. The school had nearly a thousand students. A thousand. I remember trying very hard to look calm while internally short-circuiting. Then they explained the schedule. “You’ll need to arrive around 7:30.” AM, 7:30 in the morning! I genuinely think my eyes bugged out of my head a bit. You want me dressed, functional, organized, and moving children out the door at what time?

The administrator kindly told me that kindergarten was optional and assured me it was perfectly fine to wait another year. I remember thinking: Yes. Absolutely. Let’s do that. We then proceeded to do a lot of meeting of new people, looking to find a homeschool group. To figure out where we might fit in. We stumbled into a small group, that expanded. And an Earth Native school that just clicked. They were wonderful. Thoughtful people, building intentional lives with their children. They shared their interests and routines and rhythms. We spent time outside. We learned the names of trees. We lingered over questions instead of rushing past them.

I fell in love with the word rhythm. Not schedule. Not optimization. Rhythm. We slowed down. And somewhere in all of that, I realized homeschooling wasn’t just changing my children. It was changing me too. It gave me time to re-parent parts of myself. Time to figure out what kind of family culture we wanted. Time to notice who my children actually were when nobody was hurrying them, or me.

I talked to my aunt and cousin about it too. She had homeschooled in the 80s and 90s, long before it was common or aesthetic or visible online. I wanted to know what it had felt like from both sides, as the parent and as the child. I thought constantly about entry points. About what public school might offer. About what might be lost. About whether there is ever a “perfect” timing for any of it.

Then life kept happening. There was a pandemic, and everyone was home anyway. There was our long-awaited youngest child. There were diagnoses and assessments and the slow process of understanding neurodivergence within our family. Then we moved countries.

And honestly? There hasn’t really been space to imagine a different path for quite a while. I have been deeply grateful for the years at home with my older two children. More grateful than I know how to explain. But if I’m being honest, the last year has chafed a little.

The first year and a half after moving was hard in ways that sound small until you live them. Learning how to grocery shop again. Learning healthcare systems. Learning schools, transit, paperwork, seasons, expectations, social rules. Trying to build community while also just trying to remember which store carries the corn free stuff you need because one of your children has an allergy.

It’s difficult to settle when everything feels unfamiliar. And under all of that, something in our family dynamic started feeling tight. I found myself with less patience for my littles. More friction with my older kids. Nothing dramatic or alarming. Just that slow, persistent feeling that the shape of our days no longer fit the people living inside them.

I sat with that feeling for a long time. I’ve learned, slowly, that the feeling of not-quite-fitting, I should listen to that. Though not listen so hard I rush to a fix either. More, follow it carefully. So we adjusted. We changed how we approached learning. We loosened things. Rebuilt things. Some things eased.

Then my oldest attended a few public-school-adjacent activities and casually said one evening, “I think I want to go to public school.”

That sentence landed hard. Not as a wound, exactly. More like a compass shifting. Nobody tells you how to hold a moment like that, the kind where your child begins reaching toward the wider world. Hold on too long and you’re overprotective. Let go too soon and you’re negligent. Too involved and you’re controlling. Too relaxed and you’re irresponsible. At some point you realize nobody can hand you certainty. You just keep making the call you actually believe in

And if I’m honest, I don’t feel like I’ve held on too long. Not in my bones. Not in my soul. But I have felt something shifting. Not a dramatic push away from me. Not rejection. Just… movement. Like realizing your child can suddenly read transit schedules better than you can. Like noticing they no longer need your hand for every crossing. Like understanding that part of loving someone is listening carefully when they begin reaching toward the wider world.

I never planned for any of this. Not the children, not the years at home, not this particular ache of watching them prepare to step into something larger. But I have been so lucky to be inside it. Yes, hard, exhausting, draining, and overwhelming, but such a privilege. Every unplanned inch of it.

I don’t know if my homeschool journey will truly end this year. I only know I’m ready to leap with my older two if they are ready to reach. Maybe that’s all this season really is.

Listening.