Belinda Moore

I see her in the supermarket - she checks her watch, the 3pm deadline looms and her child-free hours are almost over. She laments to a comrade about the battle of homework; “Even in year one!” she sighs. She looks across at my children crowded around me. She offers a half-smile of almost-pity. I meet another at swimming lessons. She is watching her three year old. Her “other two” are at school. Mine are a mob aged 11, 9, 8, 6, 3 and 1. I imagine I look like a mother hen juggling goggles and towels. She wonders aloud how I do it? I can only smile.

We are invited to Barefoot in the Park. As I walk through the school (a peek into the “other world”) I look at the children, hear their conversations. They wander in the playground - big children, small children, loud children, quiet children. I see no teacher watching over them. Could I allow these children to raise my own children? I think of the supermarket and swimming mothers, of my friends, my family. It is my turn to wonder - how do they do it?

Often lately, I’ve asked myself the question “Whose freedom is more true?” For she likes having “free” time from 9 to 3 and I like to live a life of “free” time. My freedom is with my kids, without institutions, her freedom is the opposite. Of course I realise that we can’t be compared for she feels free and so do I.

I am a full-time home educating Mum. No Tupperware parties, no leisurely morning teas in town, no all day shopping trips, no study, no part-time work… No school uniforms to iron, no tuckshop duty or P&C, no alarm close to heed, no bus to catch, no lunch boxes to pack. No school politics, no Yu-Gi-Oh or fashion wars.

From the outside looking in my life may seem chaotic…six children at home all day, every day, but it is our chaos. Our choice of outings, our child-centred time. We walk to the beat of our own drum. They rush to the beat of someone else’s.

Home education is a lifestyle choice. It is a sometimes-lonely journey. It is an enigma to the masses. They ask why? There is no simple answer. Home education is a learning journey for our whole family. It is full of gains and insights and a thousand special moments…every day.

Others note the sacrifices and label us martyrs. How often I’ve been told, “Well you’re a better mother than me!” - and cringed. We simply chose to educate our children from home at the moment. I don’t want or deserve to be put on a ‘perfect mother’ pedestal. I am a Mum. I am not extraordinarily clever or patient or maternal, but I am trying hard, having fun, and doing what is best for our family.

My local social contact is with the school community. I rarely feel accepted. I have home educating friends whom I know through letters, phone calls and newsletters. Like me they are often isolated. They understand that home education is a lifestyle. They expect no explanations and have as many answers as questions. They allow me to err. They help me feel normal. I am thankful to them all.

My choice to home educate doesn’t hinder my freedom. My isolation does, however. Being different can be a bigger heartache than missing the Tupperware party. In small towns schools are chasing funding and staff. Their enrolments are down and they need more pupils to remain in operation. Sometimes the unspoken blame is heavy in the air.

Home education is not always an accepted lifestyle. Alternatives take time to become valid options. Home ed. seems to be flourishing in cities (even more so in the U.S.) but in most Australian small towns it is still raising many eyebrows. I hope these words have helped you to understand a little about our journey…

(updated 2005 from an article originally published in Stepping Stones magazine)