The family in 1998, a few months after we started homeschooling. Homeschooling requires such faith. For most of us, it means striking out on terrain that is unfamiliar, that requires new tools. We want to believe that we’ll get where we want to go, that the journey will be good for our kids, but how [...]

“Reading time! Grab your book!” This is what I call out to Mr. T, who is in the backyard, walking circles around the trampoline, lost in thought. He gives me his usual just-a-minute and eventually comes in, pulls Hunter from the book basket and sprawls himself in every direction across the leather chair like an [...]

photo by Shelli Bond Pabis I know that I keep bringing up home/school/life, the magazine I’m writing a column for, again and again. I’m just so impressed with what editor Amy Sharony is pulling together with a staff that could fit around a dining room table—and I mean one without the extra leaf installed. Her team [...]

Coming home to the empty bedroom is the hardest part. She took all the things she loved, and cleaned up the rest. Filled bags with old Vans and ballet flats to donate. Now her room looks like a fake teenage bedroom in a suburban housing tract model home. The week before she left, she brought [...]

I’ve been rereading my mother’s journals for an essay that I’m working on, and rediscovering nuggets like these: H at three, when I asked him to put away one set of toys before taking out another: “I’m not into that.” Lulu at five, working out the nuances of words: “Is plump a nicer way to [...]

“Which is all well and glorious, these homeschooling days of wonder. But there are other days wracked with a whole different sort of wonder, particularly if you are a parent. Why can’t he write a paragraph by himself if schoolkids his age can? Should I push her to read instead of listening to audiobooks for [...]