**Because it\u2019s Monday, and we could all use a little encouragement**<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish that I could homeschool,\u201d my neighbor told me.\u00a0 \u201cI would in a minute, but their dad says no.\u00a0 He prefers the public schools.\u00a0 He\u2019s afraid that they\u2019d become freaks.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve lost track of how many times I\u2019ve heard this over the years.\u00a0 There is a fear in all of us (even those of us who\u2019ve been doing this for what seems like forever) that somehow our children need an institutional school setting to make them \u201cnormal,\u201d as though it is peer pressure and bad cafeteria lunches which take the weirdos that all children are and turns them into socially acceptable versions of themselves.<\/p>\n
I say \u201cWho wants to raise \u2018normal\u2019 children.\u00a0 I hope mine are freaks.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I was in school, the kids who worried about getting good grades and actually studied were freaks.\u00a0 The girl who graduated high school still a virgin was a freak. If they went to church and actually liked it\u2026freaks.\u00a0 The kids who thought that reading was fun were freaks.\u00a0 The ones who actually enjoyed the challenge of Mrs Throm\u2019s English class were freaks.\u00a0 The ones who refused to make fun of others, were genuinely kind, refused to play those mean reindeer games\u2026.freaks, freaks, freaks.<\/p>\n
I know, because I made fun of them.\u00a0 (I hope they can forgive me.)<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until I was a couple years into college that I discovered the truth about the freaks \u2014 they were the interesting ones.\u00a0 While the \u201ccool\u201d kids spent their weekends getting drunk or getting laid, the freaks challenged each other to become better more honest versions of themselves.\u00a0 I saw that there was an honesty in their freakiness that the \u201ccool\u201d ones weren\u2019t yet smart enough to appreciate.<\/p>\n
I hope that the children I\u2019m raising are freaks.\u00a0 I\u2019ve dedicated my life to it, because \u201cfreak\u201d in our society has come to be a euphemism for people who are genuinely themselves.\u00a0 I\u2019m hoping that my children will be the ones who run up the down escalators of life, and refuse to be forced in going one direction just because their peers are all going that way.\u00a0 I want them to learn to dance to the music they hear in their hearts, and to sing the words out loud for all the world to hear.\u00a0 I pray that they will learn to shrug off the opinions of others and listen to the truth of their own lives.\u00a0 Those are the people I\u2019m educating them to be \u2014 freakishly, wonderfully, completely the person God created them to be.\u00a0 It\u2019s one of the many blessings of homeschooling, our children have the privilege of discovering who they are without a chorus of other voices telling them what that looks like.<\/p>\n
It is the freaks who change out world and keep it interesting.\u00a0 The freaks are the ones who start computer companies in their garage, win the national spelling bee, the priest who sets hearts on fire for God, or the artist who is touted as the next Picasso.\u00a0 They are the kinds of people we all wish to raise \u2014 the ones who refuse to let other people define what \u201cnormal\u201d should look like for them.<\/p>\n
Think back to high school\u2026what made the \u201ccool kids\u201d cool was that studied air of boredom and too much time on their hands.\u00a0 Do you want to raise bored and boring people, or do you want to raise people who are excited by life?<\/p>\n
Homeschooling may not be the only way to get there, but it\u2019s one of the surest.\u00a0 Please, God, may they all be freaks.<\/p>\n
**For the record: There\u2019s a difference between being socially inept and being a freak.\u00a0 Whereas raising a freak may be desirable, raising the socially inept is a thing to be avoided whenever possible. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
**Because it\u2019s Monday, and we could all use a little encouragement** \u201cI wish that I could homeschool,\u201d my neighbor told me.\u00a0 \u201cI would in a minute, but their dad says no.\u00a0 He prefers the public schools.\u00a0 He\u2019s afraid that they\u2019d become freaks.\u201d I\u2019ve lost track of how many times I\u2019ve heard this over the years.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n