5 Reasons it’s easier for single parents to homeschool
This is a guest post from Kim Bain. She has three children.
I suck at budgeting and finances but I do know this: sending kids to school has costs. I’m not just talking about field trip money and new-Jordan’s-to-impress-the-ladies type costs.
I figured this out when I decided that, eventually, I needed an income to supplement my child support payments. When I got divorced, there were a lot of people bemoaning the impossibilities of homeschooling. “You’ll never afford anything”, they’d say. They said I’d go broke trying to prioritize my kids.
So, I relented and planned on putting my kids in school. After all, I was a single mom of three kids. How could I do it all on a limited income?
It was shortly after a hot cup of tea, a quick search on the internet and a few calculations that I realized that sending kids to school has a few factors that made it unfeasible.
1. Babysitting is too expensive. When working full time and paying for after-school care costs including summer and holiday camp tuition, school would definitely break the bank. This is not to mention the loss of pay when I have to call in sick because my child broke her leg at school or paying a babysitter when she child is sick.
2. School hours are inflexible. Homeschooling cuts out all of those hidden costs. Employers love homeschool parents, too. Flexibility is very important to employers and if parents can homeschool and have someone watch their kids during the hours that they work. Especially if they work part-time, filling in for the hours that no one wants, they can make themselves more desirable than parents who have to be somewhere at a certain time to pick up their kids from school.
3. School hours limit work hours. Parents with kids in school can forget working evening shifts and nights. By the time they get home, their kids have spent the whole day somewhere else.
School takes away the precious time that makes work doable. The structure of school robs parents’ time that they can be spending with their kids making it almost impossible to structure work around the limited time parents get with their kids.
4. College savings is unimportant. I figured out, a long time ago, that I probably wasn’t going to be able to afford to send my kids to college. It was then I realized that the only kids that should be going to college are the ones that are smart enough to be there. After all, I was a college fund kid who had no business being in college.
Having enough money to send your kids to college is a pipe dream for most single parents. So, I am deciding to trade the money for time I spend with my kids helping them pursue their interests so that they will be prepared to go to college and maybe even earn a scholarship to pay for it.
Brilliant post. The hidden costs of school are too seldom mentioned. Flexibility and family time are some of what people sacrifice to send their kids to school. It wasn’t until I pulled the last of my kids out of school that it clicked for me: “We’re free.”
Homeschool is freedom.
I appreciate this, that homeschooling is possible as a single-parent. I would expect that is factor for many people making that decision.
But I don’t know that this is an incredibly convincing argument—babysitting costs still exist during the hours you work, employers are not always champions of flexibility (depends on the industry), and college savings aren’t a given for anyone.
Some days I am looking for a little more “how” than simple “why.”
I am pretty bad at homeschooling. I appreciate the article. Hopefully, I will be able to do better now.
Kim, I love that you wrote this. Thank you.
I was reading your post to one of my kids and was holding back tears so I could read all the way through your last paragraph aloud. My hat’s off to you with awe.
I was told by three lawyers, two counselors and a life coach that h.s. would be impossible as a single parent. Yet, here we are! :-)
May the message spread that being there for our kids is 1-our kids’ and our rights and 2- empowering and fullfilling for all involved.
Home and family are sacred.
Bless you and your family.
Great post. Great role model. Your kids are blessed.
So, I was going to say, yeah…if I was single, I’d move in with my parents on their farm and homeschool my kid. For sure. Maybe.
So…who pays this lady’s rent and bills?
I think I took the headline wrong…meaning easier for single parents than coupled parents meaning I can do whatever I want because I’m not with my husband.
But, it meant easier to homeschool than send a kid to school. And I see, too, how this is true. I’d have to beg for some concessions if I were even to be able to make pick up from the after school program and drop the kid off at a decent hour in the morning. Such as it is, I do a later morning drop off and my husband does the evening pick up.
I read the title the same way you did.
I can’t identify with this post. I am in the middle of launching and e-learning company while accompanying my kid to various homeschool co-ops daily. I feel like an exhausted chaperone. By the time I get a moment to work on my business I feel just so exhausted. My husband works FT and all chores are my responsibility as well. I find it extremely difficult to work and homeschool at the same time while being a quasi “single mom” in my specific scenario.
Every once in awhile, I toy with the idea of hiring an au pair to help me manage unschooling my three creative kids. The costs are less than nannies and they become a part of the family. Have you looked into this? I know two execs living in NYC through one of my social media groups who hire a nanny to help so they can unschool while they work very high profile and demanding jobs.
Hey,
I did look into it. Space is a big issue in NYC. We’d have to move for that but an au-pair offers the flexibility that nannies or sitters don’t.
I think this post is sweet. Life is what you make it.
This modern reality of the ‘single’ mom. Where did it come from? How did it happen? Where are the communities? Where are the relatives? I find it frustrating (in our society), it’s as if women are floating out to sea without anything to hold onto. We are expecting them to work, raise the kids, educate the kids, keep the house, do. it. all.
People make such of a big deal out of paying for their kid’s college. It’s a little weird to me.
We can afford our kids college tuition, but A) I’m not sure our kids will even go and B) I’m not sure we will subsidize it if they do.
I plan to start a trend for my family (I have three girls) by helping my children with their kids and hopefully they can do the same for their kids and so on. Other cultures seem to move their moms in with them to help with childcare and cooking so that the young parents can continue with their careers. Why doesn’t our culture allow this? Our culture glorifies retired folks riding around in motor homes year round, vacationing, or moving to senior living homes on opposite sides of the country away from their extended families. I’m curious why this detached family lifestyle began in the first place.
YMKAS, I suspect two sources for the demise of extended family traditions in the US. One is the unusual geographic mobility of our populace: it would be harder to tag along after your extended family if you had to keep leaving your own friends behind. The other is the high degree of intercultural marriage in our society. It’s one thing to have a mother-in-law of your own culture move in with you, but I believe it’s much harder when there are differing cultural expectations to negotiate.
Geographic mobility sounds exactly right. I will bet that when colonists left England and other parts of Europe to come here, a trend started in the US to completely separate from your family and somewhere down the line that became normal for our culture.
I agree with this too, but I do have extended family in which grandparents would rather live on a beach somewhere than have relationships with their grandkids, and children. It’s a strange phenomenon to separate yourself so completely from relationships. If their unhealthy sure, but if your choosing to not be there – why?
I am completely with you on this.
There is nothing more I think I could give my kids when they are older than a helping hand and another adult figure for their children to have a lasting relationship with. My parents are not at all in my kids lives and I see it as a major loss to both parties.
There are definitely huge benefits to generational help and guidance.
Yes, I too tell my kids if they decide to have kids, they won’t have to be alone while they parent. I will help them. I will be as involved in my kids’ lives as they will want me to be when they are adults.
But I don’t have a desire to raise grandkids alone, my kids will also need to be around for their kids much of the time–a team/tribe environment, which is what has been missing for several generations.
I admire multi-generational family living situations. Seems so healthy and natural for all.
One sure learns the true status of relationships once having kids…
This post left me intrigued:
Kim, do you work? In what industry?
As for school costs, yes, it is true it has its costs, but I wouldn’t be able to work the flexible, part time hours I work if I had all the kids home all day. I have one at home full time (she’s 2.5), and the two older only have classes on the morning. The 4th has a regular 9-5 school day. On weekends and schoolholidays I am not able to work, or I just work during the night (o-4 or 5 am…). I feel pretty exhausted most of the time, and I know I could work more, with more hours during the day, and more days during the year, if I had all the kids in some form of care or after-school activities from 8am to 6pm and summer/holiday camps, say. but that would be 1) awful for them and me and 2) very expensive.
I’m a freelance translator, I work from home, and my husband has a full time job (with flexible hours and average pay). We cannot possibly afford me not working. That’s also a factor in keeping our kids in school.
Marta I think it has a lot to do with the community around the family and it’s a very case by case basis. But more than anything I’ve found that it’s about what you’re willing to live and part with.
I was reading craigslist post while looking for housing because we’re about to move. One of them offered a room in a nice house in exchange for light housekeeping and such. Oh and the adjective “open-minded” described the prospect tenant. I laughed so hard. Then I went the rabbit hole thinking why do we make such a big deal of those things? If two consenting adults make such arrangement and it’s safe and profitable to both parties, why not?
So needless to say there are ways to make life happen on your terms. It may involve sharing too much personal space or living in a studio apartment with your kids. There’s a huge range of ways to make it happen but we just have to view it from different angles and pick the ones we’re okay with.
I really want to connect with you, can you message me? Facebook.com/Karelys.davis
I’m hoping you’ll help me figure out how you do freelance translating.
Hi Karelys,
I don’t have Facebook but you can email me at amaralmmj@gmail.com !
I also want to make clear that this life we’re leading is the choice we’ve made, and we’re pretty content with it, even with all the bad days and financial struggle.
Also, I think that I would be able to give homeschooling a try if I were in the US or in any country where it is fairly common. Here it is not, and, being Europeans, we’re probably more into a different mindset concerning community, the uses of education, etc… I don’t know.
But our position in life and the place where we want to live do indeed have a major influence in the options available to us. I admire Kim for fighting for what she believes is best for her kids, I’d just like more info on whether she’s working and in what field.
I can definitely relate to the sense of community in the UK being centered around School. My son attended for a while. It’s a way of life, for sure.
But I do have to wonder if, as the world globals up, how sustainable it is?
For example, a few of our friends wondered allowed to how my husband could climb the ladder so fast in the US. And we were able to point out we don’t holiday often, we work 20 more hours a week (at least) etc. Things move a lot faster in the US. Changing jobs does not take a 3-6 month notice. I also think it has to do with having a sense of total responsibility for your life- we don’t have social programs to fall back on, have to work for our healthcare, etc. The greater the risk, the more need to survive. This is just my theory.
The different mindset, Marta, is real and is something I have cause to think about a lot.
I homeschool my son right now, and my big extrovert needs to be out with other kids every day. If we lived somewhere there weren’t hundreds of other kids homeschooling I don’t know if we could do it either. He’d be so lonely and would have to find a simulacrum of community in video games.
Two years ago my wife turned down a job in Switzerland. She still thinks it was the right move for her career. She works there a lot anyway. If we had moved to Zug, I know I would have put my big fellow in public school, and it would have been an entirely different thing than it is here. It would have been the only way for him to be part of the community, but a functional community completely unlike the mess we have here.
It’s the mess we have here that causes so many to drop out and make our own community. It’s a mess decades, no, centuries in the making. The intersection of a centuries old tradition of different schools for the upper class with the decades-old fetishization of diversity, the lawsuit-driven obsession with liability, and the American ideology of every man for himself have simply made it easier not to send our kids to school.
Others talk about how much of an imposition it is to have to drive your kids to school and go pick them up, and it’s true. When I was a kid that didn’t exist; all the kids in the neighborhood, first grade on up, walked together. It’s still that way in most of Europe (say, Zug), whereas parents here can now be arrested for letting their kids walk alone. This is nothing less than the failure of our community.
Make no mistake: America is not becoming more like Europe, but less. We are becoming more like Mexico or Brazil. Our period of middle class dominance is at an end; we have enacted policies to kill it, and turn our country into a banana republic. The schools aren’t going to be an arena where this is fixed, but one where this is exacerbated.
A lot of homeschoolers like to condemn all schools equally. Their fervor is positively millennial. I don’t: all the schools I went to and my son went to were lousy, but I’m willing to believe yours is different. If your school gives you and yours a sense of community, you are fortunate.
I’m trying to sort out now what to do with my intense, competitive, extroverted little girl once she is “school age.” I don’t believe she wants to spend the day with dad. She’s asking me now why she can’t stay twice as long in preschool. Bad as it seems to me, I am charting a course for her through Boston’s best private schools.
If we were in Zug, I wouldn’t even have to think about it.
Are you the commenter formerly known as Commenter? ;)
How could you guess?
Someone else posted something under that name, so it was time for a switch.
Someone did that?! Not cool. I call you “Mr. Professor” in my head when I read your comments. I enjoy reading what you write and I will say “Oh, Mr. Professor wrote something!” Heh.
Perhaps it would amuse you more to know that my PhD has little to do with me sounding like a professor (in English, anyway – I think it elevated my diction in other languages). I spoke in paragraphs as a child.
Professor has been both my nickname and my livelihood before. It is neither now – I’m just Dr. Dad these days – but I hope you feel at ease.
Bostonian,
Thank you!
You clarify what I’m always trying to pass through and maybe always failing to: it all depends on where you live. The bottom line distinction you make on Europe and the US is very acurate.
However, and unfortunately, at the moment the southern European countries are also diverging from the central/north European model since the financial crisis of 2008. The future is bleak as we head on a more US-style society, leaving former benefits and socio-systems (public, free health and education) behind…
Maybe in a decade or two we’ll see some positive aspects, the advent of unschooling being perhaps one of them…
But for the time being unschooling would be driving yourself and your family away from what I feel really matters in times of hardship and drastic shifts: staying together and pulling up together the public institutions that make up the country.
For the middle classes, believing in public education is a sort of statement: it is believing in the cultural, scientific, economic future of the country as a whole, regardless of the diversity of the population (socioeconomic, mainly, but in certain urban areas ethnic as well).
I work from home as a freelance social media manager. I try to outsource as much of the work as possible using sites like Fiverr and Upwork. I am constantly looking for reliable writers (and fashion types).
I don’t know much about translation per se but real people do use the sites I mentioned and manage to make money/work more efficiently. I recommend giving them a shot
Karelys, when I worked as a freelance translator, I entered the profession two different ways: in 1998, I faxed my resume to dozens of agencies. Work followed quickly, and good work resulted in repeat customers. I stopped doing it for a while to focus on full-time work it lead to, then dipped back in- for only literary work- in 2003, that time by posting on a professional translators web board. I think it was translatorscafe, which looks like it’s still there.
You might consider that there are specific subsets of translation work (e.g. Medical, legal, business, scientific, literary), some of which involve unusual and specialized vocabulary, as well as regional linguistic differences (localization into Mexican Spanish and Uruguayan Spanish may be different) and directional (English -> Spanish vs Spanish -> English) preference. I recommend you make your resume or posting as specific as possible, and if you want to move into a specialty be sure to study the vocabulary – there’s no reason any normal person would know how to translate legal English into legal Spanish, for example.
It’ll be harder to get your first translation job than your second, and your ability to predict how long it will take you to finish a job will improve. It’s not bad work, but it’s sedentary, so make sure you get out and about enough or you’ll get cabin fever.
Marta,
My ears pricked up when you mentioned that you are a freelance translator. So am I! Interestingly, I found that homeschooling gives me more time to work, not less. I used to spend much more time with school drop-off, pick-up, parent conferences, festivals. In the mornings, I could squeeze in maybe 90 minutes of translation before I had to turn around and go pick them up again. Then lunch, homework, activities, and yes, exhaustion! I’ve been working from home for eight years, and am mama to 10-year-old twins and a 7-year-old. When we decided to homeschool four years ago, I was amazed at how much time I saved by dropping the school commute. I rise early, translate from 5-7 or 8, or whenever they wake up, then focus on the kids. We start school around 10 and finish around 2 pm (lunchtime in Mexico, where we live), with plenty of breaks. Sometimes I translate again in the afternoons, between ferrying them to music and sports activities (they don’t have homework, and I pack a laptop). If school gets derailed for any reason (doctor’s appointments, or I worked all night, which happens occasionally), we just pick it up later, or the next day, or on Saturdays. We school year round, so I don’t feel bad about missing a day here and there. If I’m not teaching, they’re still learning with Legos, videos, crafts, books, staring at the clouds, etc. I do work weekends, but not evenings (I can’t think in either language by 9:30, so I just go to bed). My clients know that I’m a homeschooling mom, and try not to call me in the morning unless there’s an urgent project. I can’t afford to not work either; my husband works crazy full-time for pathetic pay (Mexican teaching salary), and travels a lot, so I’m quasi-single mom at least two weeks out of every month. I take on one to two good new clients each year, so I have steady work. My point is, I don’t see how I could work from home if I didn’t homeschool. I wouldn’t give up the flexibility for anything.
Catharine, hi!
The reason school is so easy for us is that it is literally around the block. The elementary is on the same sidewalk, a block away. The upper-middle/high school (different system from the US) is across the street. I don’t know if they’re the best or the worst (neither, I would say), but for us they are the best because they are right here.
The kids come and go on their own to school at around 9 yo. Their friends are always popping up (sp. the older kids’). The sports facilities they go to are 10-15 minutes walking distance max. The neighbourhood park, where our community really revolves around (not around school; there are lots of other public and private schools in the adjoing neighbourhoods), is at the end of our street. I can spend the whole week doing errands on foot. And so on.
Also, school doesn’t take so much space+time in our lives. We only have SAT in 4th, 6th, 9th (for Language and Maths), 11th and 12th grades (for specific subjects students might study in Uni.) In my children’s elementary, homework is virtually non-existent. My 7th and 9th grade kids can have whole weeks without homework. I know some schools have tougher homework policies, but others are like ours.
Also, I can count on the schools to give good, hearty lunches with three courses: Lunch at a public school (soup, meat or fish with vegetables/pasta/rice, fruit) costs around US$1.50. Sometimes my kids forget to pre-pay lunch but they’re allowed to eat all the same.
I try to squeeze in work during the 4th child’s nap (2-3 hours) and after all the kids are in bed (another 2-3 hours typically, sometimes much more, depends on deadlines). During school breaks/vacations there’s too much energy around and I cannot concentrate. The 3 older kids are fairly independent so they go places on their own, but if they stay home they’ll end up inviting one friend or four, the 4th kid won’t nap, they need multiple meals and snacks,etc. In the summer (3 months w/o school) we’re free to go to the beach on an almost daily basis.
We live in a small (for American standards) apartment. There’s also that to consider ;)
The “how” is based on the individual. The first step is wanting it to happen and believing it is possible. The second step is believing Life is on your side and we live in an abundant universe. It took me three years to get myself to that mindset.
I think it would be difficult to create such a life if a person is trying to prove it is impossible, or if a person thinks Life is going to punish them for not working x hours, or if they feel unworthy of a pleasant life, and so on.
Beliefs and attitude are pretty much everything.
I happily talk to anyone (one-on-one) who is at, or trying to, get to steps 1 and 2 above.
So glad to hear you say this. It makes all the difference, and the attitude is passed on to our children. My daughter has observed a difference between herself and many around her – she grew up believing there is always a way.
I’m confused. Why don’t you ever mention what type of work you do? Or did you end up slashing expenses to make it work?
Maybe she didn’t feel that her profession or field was as important as some of you do. Does it matter if she is a waitress or a doctor? As long as it worked out, she living a dream come true. Isn’t that part the real clencher? The important part? Or did I miss something about this story that matters? Not her source of income either.
I’m really curious what her profession is, too. I think it does matter to me if she’s a waitress or a doctor. I want to read posts like this and get a how-to sense of how I could do it, if I were in her position. Some specifics would be helpful.
It’s not important in terms of I care what she does with her life that works for her. I’m curious HOW it works. I think many readers here want to understand the logistics of how to keep a roof over their family’s heads while homeschooling. Profession has a lot to do with that and how to get the balance of flexibility and financial security at the same time.
She mentions that she receives child support payments, but she needed additional income. To me, it sounds like the additional income didn’t need to be significantly more than what she was receiving. I agree that a little more detail would be helpful, maybe there will be a follow up post.
There was a post about Penelope’s editor who divorced his wife, but they worked out a way for the ex to still homeschool their children, which required significant cutting back of expenses.
Yes, that’s exactly what I am wondering about too.
Ps- I love this blog and Penelope Trunks way of seeing things. It helps me not be so hard on myself when I am home schooling our children. It’s only our second year. We’ve been through too much in the year 2013 with combined with a horrible ppublic school
I’m replying to my own comment b/c my phone won’t behave. Long story short, after hardships beyond reason and daily fighting with the school to help my children 1) PTSD 10 yr old boy, awesome in every way and our 2) 6 yr old persuasive developmental disorder with a slight speech delay. He’s the serenity of all around him just existing. Massachusetts has passes one too many disfunctional laws combinding the State and School. Unconstitutional in every way. Especially if you have SPED children. Which we do which equates to a lot of anger on the school’s behalf when you won’t take no for an answer when they aren’t doing their job.
Now that the law states the school can keep your children if the school see’s fit or better yet, you unfit, we immediately pulled our boys out and started our own School of Hard Knocks! I’ve wondering everyday if I am doing this right. Greatful everyday for one less battle, as I know I won’t let them down.
So far, yet only recently, I found this blog, you and your way of looking at things. Thank you for preminding me who I am inside. We will make it..
I almost feel as free as we should. Happier by far. Thank you!
I agree with #2. My husband currently works for SpaceX and has been receiving multiple recruiting calls lately, some places out in BFE like Bezos’ secret land. The topic of kids generally comes up and typically the recruiter will say something like “Oh, you have kids…well there isn’t much here for kids/schools and such” and my husband replies that we homeschool our kids ( I wish he would say unschool because I do not homeschool like replicating school at home, it embarrasses me when people assume that is what I do). Once recruiters find out how flexible our lifestyle really allows us to be, that gets everyone on board and excited for the process.
We do not have to worry about taking kids out in the middle of the school year. We don’t have to worry about moving to the right neighborhood to get into the good schools. We don’t have to worry about leaving/making friends, since we are globalists and we make friends anywhere we go. We can go to Ireland for a year without hesitation. Schools and school years do not run our lives. We control our lives and what we do and how we learn. Employers find that attractive.
YMKAS, I expected that would be the case with us too, but we turned out to be less flexible than I expected. We can still pick up and spend weeks skiing but we have so many classes scheduled – some of which I teach or are held at my house – and my son has to stay with the program at the conservatory prep on weekends, that it has become difficult to be away for more than a week at a time, or too far away to zip home for a morning.
I would like it if we could travel abroad more, but the obligations we have created for ourselves – though far less onerous than school on a daily basis – still tie us to people and places.
We do have to worry about moving to the wrong neighborhood – BFE doesn’t have a good music school, and there’s no way in hell I’d do the pt shuffle. We live here by choice, and continue to choose it.
That sounds like a great setup and community you have going for you there! That would be hard to walk away from.
I agree that BFE would be a miserable experience and I couldn’t do the pt shuffle either. I am slightly agoraphobic and need to be near some sort of city with amenities.
I think the flexibility that comes with homeschooling assumes that the family is on board with the move as well as not having commitments that run so deep. We get to enjoy travel quite often, including potential to NYC/Boston for a few months this year, as well as potential for overseas job assignments. I may need some of my PT pals to offer suggestions in the future for things to see/do while we are there. :)
Thanks so much to all who enjoyed or, at least, got something from this post.
I wanted to avoid any blanket statements and that’s why I tried to put specific instances in my points.
Not in all professions does this work but homeschool parents can find flexible employment where parents of school children can not.
Childcare costs are not the issue because they occur in both school families and homeschool families.
If it’s not babysitting for homeschool kids, it’s holiday camp/before and after school care costs.
It doesn’t really matter.
I know of single mom homeschooling families that trade babysitting. One mom looks after the kids while the other works and vice versa.
What I hope that parents take away from this is to take advantage of work that parents of schoolchildren don’t want and to find areas of employment that pay high wages in order for you to work part-time but still get paid a decent income to cover expenses.
Single parents really just need to organize more rather and plan ahead. If this is done, it can be a lot less time consuming and stressful than organizing life around school.