The most frequent question I get from people is, "How can I work and homeschool at the same time?" For example:

Just recently got turned onto your blog and am seriously considering the homeschool path for my three, yes three children-ages 9 and 6 yr old twins.  Neither my husband nor myself want to give up our work–thankfully I work at home as a researcher and writer for a non-profit, he is less flexible.  So please direct me on your blog or elsewhere to how, if it is possible, to work and homeschool.  Do I have to give up working to manage the day?  What resources can I access to start to figure this out?

I should have sent her the picture above of Yefet reading while I meet with my banker.  But I wrote this answer back:

I live in rural America, so it's easy for me to find pictures of animals that would appall you. Because you are not used to seeing how people really treat their animals. You'd think people would hide their animals when they treat them poorly, but in fact, people convince themselves that what they are doing is ethically and morally fine. So it's all out in the open.

It's very scary to take your kids out of school because if your kid grows up to be a lonely, unhappy adult, everyone will blame homeschooling. So I spend a lot of time worrying that I'm doing the wrong thing. At first I worried the kids wouldn't be socialized even though I had no idea what the word meant. And I worried the kids wouldn't be well-rounded, even though I didn't know what well-rounded meant.

Danah Boyd is someone who has influenced me a lot over the past fifteen years.

For example she did research about ten years ago to show that given the way we present ourselves online, the best models for how to prepare for the workforce were not parents at home but celebrities in Hollywood. In 2008 that research gave me a lot of the gumption I needed to launch my last company, Brazen Careerist, which was predicated on the idea of using social media as a career tool.

This is a guest post from Gary Houchens, professor at the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences at Western Kentucky University.

One of America's foremost scholars of school leadership and improvement is Joe Murphy, professor of education at Vanderbilt University. His 2012 book, Homeschooling in America: Capturing and Assessing the Movement, offers the most comprehensive look to date at one of the nation's fastest-growing school choice options.  Murphy's book makes it clear that what we know – and don't know – about homeschooling offers deep lessons for professional educators.

Parents hate going against the grain when they raise their kids because they don't want to be wrong. It's so much safer to be wrong when you did everything that society tells you to do as a parent. Homeschooling requires bravery from parents. It's a risk but some parents take the leap.

Thank you so much for great year! My resolution for next year is to be able to write on this blog about how I get better at taking care of myself while I am homeschooling. And running a startup. This coming year I want to tell you about weight loss. And marital bliss. And no more yelling at my kids.

I woke up at 4am today to write. I've been doing that as a way to get time alone. It was great for a while, until my youngest son started waking up at 5am.

I said, "Can you think of something to do by yourself?"

I went to New York to pitch to investors, and I took my oldest son with me so that I didn’t feel like a bad mom.

I'd like to tell you that my boys love going to NY, but they don’t. They do like Broadway shows, so I took my son to see Annie. I saw it as a kid and remembered most of it, but one thing I didn’t remember is the moment when Daddy Warbucks puts the orphanage keeper in jail and then, of course, is responsible for all the orphans.

It's much easier to homeschool a kid who is like you than a kid who is different than you. But then, that's true in all of parenting. We are best at guiding kids who want to go where we want to go.