Why do I Homeschool?

Someone asked me today WHY I homeschool my daughter.

Wow, what a very broad question with so many (too many!) possible answers. Got all day? (that was my answer to this person! LOL)

Ok, so you don't want to sit all day and read a long extensive post, I get it --- and believe me, I could write all day on this but I will spare you. LOL I'll TRY to make it short. :)

So this question has been in the back of my mind and I've been pondering this pretty much all day. I think my reasons have changed some since I started. Well maybe my top three reasons have changed a little or they have become a little more important as the years go by.

Okay, to the point now.....

My main reasons for homeschooling:

-my daughter is already going to growing up WAY too fast - I can't believe that she's going to be 7 next month. Seems like she was just a baby a couple years ago. I don't want to spend the rest of the time I have with her at home just during the evenings when everyone is tired from a long day (Brendon working, me working a paying job (cuz I would if I wasn't doing what I am) and Brenna at school), trying to get homework done, dinner made and get to bed at a decent hour so we can all wake up at 6 AM and do it all over again. Sorry, doesn't sound fun at all - I don't care HOW much money we would have with two full-time workers - not worth it, at least not to us.
I don't want our quality time together to be only on weekends and vacations. I have so much QUALITY time with my daughter every day. I'm sorry, but to me quality time does NOT happen during busy evenings and you don't get as much as you need with your child on weekends. Everyone knows weekends go by super quick. I refuse to fall into that rut. I will absolutely cherish and be so grateful for all the time that I have been able to spend with my daughter when she is grown and out on her own. And I'm sure she will too.
You only get one shot and I'm not wasting mine. Time is too precious.

- socialization. Yes, you read that right. Socialization is one of my top reasons for wanting to homeschool.
But isn't that the main reason why most people think homeschooling is bad, because of the supposed lack of socialization? *big eye roll* Pleeease......
I don't think children get very good socialization at school at all. Yeah, they GET it but what kind of quality? Isn't quality better than quanity? Why do I want my child hanging out with "Joe's" kid who goes and sees rated R movies with his parents on weekends and comes and tells my 6 year old all about it? Yeah, you've all seen the little kids at those movies, don't say you haven't. If their parents are letting them do THOSE things then no telling what else they are being exposed to. I'm not going to put MY child in jeopardy and have her learn things that she shouldn't just because some other parents are complete and total idiots and have no common sense (everyone knows exactly what I'm talking about). I'm not going to let my child endure the effects of bad parenting when I've tried so hard to raise her the right way with morals and values, right and wrong, manners and respect, ect... That's just way too much for me to have to correct over and over again. Things have become so much worse from when I was a kid - just read the paper or talk to parents of public schooled kids. Now you got 2nd graders in the bathroom (at a private school no less!) showing their friends their mother's thong under ware (true story I heard from a teacher! I kid you not!). Seven year olds! That is soooo screwed up. There is usually one teacher per about 20-25 students. That is not acceptable supervision to me.
Socialization at school is way over-rated and if people just actually took the time to stop and really think about it they would realize that kids do not benefit at all from the "almighty school socialization" ---- the "your-kid-won't-be-normal-unless-they-go-to-school". Yea, whatever. I'll risk it. Gladly. But it's totally not true. One of the myths of homeschooling.
School socialization actually is not that great (*gasp!* who would've thought??). Like I said before.... waaaayyyy over-rated. If I would lock my child in a closet all day and let her have no interaction with other people then you could tell me that she wasn't socialized. Not happening -- never going to.

-quality of education. My third reason. And a very important one to me. Not so much at the beginning but it is now becoming a lot more important as our homeschooling journey broadens and as she gets older.
Do I want my six year old spending all day at school doing table work and learning from text books and worksheets? Do I want her having an hour of homework every night after being at school all day? Do I want her going to school just to learn how to pass a government test?

Heck no.

These are facts. I have friends I talk to who's kids go to public school. The public school that she would be going to has 23 bench-mark tests per year for the government tests that schools have to pass. Twenty-three! That's crazy! I refuse to let my child go to school just to learn how to pass a government issued test.
I want my 1st grader learning things that SHE is interested in and I want her to keep her strong desire for learning. That's how you retain information. Do you think that if schools are shoving that many tests down my child's throat that she's going to love learning? I think not. After a while it's going to become monotonous and so robotic. Learning is going to become a chore instead of a "I-want-to-learn-this-because-it's-cool".
Brenna gets to experiment and do things that SHE loves and is interested in. Everyone by now has heard the story of Brenna learning to read. I'm not going to repeat it so here's my post on our schooling style. We are extremely relaxed and for right now that is the best thing for my child. She is getting so much more out of that then if she were going to public school.
I've written so much about our schooling and my approach and reasoning, that I'm not going to even go there right now. My daughter is flourishing and learning plenty.

Ok, so those are my top three reasons for homeschooling. I'm always trying to find intersting things to post about and when I was asked that question today I just thought that I would re-visit that topic on my blog.
I really didn't think that it would be that long but of course I tend to ramble on. LOL :)