Yay for the rest of us.

If you ever want to feel like an abject failure try being the mum of a homeschool dropout. The homeschool mum whose kid doesn't love homeschool. The homeschool mum whose child spectacularly fails standardised tests ~ on purpose; because they're boring. *sigh* We're the mum's tearing our hair out while our children roll their eyes & go, "But I thought you wanted me to think for myself & what I think is..." [No, dear. What I wanted was for you to think like me.]

We're out there; the mums who believe in homeschooling & are clinging on by the skin of our teeth while our children lob social landmines to skittle our ship. We don't say boo to a goose. Our kids won't be starting college at 15. Doubtful if our kids will ever see the inside of a college classroom.

Worse, many of us have kids on the upper end of bright. They are super intelligent ~ & very creative about making sure no~one ever knows just how bright they are. Every day we're down in the trenches dragging our reluctant children to the academic well they don't want to drink from, extolling the virtues of an interesting education, telling them over & over how lucky they are. They are skeptical. Everywhere they go they are the outsider; the kid who can't join in the conversations about how awful their math teacher is & how little Jonny stank out the science lab with sulphur & Brendan hacked into the school mains & crashed the whole system. They suffer from *the grass is always greener syndrome*, outsiders who bring whole conversations to screaming halts with 3 little words; "Oh, I'm homeschooled."

Now I know people who would growl with exasperation, "For heavens sake! Put the poor child in school & let her get a decent education!" Um, right. You know something? Even I know that would compound the problem. And you know how I know? I was one of those children. I should never have been in a regular classroom. Nothing against the education my parents chose for me, which was very good in parts, but I am mostly self taught ~ as any truly well educated person is. Nope. So long as I was quiet & well behaved I could pretty much do as I pleased & what pleased me was to to make math class bearable by reading novels under my desk. I read through math. I read through Science. I read through French & history. I was smart enough to still pass science & French & history. Math took a long, long spiral into oblivion. And if you think Ditz wouldn't do the same, think again! Fast. Worse, knowing Ditz as I do, she loses the things that don't interest her: maths books & lecture notes, entire classrooms, perhaps even the entire school. Who knows. She likes to talk. She'd stand gabbing at the school gate all day & never notice she'd missed a thing.

Because I am passionate about education I read homeschool blogs. Perhaps I shouldn't. Most people still have younger children & younger children are different. I do remember it was sooo much easier when Ditz was little. Before she started thinking for herself & we no longer saw eye to eye about her school work. It is frustrating & demoralising. It is one area where I am definitely not happy being radically different & providing the homeschool freak show. Nope. I could live with my kid starting college classes at 15. Believe me. More than happy. I'm counting down the years now till Ditz graduates & this is no longer my problem, my responsibility, my anything.

Does this make me a bad mummy? A truly awful homeschooler? Ah! See there's the rub. Here's the other side of the coin ~ the one that can't be measured with standardised tests, or assessed using the usual methods, or judged by what others have achieved. Ditz has a singing CV that would rival some professionals & that would never have happened if I wasn't the sort of mummy to drive all over the place & wait, bored out of my brain, in dark cold places, for Ditz to do her ditzy thing. Ditz truly appreciates it. More, slowly, slowly Ditz is grappling with the street directory. This is no mean feat for a right brained mathematically challenged child. She is also the calm one while her mother is losing the plot behind the steering wheel. "Just drive, mum. Straight ahead." Which isn't always good advice but soothing just the same.

Ditz has shopped with me since she was a toddler, choosing fruit, putting things in the trolley, later keeping a running Tally to make sure we had enough money at the checkout. Now it is more likely to be Ditz than I saying, "Not that mum. This is better value for your money. See 2 of these equals one of those & it's $3.00 less". Honestly. And her supervisor worries about her math! I know a lot of learning is taking place by default, from random conversations because Ditz lives in a house where everyone talks everything to death.

So last night Ditz calls me over to the computer. There in all it's glory is Ditz's book. A children's story based on the stories she wrote in grade 2 about Tottle the dragon. She even remembered a dedication page [to mummy & daddy for allowing her to dream big ~ or something like that. Awww.] She is now looking for a publisher. I have promised to help edit. Realistically, she has as much chance of getting published as I have of flying to the moon but that is not important. She will learn sooo much from this process that she would never learn by *doing school*. This is real. When it's real Ditz listens. She listens when I tell her she has to sort out her grammar; and her punctuation; & her spelling. She listens when I tell her her fancy script needs to go. Editors want something clear & legible, not something *pretty*.

You know something else, something I lost constantly fighting to survive my peers? Ditz has a wonderful confidence. I envy her that so much. She might get turned down, knocked back, rejected but she would never in a thousand years let that deter her. She will pick herself up, dust herself off & have another shot at her dreams. How can one measure the invaluable attribute of that sort of confidence? And you know what else this tells me? That Ditz knows how to do all sorts of stuff, stuff we've been studying as part of her school work for years & years, complete with eye~rolls & cries of, "But this is so boring!"

So if you have an academically inclined child who aces all those tests & is wonderful in every possible way, thank God. Some of us have wonderful children who walk to a very different beat. No~one, but no~one, has the right to judge us. Especially no~one in a public school system that has effectively squashed every ounce of creativity out of children for generations. We have special challenges you will never have to face, special obstacles to overcome you will never even know exist. Like the parents of special needs kiddies we walk a lonely road, poorly signposted, doing the best we know to do for children dancing before us completely unaware of how much heartache, how much prayer, how much love, has gone into creating an education wherein they can be the very best they can be.