And then reality set in.  Had I considered all the drawbacks of homeschooling? 
I realized that there was not only a limit to the amount of time I had to teach each day (after all, I had two other young children) but I also had a limit to the amount of money I could spend. There was just no way I could buy every wonderful learning device that I found. I would attend a homeschool convention and be overwhelmed by all the books, supplemental materials, computer programs and teaching aids. Like the father in Parenthood, I could see how exciting it would be to have my daughter reading latin when she was 8. I’d show EVERYONE how great homeschoolers are.

I looked at various curriculums and the prices seemed astronomical.  I didn’t have thousands of dollars to spend each year on homeschooling. I didn’t even have hundreds. How was my daughter ever going to get the kind of education that could compete with the “school building” kids?

Do you ever feel like this? You feel trapped between the limitless possibilities homeschooling presents, and the limited time and resources. I suddenly went from feeling like I was giving my daughter amazing opportunities to suddenly believing I was going to somehow hinder my child (as others were quick to say). Then there is also that voice that makes us want to prove that we ARE doing a good thing by homeschooling our kids.

So how do you balance it? You keep it in perspective. Most of us have more than one child, and we won’t be able to do every neat thing we learn about. What homeschooling does allow is the possibility to explore some of those things that the kids love, but in greater depth than they could if we were living on someone else’s schedule.

Remember, this is a marathon not a sprint. It is the little things you introduce to your children each day that is going to help them grow. It is the family togetherness that is fostered by homeschooling that will be the lasting legacy, long after the multiplication tables and sentence diagrams are done.