Family of 6 in PA

This one kind of hit close to home for me. I'm brand new to unschooling, and am still at the stage where I spend a lot of time questioning if I'm just taking the easy way out. Last night I got a call from my best friend who was shaking--I could hear it in her voice--with frustration over her daughter's schoolwork. The daughter "wasn't trying," "is just acting dumb so she doesn't have to do her homework," and other expressions of anger.

And honestly, when my daughter was in school I'd often feel the same way, even knowing how smart she is, and curious about the world! I'd have to leave the room at homework time because I'd get so angry. Especially around testing time, when my daughter had to do all this review of stuff that was just to satisfy the No Child Left Behind laws, I would dread the end of the school day because for me the stress was just starting, but for my daughter it was just a continuation of the stress she was always under.

And listening to my friend's anger and frustration I felt so grateful that we don't have to go through that anymore. But this is the same friend who--bless her heart, I love her but I disagree with her--thinks that unschooling is just a cop-out, because how am I going to know my daughter is learning anything if I don't have her tested, tested, tested. And other well-meaning friends who act like they've never heard of such a thing as organic learning, letting my daughter's fine, curious mind take her in its most natural course to embrace the whole world. They might not say it, but I hear in their voices the doubt, that maybe I'm just being lazy, "dropping out" myself by allowing my daughter to "drop out."

So it's kind of hard for me to hear that there really are parents who use homeschooling as an excuse to do nothing. I want to naturally rebel against such a thought because I'm afraid that maybe I'm kidding myself. It is easier to unschool, when you compare it to the constant stress and frustration of homework and testing and evaluations and parent/teacher conferences. It is easier when you don't have to dress your kids in 20 layers of clothing on a frigid winter morning just so they can trudge outside before the sun's even fully up to catch the school bus. It's easier being able to get up when your body's rested instead of when the alarm tells you.

It's a lot easier to have a day that's structured around the body and the mind's natural rhythms than some arbitrary schedule. So does being grateful for that mean that I'm just naturally lazy, that I don't want to make the effort?

Mary