Guest Author - Terrie Lynn Bittner

What is a homeschool mom? Today, it can be almost any sort of mom. There are full-time homeschooling moms and afterschooling moms. Homeschooling moms are found in every church, every town, every culture, and nearly every country. They're following a path first blazed by Adam and Eve, and continued in various forms and for various reasons throughout the generations. They raise children who changed the world. Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison were homeschooled. So were Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Winston Churchill, Woodrow Wilson, Abigail Adams, and Abraham Lincoln. They also raised ordinary children who never made the history books, but who could look back and know their moms loved them enough to give up five prized hours of privacy and freedom to teach them to read.

My daughter once told some college friends she had been homeschooled. Someone said, "Your mom must really love you. My parents would never be willing to spend so much time with me." My son, after listening to moms talk about how they couldn't wait until summer ended and the children went back to school, said, "I feel sorry for those kids that their mothers don't love them."

Homeschooling is about a lot of things, but most of all it's about love.

We're not perfect. We're not the noble subjects of Mother's Day topics. We get frustrated and long for those five private hours ourselves. We find ourselves scolding over fractions and decimals. We wake up one morning and decide we'd rather go to the park than school.

But that's okay. All parents do those things. We don't have to be perfect. We're giving our children something only a few million children receive each year. We're giving them ourselves for more childhood hours than any other children receive. For some of us, it means putting aside the novels pleading to be written, the paintings we dream of painting, or the paychecks we sort of need. For others, it means sacrificing hours of sleep or couple time to do those things and still homeschool.

In return, we get what few parents get. Parents celebrate when they get to hear their child's first word spoken. Homeschool moms celebrate when they get to hear their child's first word read. When they call their child to dinner and she moans, "But I’m just at the best part of my book!" their hearts sing. They gave their child that precious gift of reading. Who wants to turn such a privilege over to a stranger? Who wants an outsider, however talented and loving, to teach their child to celebrate and understand God's world?

We may not receive the paychecks and benefits of a paid teacher, but we graduate with honors the day our child sets off for college or work with the best education love can provide. Academics, love and time. . .the gifts of a homeschooling mom.