This is the speech that I gave when my eldest graduated from high school.
May 24, 2019
I’m sure many homeschool families wonder at times whether their children will make it to graduation. I know I got especially worried when Ty asked me when he was allowed to legally drop out of school. I think he wasn’t serious, that he was just trying to get under my skin, but I wasn’t sure because it was no secret that he disliked school.
Our family isn’t one that’s always homeschooled. In fact, Ty spent the first two years in private school before we started homeschooling in second grade.
I read a quote recently that said “comparison is the death of joy,” and I think that’s so true. Our homeschooling experience for many years was not very joyful because we spent too much time comparing ourselves to others.
Homeschool moms talk to each other a lot. We compare notes while we’re at soccer practice or hanging out at the park. And I’d hear about how advanced other kids were in math—he’s doing calculus in the fifth grade–or how other kids read a dozen books that week all years beyond their grade level, or how someone else had memorized their whole Awana book in one sitting.
The message I took away time and again was that I must be doing something wrong because my kids were barely getting by—I must not be using the right curriculum or teaching with the right style. So I spent a lot of my early homeschool career comparing my children to others and second-guessing myself at every turn. Which led to us eventually putting Ty back into private school in the 7th grade. He struggled there too, but I figured that was my fault for not preparing him adequately.
A major disruption came when my husband lost his job and our family had to move to different state. We hit the reset button on homeschooling and Ty finished his 8th grade year being homeschooled.
And then what seemed like an amazing opportunity opened up. I was offered a position teaching high school English at one of the bigger private schools in the area. All of my kids would be able to attend tuition free. It was an expensive school that we would never have been able to afford otherwise.
We lasted there for one semester; it was the worst semester of my life. I was so overworked; I barely saw my family; every waking hour that I wasn’t teaching, I was preparing to teach. My boys were struggling academically, and all my children were miserable.
We were the most thankful and happiest homeschoolers you’ve ever seen when January rolled around and we were back at home doing school.
Looking back, I am so grateful that the Lord allowed me to have that awful semester teaching in a private school, because through it I found release from the demons of comparison. Being on the inside as a teacher at that private school allowed me to see that what I was teaching at home was even better than what was being taught at private school. My kids were not missing out by being homeschooled as I often feared they were. It was the turning point in how I viewed my kids—their strengths and weaknesses—and I stopped trying to make them be what I thought they should be. For the first time, I accepted the idea that maybe Ty wasn’t destined to go to college. That didn’t mean that he was stupid or inferior or that I had failed him as a teacher.
Around this time, Ty was also undergoing a transformation. He was bound and determined that he was going to make the varsity soccer team. And so he went on a diet and hit the weight room. Over the years, he had felt the sting of not being as fast as some of the other boys he admired. Part of what slowed him down was his weight, but a lot of it was just his body type. He’s a big guy—he’s built for strength more than speed. And that’s what he focused on—developing the strength God had given him, rather than trying to be like someone else. He trained vigorously in the off season and transformed himself so completely that the coach singled him out as a role model when tryouts started for the next season. And he did indeed make the varsity team.
However, he never got to play because, praise the Lord, he brought us back to Roanoke.
I was surprised when at the end of last year, Ty started talking about taking classes as Virginia Western as a dual-enrolled student. I really tried to talk him out of it…don’t you want to enjoy your senior year….
But he insisted. So I said, ok, just one class though for the first semester. And if you fail it we are not paying for you to take classes second semester.
He enrolled in English 111, and he did great.
So maybe he is college bound after all, I thought. What is he good at? What could he major in?
When Ty was in the third grade or so, he decided to open was he called the “Ty Store.” In this store, he put up for sale all his toys that he didn’t like anymore, and invited his younger brother and sister in to spend their allowance. The most interesting feature of this store was the “Ty wheel” that you could pay a dollar to spin, and whatever it landed on you would get for free. It was a very successful store. He usually got all their money.
Then there were the lego investments. Ty really enjoyed playing with legos, but what he really enjoyed was putting pieces up for sale on ebay and turning a profit. In fact, he held onto a Ninjago collection for a long time, waiting for it to regain in popularity, and then sold it at a hefty price.
So you won’t be surprised to hear that I thought maybe he should major in business. So for the spring semester he enrolled in English 112 and Intro to Business. The business class was a lot of work as it turns out. At first he was overwhelmed, and when he failed a quiz early on, I had to talk him out of dropping the course. He regrouped and figured out how to succeed in this class. In fact, he finished with one of the top grades, maybe even the top grade. More importantly, he learned that he really likes studying business. So I think he’s figured out his major!
Ty, I couldn’t be more proud of you. I am humbled by the way God has used the twists and turns and the failings of imperfect people like me to bring us to this momentous occasion. I hope that as you grow older and more reflective, you will look back on your life and see it as a testimony of God’s grace. He has protected and preserved you. And I know He’s not finished with you yet.