Homeschooling would have been the furthest thing from my mind 3-4 years ago. We are now in our second full year. It has its pros and cons, but it’s definitely easier than my wife and I expected.
Five years ago we were working too many hours and it was catching up with us. We had very little time for our daughters or for each other. I was a full time mortgage broker and we were fixing up a lot of houses on the side. We were responsible for various trades and sub-trades that worked for us and we also had 3 foster children in our home who needed to visit 3 times a week. My good wife was supposed to be a full-time stay-at-home mom, but all too often she was doing my paperwork and painting on different properties. I’m amazed that she supported me through those crazy years.
Years before we decided that at some point we wanted to leave Canada for a year and focus on our family. So the day came when we said, “enough, let’s go”. We packed our things in the back of a truck and put our girls in the back seat and hit the road in search of the unknown. Our daughters were 5 and 8 years old. I can only assume that my parents, family, and in-laws were holding their tongues. We were driving to an area where we had never been and we didn’t know anyone. I couldn’t speak Spanish and I’m terrible with directions. To top it off, there were news of kidnappings and shootings in Mexico. However, we made it to Belize and everything went well. We found a small town on a hill and rented a house. We enroll our daughters in the local school. It was a private school and the language was English.
The girls became fast friends just like us. In a country like Belize, people seem to be drawn to new people. That was wonderful for us. We might not have stayed long if we hadn’t made friends right away. As it was, we stayed for 2 school seasons.
When school started, we were amazed at the homework the girls brought home. We thought maybe we would have to do extra work with the girls so they wouldn’t be left behind when we got back to Canada. We were wrong. The school the girls attended in Belize was much more advanced than the school they attended in Ontario. Who would have imagined that since Belize is a third world country? Okay, though, it was a private school. However, the only school in the city. We fought for the girls to catch up with their classmates. When we left Belize, the girls were well adjusted to the school load and were able to support themselves well.
After we returned to Canada, we decided to put the girls in a private school that had the same curriculum as the school in Belize. The school was expensive and we had to drive a lot every day to get them there and pick them up. We decided to visit Belize again a couple of years ago. The girls had to be taken out of school for a month at Christmas. We decided to homeschool them the rest of the year. We have never looked back. My wife teaches the girls and they too can do a lot of work on their own. We now belong to a home school group. We didn’t realize how many people in the area were homeschooling. Some for religious reasons, some have children who are too energetic for schools to handle, and others think they can do a better job teaching their own children.
Like I said, I never would have imagined that we would become a homeschooling family. However, family is very important and it is up to everyone to make it work. It’s been a great ride so far and we’ll continue homeschooling for as long as it works. We travel a lot and the girls always come.
