I remember when my children were very small, preschool age, when every milestone felt like a ribboned gift waiting to be unwrapped. I delighted in each “first,” each new pencil held too tightly, each earnest recitation of letters and numbers. Preschool was a gentle joy.
And then we arrived at Kindergarten.
I could not have known then how deeply education would shape not only their lives, but my own.
I taught my eldest from preschool through second grade, our days marked by phonics lessons at the kitchen table and history read aloud beneath lamplight. My middle child, I guided through preschool and kindergarten, her small hands tracing letters while I traced the arc of our unfolding life. And during those long, strange months of Covid, I once again found myself at the helm — navigating online portals and digital classrooms, determined that learning would not become sterile or mechanical.
We tried public school more than once. Each child, in their own season, stepped into its halls. And yet, in time, they circled back — as though drawn by some quiet homing instinct — to the hearth of home education. My eldest completed senior year through an online academy. My middle child returned home in eighth grade. And now my youngest, who has known only online schooling within our homeschool rhythm, stands at the threshold of seventh grade and asks to now fully try that life.
There is something about homeschooling that rearranges the architecture of a family.
It was during a unit on the development of electricity, which led us into the history of entertainment, that my own path unexpectedly shifted. We spoke of a time when evenings were spent in parlors, neighbors gathering to sing, to tell stories, to play instruments beneath oil lamps. Then came the radio, and with it, voices carried invisibly into homes. I mentioned Rin Tin Tin and Howdy Doody in passing and wondered aloud whether anything like radio dramas still existed.
That small question led me to discover podcasts.
And from that discovery, I found a community, the one that would, in many ways, become the foundation for the life I stand in now.
Later came divorce. And with it, the sober knowledge that I would need steady work. For a time, I searched for a school where I might both teach and enroll my children — a place that felt aligned with the atmosphere we had cultivated at home.
I found one, a Waldorf-inspired learning community rooted in natural rhythms and classical sensibilities. There were no harsh fluorescent lights. Essential oils perfumed the air. Natural fibers replaced synthetics. A single teacher would begin with a kindergarten class and remain with them through sixth grade, guiding not only academics but character and imagination.
I shadowed for two days. I met parents who assumed I was one of the incoming teachers. I felt welcomed. The arrangement was to train while working; a portion of my earnings applied toward tuition.
It felt like a bridge between survival and calling.
But one of my children required educational intervention beyond what the school could offer, and because they did not believe in dividing siblings between institutions, the opportunity quietly dissolved. We could not attend.
It was a particular kind of heartbreak, the quiet kind that folds itself away without spectacle but stays with you a lifetime.
Instead, we enrolled at a neighborhood school. I became a full-time volunteer — serving as a teacher’s aide in multiple classrooms and later spending cherished hours in the library. I loved the smell of the books, the laughter, and the stories each child told when they came up to check out their chosen book. But life turned again. We moved. I trained as a dental assistant. And the seasons shifted.
And now here I am — years later.
My eldest nearly nineteen. My younger two beside me once more. And we are circling back to that earlier rhythm, to dimmer lights and deeper conversations, to real American history not as abstraction but as geography we can walk upon. This very weekend, we will stand where George Washington crossed the Delaware. The Northeast offers a richness of lived history I could never have imagined when we first began in the Pacific Northwest.
Homeschooling did not simply educate my children. It altered the course of my own life. It opened doors I did not know existed. It built communities I did not know I would need.
And so, once again, we stand at the threshold.
To enroll my youngest in an accredited private online academy for this coming year, I must raise $790. We have already come part of the way — $690 remains.
If you have ever believed in the work I do, in the life we are building, in the quiet power of education shaped by intention — I would be deeply grateful for your support. Even the smallest contribution moves us closer.
Thank you for being part of our story. For being part of her village. For walking with us — again — toward the light of learning.
https://ko-fi.com/ladyannselene
Original article: https://ladyannselene23.substack.com/p/for-a-brighter-future