We cannot continue to send our children to Caesar for their education and be surprised when they come home as Romans.

-Voddie Baucham

Long exhausting days. Dealing with stubbornness. Fighting laziness. Stress. Headaches. Out of pocket expenses that bring about borderline poverty for a single income family. A mother that is pulling her hair out. A father that cannot be there to help, even though he wishes that he could. As Life as the provider says “No!”. So removed from the equation that he has no idea what is going on. “What grade are they in?” he asks.  Although some parents have a better grasp on the situation, many do not. 

This is the life of the homeschooling family. 

And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children…

-Deuteronomy 6:6-7

Many years ago my Bride and I made the decision to homeschool our children. Just before our first born had opened his eyes for the first time. It was certainly a rare concept. For no one that we knew at the time had ever attempted the feat. Our nephew and my Bride’s two toddler cousins were the only children in the family at the time. The former destined for public school, the latter would eventually become homeschooled until they would choose to sacrifice themselves to the public school system in their teenage years. But, if my memory serves me correctly, we were the first to talk about it. 

We met much criticism from our families. “What is this new concept that you speak of? This is unheard of! You cannot teach! You need to leave that to the professionals!” Well no one in the family said that exact quote, but you get the point. It was certainly a new idea. No one in our family (or life for that matter) had been homeschooled. We had all stepped foot into the government institution to be taught the usual useless prescribed information that was within the box. Useless with the exception of the basic “reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmatic”. I mean, will the masses really need to know about the Ottoman Empire and calculus?

I understand where many were coming from with their concerns. Especially the older generation. They came from a time where they were taught by men in suits and school marms. Women that wore suit coats and dresses, with their hair done in a bun or beehive and a brooch on their chest. They stood and sat with perfect posture from years of practice balancing books on their heads. They spoke with the slightest edge of a British accent, veiling their origin and speaking eloquently and with intelligence. “Prim and proper” they would say. This was at a different time in American life. One where the girls were too expected to be lady-like, and the boys (with dirt under their fingernails and frogs in their pocket) would come to class to tease the girls into saying “Ewww!”, at the faint sound of “Ribbet!” coming from Billy’s trousers. A time when children were taught manners (with the exception of Billy, who never learned), The Pledge of Allegiance, and were allowed to speak of Christ and bring Bibles into school. So, yes, I understand why the older generation would not understand. Why would one oppose something so great? Something that is routinely expected?

In time, though, things changed. The World and Post Modern thought found its way into the walls of the classroom. “Prim and Proper” stepped aside to allow the Hippie Spirit to come into existence. “Free Love” (a veiled term for “having sex with anything that moves”) and drug abuse became the norm for the youth. Anything that was in rebellion to authority and The System. A system that included law, order, education, and parents. In time styles and movements came and went. Hippie eventually became Disco, and that eventually became whatever we were thinking in the 80s. I had grown up in the education system of the mid eighties to the late nineties. I had seen whatever we were thinking in the eighties become the neon color whatever we were thinking as the decade turned. Seriously, what were we thinking? I was a teen during the grunge days. Just after my graduation the second sexual revolution began. But despite all of this, one thing remained. Rebellion against what was considered “right”.

My generation (X. Proudly because we are built different), was the last sane generation to be educated. It was a time before the World Wide Web became The Beast. Before it was used to distort reality and conform Youth to a narrative. Back when it was mostly for the purpose of information as a new form of The Encyclopedia. Back when the news was the news. Back when everyone was vying for free MP3s. But even then I noticed, in hindsight, that the tide was turning. I had many teachers that were teaching veiled hints at what would become modern day liberalism. Veiled because what is now the norm in public education would have had one committed in those days. Transgenderism was yet to be invented and introduced. Homosexuality was kept in the closet. “Furries” would have been beaten within an inch of their life by the school bullies. Or probably anyone for that matter. You certainly would not have gotten a litter box upon request. Pornography was not permitted to exist in the library. Sexual Education was a teaching about the difference between boys and girls (because common sense existed then. We knew that there are only two genders). It was not a teaching on the different methods for children to please each other sexually. Sanity was starting to slip away. The next generation would become the first to stare perverse corruption in its wicked eyes. Taught we once were. Indoctrinated we now are.

Aside from the mind raping that our Demonic government considers “education” (a raping that sees Child become sexually perverted and suspect of the authority in the home, antagonistic towards what was once deemed “good, right, noble”. Anarchists and Heathens they have become), the modern system has made a point to exclude God from the public eye. To mock Him and His teachings. To say that He does not exist. That He is a creation from the minds of superstitious men. Men that live in paranoid fear, or simply want to control minds for the sake of power. God? Never existed! Jesus Christ? A good moral teacher! The Holy Spirit? A joke! Christians? Stupid!

…do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

-Paul, to The Church in Ephesus

This is why we homeschool. It may seem like a burden at times. But if so then it is a labor of love. We would be in a much better financial position if we sacrificed our children to Rome and my Bride worked a full time job. We would definitely be a middle class family. We possibly could have even bought our first home. However, this “burden” is a necessity. Because the things of this world are less important than the minds and souls of our children. Eternity and its impact on their lives is at stake. Houses, nice cars, steaks, entertainment. All of these will not matter in the long run. They too will be burned in the fire of God’s Judgment. We learned that it is better to sacrifice our life for the betterment of our children than to sacrifice our children for the betterment of our life. And for that we do not apologize.

We want our children to understand Truth. God’s Truth. To have a Biblical worldview. To not conform to The Lie of the public school system. That, when they set off onto the journey of Life, they do not choose The World that said system had fed into their beliefs. That, if they so choose to turn their backs on God, that enough seeds of Truth were planted that they will come crawling back to The Father as The Prodigal Son once they find that their choices of pursuit have left them empty, broken, and without purpose. That they do not walk the road of The Atheist that was birthed of The Indoctrination Center. Completely void of God and any understanding.

Our kids are not the missionaries. They’re the mission field.

-Voddie Baucham

The Christian that has chosen public education may say, “Yes! We send our child to Rome. That he may be a witness to The Lost and lead them to Christ!”. Such are ignorant of the truth of peer pressure. It is only natural for Child to want to fit in and be part of the crowd. To belong to something. This is why he adheres to the fads and fashions of the day. He wants to avoid the mocking tongue. He wants to avoid being the bully’s punching bag. Therefore, he strives to conform. This is only human nature for Child. It has existed since the dawn of time. Survival amongst lions and wolves. The parents believe that Child stands upon the pedestal in the halls, preaching The Gospel to The Lost as if he is a street preacher in training. In reality, though, he has silenced The Christ that he may survive the day. He is not reaching the field as a missionary. He, instead, is being molded into the ways of The World. By both the teachings of public education, and the influence of their unchurched peers. Because children have yet to mature into pillars of stone. They are only impressionable clay.

Then the day comes that they choose the hedonism that they have been fed all the day long for an entire life. And two hours of Jesus a week is not enough to chase that away.

This is why we homeschool. To preserve the hearts of our children in Faith and Truth that they may persevere for The Kingdom of God. That they may grow to be warriors for Christ. To be grounded and rooted in His Word like a tree planted by the river’s edge. Because we know that sacrificing them to Caesar will certainly lead them astray into Darkness. A Darkness that feels so right because it pleases the flesh. The thrill of hedonism almost always swallows whole the straight and narrow path of The Way. 

We give our all to homeschooling for this purpose. It is not perfected. However, all we have to lean on is Faith and Grace through prayer. Unfortunately, we cannot force the paths that our children choose when they step into adulthood. But if our children so choose The World, we can at least stand before God in the shadow of accountability and say, “Lord, we tried. But we did not intentionally surrender them to The Enemy!”

We homeschool not so our kids are insulated from the world. We homeschool to make sure the concrete has been hardened before we put heavy loads on it.

-M.A Franklin