Homeschool, Complexes, and Hair

I homeschool. Did I mention that? Am I crazy? Yeah, a little. It started with my husband. He was homeschooled.....sort of. He wanted to give it a try. I however associated homeschooling with granola and unshaven legs. Funny thing - I like granola and often go unshaven - most days I'm lucky if I get a shower. I didn't know much about homeschooling when my oldest hit kindergarden but I figured I couldn't screw up that grade too bad. Then we just kinda kept going. Everytime we move I check out the schools and try to move us into a good school area. As every September approaches I wonder if I should go ahead and put them in. I usually come close and then decide we will do one more year. The truth is that I love having them home. I love the trips we take at random times. I love sitting next to my daughter as she overcomes her dyslexia and finally gets those words that have baffled her for so long. I love art projects in the afternoon and baking soda volcanoes. My college degree was headed toward education when kids came along and changed the plans.

I have complexes though. Every gal has them. I'm pretty sure most guys have them as well. Gals worry that we are not skinny enough, that we are too skinny, that we are not smart enough, not organized, are too emotional, are starting to get eye wrinkles......
Then there are the deeper fears.
For me these include damaging my kids permanetly and beyond repair.

One of my 'complexes' is that my kids will come across as the stereotypical homeschooled kid. You know the stigma - we wear only clothes made by hand (which would be awful since I can't sew) and only read books written before the 1900s.

So we listen to Taylor Swift and know how to safely navigate the internet. We socialize often with lots of different groups and go get to know the neighbor kids.

Then one day a dear friend asked if we had a lot of hand me down clothes. Totally innocent query but the complexes started kicking in. Do my kids look like those homeschooled kids that never get their hair done and only wear old clothes from the 1980's?????
This arises from the fact that my kids DO wear a lot of hand me downs. Hey, there are five of them - stuff gets passed down. So the next time we had somewhere to go I made sure to sneakily double check appearances (I don't want to openly give my kids my complexes!) Shoes fit, correct size clothes were on the correct size kids, clolors matched and we were set. Later I walked into the building were my husband was meeting us, confident that even with all these kids we looked put together.

It was then that I noticed I had forgotten to brush out my 4 year olds hair.

Hey, you can't win them all.