This was starting to become a REALLY long page so I broke it up into a few more manageable pages that show different topics. That way you can instead follow the “Index” below and get taken to the section that matters the most to you at this time rather than having to scroll through a long page. Thanks for visiting!

What made us want to homeschool

Our oldest was born during the pandemic, and well before then, I was dead-set on sending our kids to Catholic school after having attended Catholic school from Grades 1-12. We live near several Catholic and private schools so we thought it’d be an easy, safe choice!

But then a few things began rubbing me the wrong way, particularly about one of those schools, and I felt that voice inside me getting louder and louder and trying to convince me to keep my kids away from brick-and-mortar schools:

1. This school in question had a YouTube virtual tour where student desks were not only a number of feet apart from one another, but they were each in their own little fiberglass cubicle/partition
2. The principal and a couple of his staff (maybe a teacher and a counselor?) were all wearing masks while in the same room during an online Zoom parent information meeting. They were wearing face masks… to TALK TO A CAMERA.
3. Teachers all over were losing their minds and putting their needs over those of the children they claimed they cared so much about.
4. The kids would be wearing masks WHILE PLAYING OUTSIDE during recess.

That last one would hit me particularly hard every time I saw them. Unfortunately I made the mistake every so often of looking at those kids while driving by, and every time I’d either tear up or have a good full-blown cry about how unfair it was that they were subjecting kids to such nonsense, all in the name of fake science, and then I imagined school officials requiring our then-only child to wear a mask, him fussing or downright declining, them making a big deal, and us having to give them a piece of our minds to taking him out of that school.

He’s never worn a mask (and we won’t allow it either) and I wasn’t about to let some random unjustified school person mandate that we teach them to wear one, so off school grounds and away from bullies and activist teachers they’ve been kept.

Neither of us thought we’d homeschool as we both attended physical schools growing up and I don’t think we had the most favorable views of homeschooling in general, and yet… Here we are. Our kids are thriving at the pace that suits them best.

Now, years later, whenever our oldest sees someone wearing a mask, he’ll ask me why that person’s scared. We’ll either respond with, “I don’t know why s/he’s scared of the air when there’s nothing to be scared of” or “We don’t know, buddy, but you have no reason to be scared like them.”

Then as I started looking for, finding, and using some neat resources in our bilingual homeschool, I decided to create a website to hopefully help parents in our shoes see how we were getting along with this homeschooling lifestyle.

My homeschooling website

Aside from the occasional post on X/Twitter, I’m not on social media because I despise it and don’t find it helpful (especially when it comes to doing research and seeking resources), so I created a website all about bilingual homeschooling. In it, I review curricula, books, and other resources that have both helped us AND not done much for us in our journey.

More homeschooling (hot) takes

To read more about our views on homeschooling, incl. this post where I debunk common homeschooling myths with facts, check out my other homeschooling posts.

Should Catholics homeschool?

If you’ve wondered whether Catholics can or should homeschool, the short answer is YES.

Let’s dive a little deeper into the long answer, or the reasons why Catholic families SHOULD homeschool.

When we discerned that this was what God was calling our family to do, I decided to do as much research as possible into not only homeschooling, homeschooling in our state, and local homeschooling groups, but also (and most importantly) Catholic Homeschooling.

This mattered to me greatly because I wanted to ensure our kids would be both raised in the faith and be highly educated in our faith, in the way that (in my opinion) MOST cradle Catholics like my husband, me, and even our families of origin, and my former Catholic-school classmates are/were not.

So I used those keywords and shortly came upon a lot of fantastic resources, specific to my search on Catholic homeschooling. One such resource is a book by Mary Kay Clark named… Catholic Homeschooling. Because of how thorough its 450+ pages are, I’ll go as far as to nickname it “the Catholic Homeschooling Bible” (a close second that’ll MAKE you want to start homeschooling yesterday being Susie Andres’s Homeschooling with Gentleness).

The following are some important bits of information re:what Church “higher-ups” (for lack of a better word) have proclaimed when it comes to providing our kids with the best kind of education. Some parents have taken their mandates to be referring to Catholic private schools while others have interpreted them to mean their kids are better off being homeschooled where they can best teach them about Catholicism, its history, doctrines, saints, liturgical seasons, etc., and can even model how an aspiring good Christian ought to live. (Minus the bullying, harassment, and peer pressure that kids commonly experience in school.)

“If anything is going to save our country from utter chaos,” Clark writes, “… it will be home schooling and similar grassroots movements, rather than the bewilderingly slow-to-die delusion that politicians in power are really able or even willing to support our family life and values.”

Key Insights from Catholic Home Schooling re:whether parents should homeschool

The following are some of my highlighted, underlined, or summarized takeaways from Catholic Homeschooling by Mary Kay Clark:

Why Catholic Homeschooling?

Chapter 1 of Catholic Homeschooling begins by explaining that 90% of Catholic parents choose it to protect their kids from the evil influences in (Catholic and other) schools that pull them away from God, the Catholic Church, and their own families.

Many schools also push sex education starting in the First Grade (!); they propagate false and immoral ideas via their books, teachers, and other students; they don’t teach important skills (apparently many students advance through grades but can’t read?) or sacrifice them at the expense of woke ideology and deleterious teachings.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Homeschooling “is a very special way of living” (p7) and Catholic homeschooling “is a natural and logical part of the ongoing restoration of the Church” (p9)”:

Catholic homeschooling is a family apostolate in the forefront of the spiritual battle to preserve the Catholic Faith and the Catholic culture and traditions. Unless the changes occur within the basic unit of society, the family, changes will not happen in the Church and in the nation. (Emphasis my own.) (p9)

Schools that take children away from their parents and out of the home (as committed to the faith as they may be) aren’t ideal as they can “take away from the stability and strength of the family” and “sets up an outside authority as someone with ‘credentials’ who may oppose parental values” (p12).

Although Pope Pius XI praised GOOD Catholic schools (Christian Education of Youth, 1929), modern schools that meet the Church’s requirements for being Catholic seems to be in the minority. Because of the Church’s teachings, Catholic children should never be in public school, making such a school the worse option.

Families who can’t themselves homeschool should therefore look for a relative, close friend, homeschooling parent, or former teacher who homeschools and can teach the child(ren). They can even get together and form “co-ops” where all the parents teach all the kids or are involved in their education and formation somehow.

Clark also recommends that if parents absolutely NEED a school, they should look for a school run by parents who reject the “secular humanism of most curriculums.” Some very traditional Catholic schools may suffice, but, she concludes, homeschooling is best in the end.

Ready for more?