Yes, my daughter will officially enter her high school years next Fall.

No, she is not enrolling in a brick and mortar school.

“You mean you will still be homeschooling?”

Yes.

“How is that going to work?”

(Silent sigh.)  Much the same as it always has.

“But aren’t all of her friends going to high school?”

Many of them (sadly for us) are, yes.

“Doesn’t she want to go to high school?”

Umm, no, not really.

“But won’t she miss her friends?”

I’m sure there will be days when she will, yes.

“Sooo…I mean, seriously, don’t you want her to go to school?”

And around and around we go.  At this point I thought we’d gotten past the wide-eyed incredulity of parents marveling at our choice to learn outside of school, but apparently not.   As an added dimension, I now sometimes have this conversation with homeschool families who, unbeknownst to me, have only been homeschooling as a prep to sending their kids off to high school.

Sigh.  (That one was loud.  Did you hear it?)

Here’s the thing.  If my daughter had a burning passion to go to high school, we’d find a way for her to do that.   We’d endure the auditions and crazy testing and competition that is the NYC high school application process.  Although at this point we’d be looking at 10th grade entry, since the 9th grade deadlines have passed.

But she doesn’t.  She herself has said that there would be some things she would enjoy about school, but too many other things that would simply stress her out, all the time.

And honestly the older my kids get the more fun they are to have around.  Some days they are off doing their own things, and others we go out together – or stay in together – and 99% of the time the atmosphere is relaxed & peaceful.  (The 1% of the time that it isn’t?  Yeah, that’s usually on me, but nothing/nobody is perfect.)

Why would we want to ruin things with high school?