It has never been a question of if, but how.
The last several years, many parents have found themselves wondering if they should homeschool their children. Whether it was on account of Covid policies or Marxism or mere inefficiency, lots of folks who had never considered homeschooling started to wonder: should we? If we were to homeschool, how would we know if we succeeded? If we were to take full responsibility for the formation of our children into well-adjusted adults, would we be up for it?
Buried in all those questions is a faulty premise extraordinarily common in our day, which is hard to shake. The premise is that there’s some question of if, when, in fact, it’s only a question of how.
The idea that the home is not the primary place for child-rearing is strange and senseless. This is true even when children spend the majority of their time outside the home. When dad and mom choose to bus their kids to the neighborhood elementary school or to the local Lutheran school or to the classical academy in the next town over, that choice is made in the home. And it’s a choice that teaches. It is that choice which sets the stage for everything that follows. That choice comes first, long before any instruction takes place in a classroom or any homework gets discussed around the dinner table. From the outset parents are teaching their children at home. That is why there’s never been a question of if families should homeschool, but rather of how.
To be clear, this is not an article about homeschooling. It is an article about home catechesis. Entertain a thought experiment with me. Consider a typical Lutheran parish in the Midwest. Worship is followed by Sunday School for the kids and Bible class for the adults. Maybe there’s a weekday Bible Study, and on Wednesday afternoon during the school year there’s Confirmation. Attendance is fairly dutiful, at least for Sunday School and Confirmation. In fact, even when families miss Sunday worship or don’t stick around for Bible Class, they’ll drop their kids off for Sunday School and consider Confirmation attendance non-negotiable.