Our Homeschooling Journey: Passing the Torch to the Next Generation

Our daughter Susie is making drums out of oatmeal boxes and cocoa boxes for her kids, that they can use on Sunday for our church’s Christmas service. This just makes me smile, since the first year we homeschooled, we also did “The Little Drummer Boy” ...

In December of 1980, Emily was born. We were living in a two-bedroom home in Lafayette, Indiana, and I was a regular caller on WASK Radio’s talk show, “Public Opinion.” I guess the listeners thought I was entertaining because I was young and said naïve things that made them laugh. One old guy who named himself “The Sage of the Wabash” was mad at something I’d said so he ranted about me randomly with words like “that lolly ... dolly …” when Jerry Collins, the host of the show, stopped him and said, “THAT’S IT! I’ve been trying to come up with a handle for her for weeks, and you just did it: Lolly Dolly!”

So the listeners enjoyed feeling like they had adopted me into their family as some sort of little sister, and when I called the show while I was in labor with Emily, they were all appropriately worried about me, and then relieved to the same extent when I called from the hospital the next day, announcing that everything had come out all right in the end. Now I had two kids, and I figured that was all I would ever need – one for each hand, one for each parent.

Lisa learns how to dress her baby sister 

Home Hospital, Dec. 12, 1980

We were also doing singing telegrams at the time – parodies to the tunes of familiar songs. I took the orders over the phone, wrote a song, and kept a schedule. Eric dressed in his outfit and delivered the songs, along with some optional gifts like candy or balloons. 

Eric departing for a balloon-gram gig

Haley & Haley Singing Telegrams

The day after Emily was born, Eric met me at the hospital with an order for a singing telegram that I wrote in my hospital bed. (Ah, self-employment!)

Two years later, whenever the kids were being noisy in the living room of the little house, behind my work desk while I was talking to a customer, the following script would invariably play out, and the kids had it memorized. 

Sample Script:

Phone rings. Margie picks up the phone.

Margie: “Haley & Haley Singing Telegrams.”

Noise from children in the background.

Margie: “Could you please excuse me for a moment? I’m going to put you on hold.”

Margie (pushing the hold button, and turning to the children with a menacing look): “KIDS! SHUT UP!!”

Margie pushes the hold button again.

Margie: “Okay, I’m back now. How may I help you?”

We decided that as soon as we could get Lisa into pre-school, we would. I needed some peace and quiet! So at age three (or a little before), Lisa was sent off to the preschool at the Nazarene church. We were very particular about what she would be taught there, but coloring and playing with toys is not usually too controversial. I didn’t really get that much of a break, though, because I had to shuffle her back and forth to the school.

When Lisa was almost-four, we started her at the Nazarene church, but took her out because we were (and are) very anti-Halloween and the children did something we thought was too close to trick-or-treating: They had cartoon spiders and other cutesy Halloween décor on the walls of the classrooms, and the kids, dressed up in costumes (several posing as The Count from Sesame Street), went from classroom to classroom to show off their costumes and get candy. So mid-semester, we moved her to Lafayette Christian School, where they did dress up, but everybody was a Clown, since C is for Clown, and that’s where they were in the alphabet by Halloween.

When Lisa was almost-five, we started looking at our finances more closely. Yes, she could go to kindergarten there at Lafayette Christian, but it would cost way more. And what of Emily? We couldn’t really afford this! And, it would be the same teacher for Lisa’s kindergarten that she had had for pre-school. While this teacher was a likable person, she also couldn’t spell very well. We had received a newsletter from her that talked about what they would do “tommorrow.” Considering I had already taught my very intelligent daughter how to read, it just wouldn’t do for her to have a kindergarten teacher who couldn’t spell!

Meanwhile, we had been listening to a radio show called “Focus on the Family,” which, amazingly, is still a guiding light in the world today. Dr. James Dobson was my generation’s “Dr. Spock.” When I was growing up, Dr. Benjamin Spock had a very popular child training book that taught parents that it was child abuse to spank your kids, and many kids ended up getting spoiled that way. (Not me!! I got spanked plenty of times!)

But Dr. Dobson began to have guests on his show, like Ray and Dorothy Moore, who talked about how great it was to homeschool your kids. I had never heard of such a thing, but listened with delight. They wrote books called "Better Late Than Early" and “Home Grown Kids” that were the premier books of their kind, that put forth the idea that children shouldn’t be institutionalized so early, but given time to investigate their world on their own first. Therefore, you could put your children in school if you wanted to, but at least not till they were in third grade. Even if they couldn’t read then, they could catch up very quickly because their brain would have had a chance to develop properly. 

There was even a warning of sorts, a la “The Cat’s in the Cradle”: If you institutionalize your child too early in order to get rid of them, what can you expect from them when you are old?

The idea of teaching my kids at home was thrilling, but I was just learning about it a few weeks before school started. I didn’t think I could do it that fast, even if kindergarten (I discovered) wasn’t even required. So we enrolled Lisa in the local school, and figured I would do homeschooling next year.

Meanwhile, I did some investigation. I mentioned it on Jerry Collins’ radio show and a school bus driver who had a nickname of “The Goat Lady” figured out who I was and contacted me off the air. She actually knew somebody who homeschooled (!), and she volunteered to take me to her house.

I felt like this was some kind of clandestine operation. We were driving down dusty gravel county roads far out in the country, and I knew I could never find my way again without The Goat Lady. I might as well have been blindfolded. On a farm hidden out in the middle of nowhere in Carroll County, we finally met Jeri, probably the only person in a three or four county area to do this weird thing called homeschooling. 

Jeri had about a dozen kids running around and playing in the dirt. My kids were fascinated and quickly dug in too. Jeri grilled me about why I wanted to homeschool and when I explained my relationship with Jesus and my desire to teach my kids what I believed, she decided I would do well. That was the first hurdle! Then she told me where I could buy a good curriculum and we exchanged contact information.

Before the school year started, I took the one-mile hike with the two kids to the school yard. I wanted to acquaint Lisa with the school so she could be prepared for what lay ahead. We let ourselves into the school playground and the children played on the swings and slides while I rested underneath the playset. To my chagrin, I read what other children had written under the playset, similar words to those which can be found in gas station restrooms. My mommy instincts were screaming out, HOW could I protect the mind of my four-almost-five-year-old if she would be playing here during the day, five days a week? And she could read this!

I could only tell her, “Lisa, if you play on this playground when you go to this school, don’t read what’s written under the playset!” How’s that for Kindergarten Orientation?

Then it was time for school to start. By that time, we had taken down our singing telegram sign and Eric was working a different job as a textbook buyer. He would take the one-and-only car away for several days, visiting college campuses and harvesting a crop of sample copies from the professors, to be sold to a place that would channel them into the used market, making them available to students for purchase. This left me without a car, and for some reason, the school didn’t send a bus around for the kindergarteners. The first day, I walked the mile with my four-year-old and two-year-old, walked the mile back home, and walked back again to pick her up. But four miles a day for a two-year-old was not practical.

Then we did the same thing but took the City Bus. That didn’t work very well either, as Emily and I had to disembark from the bus to take Lisa where she needed to be and then wait for the next bus to get home. 

I heard about some people who wanted to carpool, and I could just contribute gas money. That seemed like a good solution, until I found out these people smoked in their car! That didn’t last long.

During that first week of school, Lisa brought home several papers. Here was a coloring page with a fire engine! Why was it all scribbled up with a red crayon? Lisa explained that it was supposed to be red. I asked why she didn’t stay in the lines. She explained that they just wanted it red … so she made it red. 

I said, “Lisa, you know how to color. Do NOT bring home any papers like this again.” 

She said, “Well, the teacher liked it!” 

I made a mental note to talk to that teacher. Lisa had just won an animal art contest at the zoo. She definitely knew how to color.

“Lisa,” I said, testing the waters, “How would you like to have school at home?” When she understood what I was asking, Lisa burst into tears. I tried to get to the bottom of why she did.

“Are you going to miss your friends you made at school?”

“No, I don’t have any friends!”

“Are you going to miss your teacher?”

“No, I don’t like the teacher.”

I remembered seeing toys along the edges of the classroom on shelves. “Will you miss playing with the toys?”

“No, she never lets us play with the toys.”

“Then, Lisa,” I prodded the weeping child, “tell me, why are you crying?” Why don’t you want to have school at home?”

The answer burst forth with another round of tears. “I want to ride the BUUUUS!”

By the end of the week, I had decided I had had enough. I had gathered enough information so that I was feeling confident I could actually do this homeschooling thing ... if the school system didn’t mind too much …

So I approached the administration with a bit of fear and trepidation. I told them I would like to teach Lisa kindergarten at home. They agreed that it was my prerogative. But I had a question. What would happen if I decided to put her back in school next year? The answer:

“Well, we generally would need to have her repeat kindergarten.” Repeat kindergarten? Coloring and cutting? Really?

I showed up on Friday to take her home. We got all the consumables we’d paid for in a stack, and the school supplies that pertained to Lisa. On the way out, I spied something on the teacher’s desk and asked, “What’s this?” The teacher responded that it was a show-and-tell item one of the students had brought in. 

“It’s a record – a kids record – of “Gremlins?” I was incredulous! That was an R-rated horror movie! Why would little kids need to hear that story? I certainly would never have shown that movie in my home! Why would they need to hear about it in school? The teacher had an answer for that: 

“Well, children have to get used to the real world eventually.”

It was beyond me how furry demonic creatures represented the “real world” but that was one more real good reason for me to protect my child’s impressionable mind by bringing her home.

When we got home with the consumables, I found one that was just a psychology coloring book. Like: Color the face that shows how I feel when I have to go into the restroom. The coloring book would have been completed there at school and then sent home for the parents to see. There was a note to the parents in the front. Remember, this was kindergarten! It read, “Parents, if your child has a question about their schoolwork, certainly you can answer it, but do not try to take over – parents rarely make good tutors for their own children.” Well, with that insult … I took over.

On the first day of homeschool, Lisa, Emily, and I boarded the City Bus, with a lunch for each of our students. We rode the entire route of the bus, finally disembarking at our home again. Lisa was happy as could be, and we were all set. 

First day of Home School

Eventually we found little school desks to shove up against the living room wall and a flag to pledge allegiance to. We taught Bible lessons from the Egermeier Bible Story Book, and the children received Jesus into their hearts. And we had an open house around Christmas time for the skeptical grandparents, in a living room decorated with the children’s artwork. The children sang “The Little Drummer Boy” complete with homemade drums made of decorated oatmeal boxes, and competed in a spelling bee with their grandfather, who lost.

Carroll County REMC Calendar Art Contest entry, 2007

The song “The Little Drummer Boy” has a depth to it that many people miss, distracted by thinking that the song isn’t really Scriptural. After all, where in the Bible is there mention of a drummer in Bethlehem? But far more than simply the playing of a percussion instrument (which I love!), the song is about gifts. Ponder this:

It was a gift from God to have the opportunity to teach my own kids and instill in them my passion for Christ. I knew they could excel, and the more I researched it, the less I wanted to entrust that responsibility to anyone else. That year was only the beginning. I found out that it all boiled down to one important concept: I can do better than that! 

Thank you for the opportunity, Lord Jesus – it’s one my own parents didn’t have!

But in addition, we as parents have a special custom talent, entrusted to our stewardship by God Himself – an ability to relate to our own children in a way no one else can. Using that talent in a way that glorifies Him is our gift back to Him. Like playing a drum solo in a stable, it may not seem to be a very significant gift for a King, but it’s exactly what He needs – willing teachers for His little lambs. We only need to offer our gift without reservation, and He will accept it.