Thursday, April 5, 2012

The Road Not Taken

If you have been to my website you will have seen this post before. I'm changing my homeschool page a bit and needed to take it off. So I'm posting it here so it will still be available.

I often think of Robert Frosts poem "The Road Not Taken" when I consider our decision to homeschool over fifteen years ago.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

I remember looking down that road and wondering where it would take me. Was it safe? Would I ruin my children if I homeschooled them? Or was it possible that if we were brave enough to take that less traveled road that I could do something better for my children.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

I consider now the nature walks, the wonderful books we've read together, the amazing discussions we've had and all the mornings we sat at our kitchen table sipping hot chocolate and waving to the other children as they trudged through freshly fallen snow to get to school. And my heart longs for the simplicity of those early days of homeschooling.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

The opportunities that first step into the lifestyle of homeschooling could not be seen from that place where I stood when I made the decision. Our world opened up to new possibilities for learning and doing things we never would have had the space in our lives to accomplish.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Oh! It has made all the difference. My beautiful children know who they are. They are confident in many things that I hadn't learned until I learned it with them. They know how to take on a challenge and succeed. They are happy and our family is strong.

It has made all the difference.

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