This week Principled Discovery is hosting Home Education Week.

Today’s writing prompt is: Share your personal history…before you were a home educator. What was life like? Think about things you miss and things you and your family have gained.

Was there life before I was a home educator? Maybe it is lack of sleep, but I can’t seem to remember that time.

I had my oldest two children while I was still in college, so I never had a real career to speak of. I did work full-time until my oldest was 5, but I was still in the process of finding myself, whatever that means, so I changed jobs a lot.

In the couple of years before I started homeschooling, I was home with a pre-schooler, then a baby, so I was not working outside the home.

The closest thing to having a non-kid oriented life was the two years leading up to homeschooling when I started freelance writing (and actually getting published).

I did have to stop doing that when I first started homeschooling because it was so demanding, but now I have my blogs, so it is like I am writing again (except I don’t have to spend time on the phone fighting with the editor over the content).

Long story short, I don’t really have things to miss. Although, lunch breaks were pretty nice, now that I think about it. Wouldn’t be great if we could get a daily lunch break?

The trade-off has been more than fair. The children have benefited tremendously from home education, from the personalized curriculum to sleeping in to being able to move about when they need to.

And my husband and I can not imagine the hectic pace of everyone getting home from work and after-school care at the same time, with only a few hours for dinner, homework, bathing, and bedtime. Not to mention how we would ever fit in family games.

All in all, I wouldn’t trade homeschooling for all the lunch breaks in the world!

Be sure to head on over to Principled Discovery and see what others wrote.