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This article is part of\u00a0<\/i>Upstream<\/a>,<\/i>\u00a0The Daily Wire\u2019s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories \u2014 from our featured writers to you.<\/i><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Our homeschool journey with our firstborn has come to an end. This weekend, our guinea pig for this counter-cultural educational choice dons the cap and gown and packs away her spiral notebooks filled with her assignment lists and spelling tests. It\u2019s over, and she made it.<\/span><\/p>\n So did her father and I. Closing the curtain on this milestone has made us both reflect on how quickly it went by, how much simpler it was than people want to make it out to be, and how different it is from the thousands of negative comments we have received.<\/span><\/p>\n When our eldest was five, we did the only natural thing and enrolled her in kindergarten. It was a wonderful little school (still is, actually) and the very place both her dad and I spent our elementary years. It was simple, sweet, and about everything you could ask for. No screens, plenty of imaginative play time, and an atmosphere where imagination, reading, and personal responsibility are fostered. We loved it for her.<\/span><\/p>\n For a short time, we even enrolled her younger sister in the adjoining preschool because, why not? Mom could have a free morning or two, and the kids could be \u201csocialized.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n At this time, my husband was a homeschool skeptic. I had dropped hints from time to time, but it was foreign to us \u2014 especially in Southern California. You had two kids, and you put them in the best public or private school you could manage. That was the deal.<\/span><\/p>\n But everything changed when my husband picked up the girls from school one day. It changed so quickly for him that, as soon as he got home, he told me, \u201c<\/span>Let\u2019s think about homeschooling.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Sean walked through the gates to pick up our sweet preschooler, and before she saw him, he lingered and watched her play. He said he stood there for about five or so minutes as she bounced on rubber mats, walked to the sandbox, and talked to what seemed to be an imaginary friend. Her hair was in pigtails. She quietly roamed around by herself until she saw him and excitedly ran into his arms. Of course, this is nothing out of the ordinary, but for my husband, who was constantly the last child picked up from day care each and every day, it hit him.<\/span><\/p>\n We are missing thousands of hours of our children growing up if we put them in school. By some estimates<\/a>, a child will spend 15,000 hours at school from ages five to 18. We knew we would be missing hundreds of conversations. We wouldn\u2019t be witnesses to the beautiful, ordinary moments that made them laugh, or the random spark of creativity that fluttered before their eyes, only to be forgotten when they were due back in their classroom.<\/span><\/p>\n By taking the prescribed route that we had thought was best, we would forfeit thousands of hours learning about who they were \u2014 roughly two years of their lives that would be a mystery to us. <\/span>We started homeschooling the next fall; our first day of school was about four days before I was due with our third child.<\/span><\/p>\n As I prepare for our 18-year-old\u2019s graduation party, I reflect on the younger mother who was afraid to buck norms and try something that seems revolutionary to many. Through the years, there were times when I felt unequipped, exhausted, and challenged beyond my capacity. I allowed the comments to get to me: \u201c<\/span>What if your child is weird?<\/span><\/i>\u201d and \u201c<\/span>They won\u2019t meet standards<\/span><\/i>!\u201d were just two of many.<\/span><\/p>\n There were moments when I threatened to throw them on a school bus (never serious, but always effective). There were years when the curriculum didn\u2019t fit and months when tears became a mainstay during math worksheets. There were also moments of extreme gladness: watching my girls each learn to read on our couch, seeing them flourish as artists, musicians, and writers in their own time and in their own way. We spent our days baking, listening to audiobooks (yes, I have every Ramona Quimby story memorized, word for word), and taking walks where they poured out their souls. I watched them help one another with spelling or geography.<\/span><\/p>\n The past 13 years have been like living inside a laboratory of learning and development. Our house is like a cabinet of curiosities, with books, binders, and random nature bits strewn all over the place.<\/span><\/p>\n Now, it all feels like a dream. Yes, I still have three more daughters to graduate, but our time all together is coming to a close. <\/span><\/p>\n Parenting, no matter how you slice it, will be marked by seasons of questioning and difficulty. That\u2019s not unique to homeschool parents; it\u2019s universal. Regardless of whether you send your children off to your local middle school, find a nice Christian school in your neighborhood that you can afford, or decide to take on the charge as \u201cteacher\u201d yourself, it will be hard, and you will question whether you\u2019re doing the right thing at times.<\/span><\/p>\n But one thing I feel so deeply grateful for that I would never trade, not for a million dollars, is those 15,000 hours with my daughter. I will hold those moments so closely to my heart: the joyful ones, the sad ones, and, yes, the hard ones. What a gift they have been and how quickly the stopwatch moved. It is now over, and I can never go back, no matter how much I wish I could.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I can only sit here and sing the praises of homeschooling to someone who might be considering it. It\u2019s not easy, but one thing you\u2019ll always be able to carry with you is those missing hours. They are yours, and they are a treasure.<\/span><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Rachel Reeves is a wife and homeschool mother of four daughters. She works in political commentary at Here Are The Headlines, both on\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Substack<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n