How Much Courage Does It Take?

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This is the answer my 8 year old typed in while I was thinking about how to start this blog post. I think she hit the nail on the head far better than I could have. When we decided to pull our kids out of school, I could not believe the amount of courage it took to buck the system, to change our status quo, to damn the man and save the empire. Courage is one of those abstract ideas that we don’t employ much in the normal course of our lives.

It doesn’t take courage to go about our routine and keep doing the same things day after day. It does take courage to change.

Courage is the ability to do something that frightens you; it is strength in the face of pain, grief, fear.

Taking our kids out of school scared the heck out of me. Continuing to keep them out of school continues to scare me. But I will continue doing this thing that frightens me because it is the best way to protect my children – not from Covid-19 but from the things the State of California is trying to enforce and teach.

Now is a time that we all must have the courage to say No to the things the government is asking us to accept as normal. We have already been broken out of our routines and we need to take a courageous look at the new routines we are being asked to do.

Let me be clear: I do not want to homeschool my kids.

However, I do want to give my kids to best life possible, the most access to opportunities possible, the best education. Right now the best life possible does not include spending 6 hours a day behind a mask, constantly afraid of getting in trouble for breaking the rules. Access to the most opportunities possible does not mean sitting in a classroom with peers and following the curriculum designed to get kids to college rather than get kids a job. The best education possible is not being provided in California schools with the threat of a shut down looming over us.

So I am having the courage to do what’s right and what’s best even though it means that my life will be a little more difficult for a while. Because that’s what motherhood is all about – willingly doing the things that take courage.