Sheltered Homeschoolers

Why Homeschoolers are Sheltered

By Kaitlyn Ohnimus

The Ohnimus Family

“Those kids are so sheltered.”

“At least I wasn’t sheltered.”

“I would never shelter my kids.”

Wait!!! When did being sheltered become such a bad thing? When did it become socially unacceptable to shelter our children? When did we start being grateful that we came from a background without shelter?

Yes, I know our conditioned and emotional response to those statements conjures images such as a teenage boy so socially awkward he isn’t sure if he should enter the store via the entrance or the exit because his parents never let him go in a store. Naturally, he has large baggy jeans and huge glasses that hide half his face. We imagine a pregnant woman with wild fuzzy hair, wearing a jean jumper trailed by eleven frumpy kids hiding behind her skirt sporting wide buggy eyes staring at the dangerous world they know they should never engage or encounter because “it’s bad.” To be honest I have never seen this in real life, but for some reason that’s what comes to mind when we hear the term sheltered.

Let’s examine the meaning of shelter. First, it is considered one of the three basic human physical needs to which every person, because of their inherent human dignity, has a right. A right that any just society is morally obligated to defend and provide. The other two needs are food and clothing. The specific obligation to provide these needs to children rests with the parents. When a parent fails to fulfill this obligation we call it neglect and abuse while dialing child protective services. To the same extent we acknowledge children have other needs parents must meet. Children require to be fed, clothed and yes even sheltered spiritually and emotionally. Children are fed and clothed spiritually and emotionally when they are given wisdom, education, logic, faith, and training in skills.

Despite what Hollywood and the Disney Channel portray, parents are wiser than their children, even their teenage children. This is why parents feed their children meat and vegetables when their children want candy and sweets. We know children do not have the knowledge nor the maturity to choose the best options, so we rely on parents to choose it for them. Likewise, children often want to play out in the cold longer than is good for them, forcing parents to call them in to get warm before their toes fall off. What kind of a mother, between the months of October and May, doesn’t ask if her child has hat, mittens, and coat in the car before she lets them drive away. As much as 17-year-old Billy rolls his eyes, when the car breaks down he’s grateful he listened to mom. Besides directing what the children eat or when they come in from the cold, parents provide these goods. It is their worry and their work that buys the food, pays the heating bill, and supplies the mortgage. Children simply cannot manage these tasks so they rely on their parents to provide good food, appropriate clothing, and a warm home.

In much the same way, it is a parent’s obligation and responsibility to provide emotional and spiritual shelter for their children. Like dietary choices parents have the life experience and the knowledge to know what is toxic and what will hurt their children. They understand what is too much of a good thing like sweets or TV and when more of something else in needed like vegetables or prayer and family time. They must ensure that their children are not exposed to evils they are too immature or young or naive to handle. Here I think more of a plant in a greenhouse. When the plant is too young and weak it needs to be in a warm, secure and controlled environment (aka sheltered) till it is strong and firm. Once it has been given this chance to grow strong it will be able to stand firm during winter months outdoors and bloom again each spring, but if such a plant is placed outdoors too early it will be destroyed immediately. Just like that plant my parents sheltered me. They used their wisdom to see that much of the media, that certain friends, that certain activities or groups were toxic and would hurt me. They raised me in a safe home where I knew I was loved, where I was allowed to believe in truth and beauty, and where I need not be afraid. They filled me with faith in God and made it the air of our home. So many young people are torn down, hurt, rejected, mocked and scorned in their places of formation and it wounds them deeply. I know this from listening to and sharing with these people.

As my maturity and wisdom would grow, my parents allowed me more freedom to make decisions often even letting me make decisions they knew were not the best so that I would learn from them. They often let me fall, but guess who picked me up. Because of this, I have learned trust. I don’t fear that I will be abandoned. I never felt that I was unable to question or challenge, but because of my trust in them I came to them with those questions and challenges. Now I look at the world and I see a place of good and evil. I know there are things in this world that I never wish to experience and because of the lessons I learned I choose to avoid them. Now that I have the maturity to face hurt and rejection it does not destroy me because I know I am loved and I trust those who love me. I have faith in the Lord and wisdom to trust His Church. I, like a little sapling, was sheltered while I was too weak to face the stormy blast on my own. Now I am able I stand like a tree in the middle of a field and sway but do not break as the storm winds blow.

The truth of the matter is that rather than the awkward picture we conjure, sheltered children are becoming well adjusted and psychologically healthy young adults. We are fast becoming leaders in our communities because we are not broken, because our foundation is strong.

My answer: “What’s so wrong with being sheltered?”

Kaitlyn Ohnimus is grateful to have studied at home for twelve wonderful years with the best teacher in the world, her mom. Kaitlyn and her husband Christian (son of Homeschool Connections' cofounder Maureen Wittmann) are both graduates of Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. They recently welcomed their second baby. They also recently returned to Steubenville to raise their family and work for FUS as adjunct professors in nursing. Kaitlyn plans to homeschool her own children when the time comes.

This article originally appeared at The Porch.

Should I Keep Homeschooling?

Yes, I Still Plan to Homeschool Next Year
By Emily Crawford

The Crawford Family & Friends

It’s summer. Finally. I feel as if I have been counting down the days. Between school and all the busyness of life (or I should say my children’s lives), I really needed this break. I can finally collect my thoughts and look at this last year of homeschooling with perspective.

This year, it seems to me, has been a defining year for homeschooling for my family. You see, as my children have gotten older, my confidence about homeschooling has waned. Not because of curriculum or socialization. Not because of the day-to-day challenges with homeschooling (and there are many). No, the real reason was because many of our homeschooling friends are putting their kids in school, and the scary question, “Am I doing right by my kids?” has resurfaced. I know this is an ironic question, considering my husband is the head of a homeschool company. But, when I see everyone leaving for what seems like greener pastures the discerning question becomes, “Should I leave, too?”

As my heart began weighing these thoughts and I tried, albeit not well, to pray for clarity, I found myself leaning back on the reasons for why we decided to homeschool in the first place:  faith; family; and education.

FAITH
The order we placed our reasons for homeschooling is significant. Education isn’t our primary reason. Family isn’t our primary reason. The primary reason we homeschool is our faith.

We live in a culture that claims to be Christian. Yet, the most fundamental things we believe as Catholics are being challenged daily, especially in our schools. Schools have become social experiments for political correctness, tolerance, and gender identity. When we squeezed out prayer to make the few feel respected, our teachers have increasingly lost their ability to reason about the true, the good, and the beautiful with their students. No longer can they point to God in all things. So what can they point to? What do I want them to point my children to?

Faith. The unequivocal truth in a loving God who made my children for a specific purpose. He has made them to love, know, and serve Him.  They are loved and valued because He created them and because He made them in His image and His likeness.  They have a Savior who has redeemed them. His Church is the ark that will carry them to Heaven. He gives Himself to us in the Eucharist. He loves us deeply through His mother’s intercession. Life is valuable from the moment of conception to a natural death.  All that we have and all that we are and will be is because of Him.

I know they will never receive these truths in public schools. They should be able to receive Truth in Catholic schools. It seems even some of our Catholic schools have become battlegrounds for our children’s hearts and minds. And unfortunately, for many - including our family, Catholic schools are financially out of reach, especially if we choose to stay home with our children.

FAMILY
Our family is the second reason we have chosen to homeschool. Our culture and our education system have taken away the value of the family. I read an article this last winter by Julie Machado at Catholic Stand called “Homeschooling and Over-Schooling.”, which speaks to the primary goal of homeschooling – to get our children to Heaven. In the middle of the article Julie points to an unscripted speech by Pope St. John Paul II where he said, “everything exists for the family: different environments, societies, peoples, cultures, social life, economic life … not at the expense of the family.” This one line sums up how I feel. Everything should exist for the family, not at the expense of the family. But do our schools really think about the family when they promulgate alternative world views with questionable science? Do they encourage selflessness or self-preservation, egoism, and individualism?

With homeschooling, we experience what it means to be the domestic church. That means we learn to live in community; love the good, the bad, and the ugly; forgive; pray together, eat together, and play together; work together; learn to put others’ needs before our own and to depend on others strengths when are our weaknesses prevail. To put is simply, we are a family. Can modern schools teach this to our children?

EDUCATION
Finally, the reason I homeschool is for education. With Common Core reinventing how our children should think and learn, standardized testing competing with real learning, and feelings and opinions educating minds away from reason and logic, then, homeschooling becomes the only viable option for my family.

I don’t blame the educators for these problems.  I blame the bureaucrats who think they know how to educate better than local schools and families.

I also don’t pretend to know it all or to have the ability to be everything for my children. I know I cannot recreate a Harvard education for my kids. However, that’s not my goal and it never has been. Thankfully, there are co-ops, tutors, DVDs, and online choices like Homeschool Connections that can help me with the overwhelming task of educating my kids.  And what’s even more reassuring, it’s their education. It runs at their level of mastery. It’s designed by me, a loving parent, who has her children's best interests in mind to guide them in their strengths and help them in their weaknesses. And, hopefully, it’s implemented in such a way, though imperfectly, that my children are given the tools and the desire to learn.

What’s the verdict? Despite all the friends who are leaving homeschooling to place their kids in school, when I lean on the three reasons of faith, family, and education, I know that the decision to homeschool is the right one for our family, and I can say with confidence, “Yes, we still plan on homeschooling next year.”

Emily Crawford is a homeschooling mom (starting her 10th year in the fall) of 5 great children and a proud wife to Walter Crawford, co-founder of Homeschool Connections. She is a Texas Aggie Catholic revert who is passionate about serving others in her parish and in her community and in living out the new evangelization in the domestic church. When she’s not teaching children, doing laundry, singing in the shower, and dreaming about decorating and the perfect household management system, she enjoys drinking coffee, reading a good book, and spending time with family and friends.