Since we are real MOMS, I thought you would enjoy hearing from a few.  These are stories from real MOMS and why they decided to homeschool.

New Beginnings
Don't Fence Me In
Teachers as Doctors
Basics of Life
Ya Gotta Do What Ya Gotta Do
Eye Opening Experience
Singing His Praises
Mentored into It
Special Needs
We have our son back!
Deciding before Children
Private School No Answer

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Dear Jube,
In answer to your question.....(I always like to answer that question).. we decided to homeschool because we were fed up with the public school system in general. In our closer walk with God, as a family, we discovered how warpped the public schools were and how God was being taken out of everything.

It was at a time after the barage of school shootings, and the fight to take prayer out of school etc. and our children were actually the ones who begged to be "rescued" from what they were being exposed to.

We started searching for a solution and some dear friends in the community introduced us to homeschooling. I went to a co-op meeting and was met by the most awesome group of moms and dads who scooped me up, prayed over me and my children, and just loved us to pieces.

That spring break about a month afterwords, (4 years ago) we took a well planned Walt Disney World Family Vacation where we as family prayed daily together over the decision and answers, and we came home refreshed and ready to answer the Lord's calling on our life that very next school day. We removed our children from public school and began homeschooling them. The Lord gave us the name "New Beginnings Christian School" and we have never looked back since.
Denise Beasley 
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I never liked the classroom setting and my theme song has always been "Don't Fence Me In." So, before I even got pregnant, I knew that I wanted to breastfeed my babies and I was determined that hands-on parenting past the age of 5 meant homeschooling. I never looked back.

When my oldest was old enough to begin homeschooling, we lived way out in the country with lots of dirt road that was impassable in inclement weather. So, I had a built in excuse! Besides, by that time I had read every hsing book I could get my hands on!

Now, I am less stubborn and more open to other ideas than I was then, but I am still set on schooling my children in our home. It is a lifestyle by now... more than an educational choice. My children have myrial interests and the freedom to explore them that they wouldn't have if they were inside four ways for 7 hours a day. They have a freedom that is incredible. I never wanted an institution to raise my children so we eat three meals a day together and I still read my children's "cues" the way I did when they were babies.

I would not trade this lifestyle of daily hands-on parenting for anything. It has been precious. The only thing I would change is that I would be less formal in the early years, using primarily literature-based unit studies and not even starting them in formal schooling until well after the age of six. I caused my first child some stress (please tell me that this is normal?!?!?). I am much more relaxed now and have a big basket of fruit to show for the choices I made back then.
amy

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When I was pregnant I heard of homeschooling and loved the idea. Dh said he wasn't so sure that it would be good for our child since he was most likely going to be an only child. So, I put Lynn in Kindergarten when the time came. I cried, he cried, but we got use to it. One the second day of school the teacher wanted to know why I taught him to read. I didn't he taught himself. All I did was answer his questions. He also new his numbers, shapes and colors. I mean...... doesn't everyone teach their kids stuff like that?

Anyway, not long before his 12 week report card I was called in for a teachers meeting. I went and was bombarded by the teacher, counselor and principal. I was told I was raising him wrong. That nothing I was doing was right. I even gave birth wrong. (Emergency C-section as if I had a choice). They informed me he was adhd and to get him to the doctor for ritalin. I argued that if they would challenge him he wouldn't be bored and get into trouble. (Mined you this is the first I have heard of him misbehaving in class. I was a room mother and was often at the school helping. I never saw anything wrong.)

So I took him to our family doctor. Boy was he MAD. He told me to tell the school that he would be happy to consult with them about his patient, when they got their medical degrees. And until that time, to stop diagnosing his patient. I told the teacher.

The next day I went to pick him up. He was crying when he got to the car. So, I asked why and he could not tell me anything except that he had been sent to the principal's office. But didn't know why. Needless to say, I parked the car and went in to find out why. The principal said she hadn't seen him, he must have meant the counselor's office. The counselor had not seen him. The teacher told me she personally TOOK him to the principal's office. To make a longer story short. I took him out that afternoon. I figured that if they couldn't tell me the truth of where my son had spent the last half hour of school, that they didn't not need to be in charge of him.

We have never looked back. He is sixteen now and doing 11th grade work. Reading college level books. And has not been labeled by a system that is so broke it needs to be demolished and started over.
Blessings,
Vonnez
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We decided to homeschool when the private school I was teaching at no longer offered my oldest daughters grade. I didn't want to put her in public school or send her to any of the other "nicer" private schools. I wanted better values for my child than who has the best shoes in the school.

So with the help of a couple of very dear friends because I had to continue teaching I started homeschooling. Then the following year the school hired a lot of male teachers, my youngest daughter would not open up in class and they were failing her. So I pulled her out as well and put her with her sister. She was tested and placed in work 2 grades ahead (except for math) in all of her subjects. The 3rd child my son started homeschool the next year when I switched schools. This year I only work part-time from 8-12:30 and I am all afternoon to teach my children.

Basically we started because of values, all of our friends were out shopping for a pair $15o.oo dollar tennis shoes and a backpack that cost $100 as well because they wear uniforms nothing to show off there so it came down to shoes and accessories. It was not something we wanted our oldest daughter to pick up. She is happy with her Harry Hines backpack that she carries to library and her Payless shoes. All of which cost well under $100 dollars.
Hanane

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I never thought I wanted kids, so I never thought ahead about educational choices. In fact, if my husband and I had adopted (like I wanted to), I would have had to keep working to repay the loan. As a concession to my husband, I told him I would indeed birth a child if I could stay home. He agreed.

When our daughter was two months old, we started working as house parents for a children's home. We had six troubled teenaged boys. Two of them were seniors in high school; one in honors English. He asked me one night to read over a book report he'd done... on Harry Potter. As a senior. In HONORS English. It was chock full of spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors (it was like reading the journal entries from Colonial America before standardized spelling came along... a lot of "huh?"s), but he assured me that the teacher didn't count off for that kind of stuff. She just wanted to know if they'd read the book and what they thought about it.

We knew at once that the public school system (we were in Las Vegas, Nevada at the time) was not going to work for us. Since we had a job that paid very well, we toured a "prestigious" private school. Pre-school started at the age of 3 and had a waiting list we needed to be on immediately if we wanted our daughter to attend school there. Tuition: $6000. The school held its first kindergarten positions opened for its pre-school graduates, so if you wanted to get in, you needed to get in at the beginning. The kids would take two years of pre-school, then test for admission to the kindergarten. If they didn't pass, they'd take one more year of pre-school and try again. If they didn't make it that time, it meant "adios" to the kiddo. "Just not cut out" for their program, I guess. Tuition graduated incrementally throughout the years until you hit the $12,000 for high school. Also, I spoke to parents at my folks' church who told me that tuition didn't begin to scratch the surface. There were fund-raisers on a regular basis, and if you didn't contribute, you were looked down on and made to feel guilty.

I'd gone to a small private Christian school for three years in junior high and remembered knowing I was one of the few "have-not"s there (my mom taught, so we got a price break). I did NOT want my daughter to be made to feel less than (or better than) anyone else because of what we didn't have (or had). So... Back to the drawing board.

After six months, we quit our job as house parents. It wasn't a good fit for new parents.

We ended up spending three months with some friends of my husband's up in Washington state. They had been a homeschooling family until they bought a house they couldn't afford and the mom had to go back to work "part time" (three full days a week). She put the older boy in a private Christian school and the younger girl in a private Christian pre-school (different places). The boy hated it. He wanted to be home with his mom. He cried every day, and they had to threaten him to get him on the bus. The mom hated it. She wanted to be home with her kids. The dad didn't see how it would be possible.

You gotta do what you gotta do, right? Fortunately, that opened both my husband's and my eyes. Our daughter was almost a year old at that point. We'd watched her learn amazing things in her first year and were excited about what was to come. I saw the woman's longing for her kids and a calm home life and ached for her. My husband saw the dad's "there's just no way" attitude and realized that there WAS a way; he was just missing it. ("Downsize" isn't a popular concept in our society.)

Ever since then, our decisions have been based on knowing that I will be home with our daughter for the next couple of decades. She's three now and we both love learning together. I can't wait to see what's going to happen next...
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My introduction to homeschool came as a student. My parents pulled my sister and me out of school when we moved to another town. It was a small town, and had a school that my mother didn't approve of. They had heard about homeschooling from friends, and tried it. I loved it. We started when I was about 10 or 11.

I was free to read as much as I had time for, my sister and I had so much creative free time, I learned to sew, cook, and so much more in the time my mother spent with me. We had absolutely no money (government cheese and butter meant daily grilled cheese for lunch!) but it didn't matter. Our family was close at a time that was critical in my life - just before the teenage years. (BTW - my parents were actually arrested for homeschooling (this was in OK - where it's perfectly legal!) but with the quick assistance of HSLDA they were released the same day).

When I was about to enter my senior year, my youth group friends kept begging me to attend the local Christian school. My parents didn't really want me to, but they finally gave in. It was an eye-opening exerience, to say the least! I look back and realize that even Christian schools don't offer the character training and peer groups that you might expect! (I did, however, graduate as salutatorian!)

Anyway, before I even got married, I knew I wanted to homeschool my own children. When my first daughter was born, I was trying to teach her to count by the time she could sit up in her crib! I was so excited I couldn't wait.

Now my girls are 8 and 4, and homeschooling is just a way of life, like eating and breathing. My oldest has been the guinea pig for a few curriculums, but she is bright and I have tried to learn quickly what works best for her. My 4yo is ready to read, and I wasn't planning on that until "Kindergarten." Oh well, why not? : )

That's my story,
Nicki

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When we were growing up, the only ones we knew that were home schooled were the children of missionaries or of those in the military. As a young adult, I began attending a Bible camp where families come from all over the country, most of which home school. As I began to grow in the Lord, He gave me greater understanding of the calling of parents. As parents, the salvation of our children is our primary focus; therefore, in order to provide them with every opportunity to learn from us how to live as Christ, we could not neglect the large amount of time they would otherwise spend outside the home during schooling (not to mention the bad influences they'd have to try to filter out). With all the criticism and attacks, I certainly would not step onto the battle field without knowing my King is giving the orders.

Singing His praises,
Lynn
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What made me homeschool? I had a friend... a mentor of sorts... who had homeschooled her kids. That was my first exposure to it (my oldest was only two at the time). Later, I met another lady, who again became a sort of mentor, who was homeschooling her daughters. She encouraged me to homeschool my boys. I denied that I could. For two years, I was constantly reminded everywhere I went that I should homeschool. (God was literally hitting me over the head with it).

Finally, my son was asked to leave the private Montessori he was attending, and I put him in public school. There, over the course of three months, he went from being a sweet, loving, tender-hearted boy to being belligerent, obnoxious, rude and using words we don't use in this household.

It was then I said, Okay Lord, maybe I CAN do this homeschooling thing. I took the next three months to research it, picked a curriculum, and began our journey. It's now been six years, and two more kids have joined the group (we now have four boys). We're going strong and no turning back.
There you go!
Blessings,
Susan
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I am responding to your e-mail about why we decided to home school. I had been exposed to hs quite a bit before I even had children. The girls I babysat when I was 12 (in Miss.) were homeschooled. Then when we moved into our house almost 15 years ago here in Houston, our neighbors homeschooled. I admired both of these families greatly. (The neighbors here became our babysitters when we had Luke). Since I had been around it, I started doing research for myself when Luke became kindergarten age. I talked with several moms I knew and admired. I spoke with the two families mentioned above as well as Yoshika who goes to my church. (I had also admired her family a lot).

At this same time, however, we were deep into medical procedures/tests/research for Olivia's issues, so my energy - both physical and emotional - was quite spent, and I really didn't feel like I was up to such a monumental task. I still had the idea in the back of my mind, however. I do believe God has led me to homeschool right now, but in February of that year before Luke started Kindergarten, He led me elsewhere.

I "happened" to hear of a private church school (Bear Creek Methodist) that had a great reputation (my hs babysitter family actually told me about it). God arranged it to where I would visit on the day before they would have their parent info meeting, and a few days before registration. I took Luke and sat in on the classes and met with the director. We both loved it at that time. Looking back now, I know God led me there at that time because Luke and I both made some of our closest Houston friends. It also gave me time to get a better handle on Olivia's situation and devote the time and attention I needed to her issues.

Well, that school only went through Kindergarten, so I knew my search would begin again after that year. I wanted to research all avenues again(I am a huge analyzer), so Ray and I visited several public schools and private schools. I still wasn't sure what I was to do when a friend from Bear Creek asked me to go to Lolly;s Smoothing the Way meeting in Katy. I told her I would go, but that I still did not think I could homeschool with Olivia's situation.

Well, talk about another Divine Appointment - you know Lolly's situation. She and others encouraged me that I could do it - even with a special needs child. It was so funny because I left there thinking "I am home schooling!", and my friend wasn't so sure about herself. The way it ended up, though, was that my friend and I, along with a third friend from Bear Creek, homeschool together that year and I am still doing it. She ended up putting her kids in a classical Christian school due to her husband's health issues. So the other friend and I still do it. We do not get together as often due to schedules.

The funny thing and the God thing about it all is that I actually believe He led me to it mainly for Olivia and not for Luke. Luke is fairly easy and self-disciplined, so I have been able to learn a lot about hs through teaching him. I believe, however, that Olivia will benefit from it most. So there is my story- sorry to go on for so long with so many details. Talk to you later. Hope this makes some sense- I am very tired!!
Laura V.
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We pulled our son out mid-way through 2nd grade. He was tagged as "gifted but special needs". We had all the IEPs and ARD meetings, but the recommendations weren't followed through with even though it would have made things better for the child and easier (eventually) for the teacher.

Frankly, I just got tired of fighting for something that I wasn't sure was worth fighting for and seemed to be destroying my child. The final straw for me was when a crying counselor told me that he wouldn't qualify for special services, services that his doctors, teachers, parents all knew he needed. Why? Because it wasn't affecting his acedemic performance. I asked the counselor, "so, because he is bright and can keep up, and he has parents that care and refuse to give up, he doesn't qualify". She said yes, she was so upset that a child that really could benefit from services could not qualify.

I investigated private schools in our area but the class sizes for the ones we could afford weren't much better than ps, one of the things the docs recommended was smaller class size. A friend suggested homeschooling. I had never heard of it before and did an little research, talked with people. My husband was more worried about the socialization aspect. I asked my dh, "since everytime he so much as twitches, he is sent to the nurse's office, often for hours because the teacher forgets about him being down there... what kind of socailization do you really think he's getting?" My dh said, "pull him". And we haven't looked back. We still get Christmas cards from that school nurse, we got to know her really well, a true gem!

For our family, we were fighting for something that legally we were entitled to but weren't receiving. When we looked at it, it really wasn't worth it. After we left, we realized how well he could do when out of a situation where he was destined to fail. He is doing great. Family members that thought we were out of our minds are now our biggest supporters as they have seen the change in our son. He's a well-adjusted, bright, 15 year old that enjoys life. It was after we started to homeschool our son that we saw all of the other benefits of homeschooling. So we brought our daughter home after a year of kindergarten because we wanted those benefits for her as well. Things like improved family relationships, more time together as a family, freedom to instill our faith and values to our children, flexible schedules (especially for our family hobby - travel!.

BTW, my son's diagnoses are: ADD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder with associated anxiety disorder, Complex partial seizures with associated sensory integration issues. He is also asthmatic and those meds sometimes made the above conditions worse. He does have some motor delays and tremors as well. He was on so much psychostimulants to "function" in a ps classroom setting that he started developing Tourette's Syndrome-like symptoms. That has thankfully reversed itself, but that isn't always the case. We were blessed. He's on much less meds now. We have our son back!

Proud to be 'public school system refugees',
Nora
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I was a sophomore at Texas A&M. My R. A. and I were talking and she said "I think I'm going to homeschool my kids." (she currently has 8 children). I had never heard about it and started to check into it. It was right up my alley! I knew then and there that I was going to homeschool, too! It has never been a question. I was 20 years old at the time and I didn't have my first child until I was 29 years old. I am not 41 years old and have just completed my 7th year of homeschooling!

Shari
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I decided to homeschool my son when it became blatantly obvious that the private school he was attending was NOT educating him in the way that he was able to learn. The environment was crushing the desire to learn out of a very eager, bright little boy.

In the two months preceding my withdrawing him from 4th grade, I had been casually speaking with several friends who homeschooled. I was preparing to homeschool him in 6th grade, since the school he was attending only went through the 5th grade. However, after visiting his classroom and talking with the Texas Reading Institute, it became obvious that I was being called to homeschool much sooner than I had planned.

My son has dyslexia-like symptoms with reading and it was obvious that a one-on-one environment would be much better for him. I was SO fortunate that my schedule allowed me to follow through with the decision. I fairly quickly contacted the local support group and Smoothing the Way and have found the group to be such a blessing. It is such a wonderful community with a wealth of information. Just belonging to the group, attending a few meetings and being on the yahoo list helped encourage me and reinforce my decision. The support group field trips have also been great, when we are able to attend.
Elizabeth

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