I began my homeschooling journey in 1991. The year my oldest child turned 5 in September, I already knew that I wanted to home school. My husband, though, saw that I couldn't even dependably get dinner on the table or do the dishes (with two young children, I might point out), so how could he possibly entrust the education of these children to me.
As it turned out, I had a "grace" period. The magic date for starting kindergarten in our area fell one day before my daughter's birthday. In other words, some one's arbitrary decision had concluded that everything in my daughter's life would be delayed by an entire year because I went into labor on 9/16 instead of 9/16. How absurd.
Anyway, we went into that fall with squishy intentions of home schooling preschool. I had had the opportunity buy a used Kindergarten curriculum (published by the Adventist church -- there was next to nothing for home schoolers back then). I also found out where the local home school support group met and began attending meetings. The true home schooling pioneers laughed at my intensity and my worry ("How do I know if I am covering enough material?" "What grade are you teaching?" "Kindergarten." "HAHAHAHAHA!!!")
