My mother in law is driving me crazy again. Just today it was "did you two talk more about sending G to -insert name of local private school-? You know we'll pay for it". I figured it was safe to say "well no, he doesn't really want to. He still wants to homeschool" then the whole can of worms opened up.
Her: "YOU are the parent, he doesn't make the decisions"....
Me: "well, if it were up to just ME, we're going to continue homeschooling. I let HIM decide if he wants to try school"
Her: "well, he doesn't even know what school is like"
Me: "he has friends who are in school. He sees school displayed as this fun, wonderous place on some of the shows he watches and he STILL doesn't want to go."

and it went downhill from there. Scott was really good about pointing out our reasons for doing what we do. At first she starts out saying she's worried he doesn't have a lot of friends. But he has three pretty close friends, plus 4-5 other friends he plays with from time to time. For a kid who didn't really get involved in much this past fall and winter that's pretty good (he didn't want to re-up for Scouts and wasn't into anything the Y was offering so he does his bowling league and that's pretty much it lately). Then she says "everyone" she knows who homeschooled turned out "weird" or something. But this one person who apparently did it right was one who got her kids up at 8 and sat down and had "school" at the table, with lunch and recesses. Yikes! If I wanted to do that, I wouldn't really be homeschooling! So I guess she's worried about friends and that he's not learning right. UGH! I'm so tired of her judgements, I'm so tired of her thinking she knows the only right way to do things. The sad part is, I don't think she'd ever change her mind no matter what we did or said about homeschooling. She said she "feels sorry for him". Well, by all means don't hang around here chick, if you're just going to pity everyone!

If you're new to these parts you know my mil and I have never been kindred spirits (and who am I kidding, I'm talking to myself here lol). I told Scott I think everyone in our lives would breathe a collective sigh of relief if we both went out and got full time jobs tomorrow and put our kids in school. We might be miserable, but the rest of the world would be happy. You can't question the matrix you know. I find it amazing that people are so caught up in things having to be "just so" that they fail to look for anything beyond their field of perceptions. You HAVE to have your baby in the hospital, you HAVE to send your kids to school, you HAVE to work constantly to have things that don't make you happy in the end...have to, have to, have to. No one wants to ask the proverbial three year old question...."but WHY?".