I home school my two children, my daughter who is now 9 and my son who is 6. I am not sure exactly what I had in mind when I started it (I can’t recall…it’s been a while now). Public school was never an option. Islamic schools, yes that could have been a possibility, but I was not completely satisfied with the academic standard back then with the schools that were available in my area. Secondly, it was about half an hour away from my house.

It was around the same time when I was judging the options of enrolling my daughter at an Islamic school, my husband suggested to concentrate on our daughter’s Qur’an memorization. So my focus got diverted and I decided to home school her.

As we went along, I realized that although it is a very stressful task, it is worth the time and effort. I appreciated the fact that it was a way of providing good educational material—Islamic and secular, and ‘safe’ environment, etc.

I must admit that there are cons too, but I believe that cons are over weighed by the pros, especially living here in US.

However, I just moved recently. I am not very familiar with my community, so I don’t know how much people appreciate home schooling here. In any case, I was invited at a dinner one day (all Pakistani gathering), and some older aunties (ladies) criticized home schooling right in front of me. Her comments included something to the effect, “Those who keep their children at home, didn’t they go to school themselves? Isn’t it hypocritical that they get to go to school but they deprive their children from it?!!!”

She was much older then me, so I didn’t say anything. But there were others who started talking to her. But I felt so bad that my mind, sort of, numbed out and I couldn’t make out any words what others were saying. I had never heard such harsh comments from anyone before. There were others, who had pointed out discipline, or anti-social, or communication, or lack of physical activities problems etc. with home schooled children, but not what she said!