by Christa Svoboda
Apr 28, 2025
[Note from the editor: In our blog series, "Homeschooling Through the Decades," we have explored the evolution of homeschooling over the years. In this last installment we draw insights from Christa Svoboda and her homeschooling experience that began in her childhood and continues with her children in the 2020s. Thank you for joining us as we uncover the rich history and impact of this educational choice through the decades. If you missed any in the series from the 1980s-2020s, you can find them all on our blog.] This is my tenth year of homeschooling! It seems impossible that I have been a homeschool mom for a decade! Especially since I’m still one of the young moms … right?! At the same time, I can hardly remember a time when my greatest mission in life was not serving my family in my home. I always knew that I wanted to homeschool my children. This past year I’ve been homeschooling my tenth grade son, seventh, fourth, and first grade daughters, and pouring into my four-year-old son all while keeping our spunky two-year-old daughter alive. And to add to the excitement, our seventh little blessing will be joining our family at the end of summer!
I was homeschooled from third grade until I graduated from high school. Very quickly, my family’s homeschool journey shifted from one that began out of necessity to one of abundant blessing, above and beyond what my parents would have asked or imagined. Because my parents obeyed God, He was so faithful to bless our family, even though it was something that was practically unheard of and considered so very strange at the time.
Homeschooling has changed so much over the decade I’ve been homeschooling and even more so since I began my time being home educated 30 years ago! But then again, hasn’t everything? So much in the world and in American culture has been flipped upside down in the past decade, so why would the homeschooling culture be any different?
When people discover that we homeschool, which doesn’t take long when you see our crew all together, it almost always leads to the same question, “Who are you with?” This question has been consistent for at least five years and has meant, what public charter or private school program do you homeschool through? (We’ve always chosen to file our own Private School Affidavit, but that’s a longer conversation for another time.) But in the past five years, that question has held a new more complex meaning. Not only, what umbrella of home education do we file our paperwork under, but also to what co-op/online program/educational resource center etc., do we participate in? Where do our kids take their classes? Is it a drop-off program or do I have to stay? Are they academic courses or mostly extracurricular? While there is nothing inherently bad with this question or with any of these resources that families have now, assuming that we must belong to some greater entity to be able to give our children a rich and valuable education is missing so much of the gift of home education.
The number of families homeschooling exploded in 2020 when the world came to a crashing halt. If you’re one of those who were driven home with your children out of necessity during the pandemic, I wish I could reach through this page, give you a hug, and tell you how proud I am of you. It must have taken such bravery! My experience being home educated is probably somewhat similar to your children’s experience in that my parents began our homeschooling to avoid the worst of the circumstances that I was in, not to dive into some home education mission or calling of a new way of family life. It truly began out of necessity! A homeschooling journey that begins to avoid the extreme problems that exist in our public school system can be a wonderful place to start.
This is a perfect time of year to pause and consider why you homeschool! We live in a time where we have a plethora of options available to us as homeschool parents. I see both the blessing and curse of the resources for this generation of homeschoolers and that leading question, “Who are you with?” can cause us to quickly lose sight of our why.
Why did you begin homeschooling your children? Proverbs 3:5-6 tells us to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.” If your why began purely out of obedience to the Lord, I hope you’re seeing His faithfulness in directing your paths already! I’ve found that my why has grown over the years that I have homeschooled. As my children grow, as I continue to mature, and as the world changes, the why behind our homeschooling changes as well. I find the changing of our why extremely important to slow down and consider, lest I miss out on the great things the Lord has for our family by crowding them out with the many good things we can sign up for and join. The abundance of resources available to homeschooling families now can be a blessing when they are serving your why. But it is only by slowing down and prayerfully considering why the Lord has you homeschooling your children now, that you can then see what choices will truly be serving your family best.
It is vital that we shape our personal homeschool family culture according to the Lord’s leading and not following the leading of culture. The leading of the Holy Spirit and truth of God’s Word will NEVER steer us wrong. What peace can be found in that simple truth! We know it, and we believe it, yet we can become so blinded and overwhelmed by the many options available to us as we homeschool in this day and age, that we can so easily miss the peace that comes with surrender to His leading. When I am bringing myself back to the Lord’s purposes for our family’s homeschooling, I often consider Deuteronomy 6:5-7. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”
As you seek the Lord and what His plans are for your family’s next year of homeschooling, I pray that you may do so with a heart of surrender and obedience to the good plans that He has for you and your children. And the next time someone discovers that we homeschool and asks us, “Who are you with?” may our first answer be, “We’re with the Lord!”
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Christa was homeschooled through high school and is now a homeschooling mom of 6 children with her seventh baby on the way. She lives in southern California and has been married for almost 20 years to her husband who serves in law enforcement. You can hear more from her on the podcast she hosted called, “Seek Wholly Living”.
