The end of the school year always leaves me with two prominent feelings: guilt and motivation. I confess I was feeling more of the former than the latter these last few weeks, wondering if I did enough this year, wondering if my kids will remember anything at all by the time they lay aside their cleats and swim-suits and settle into the longest season of the year.

     I would normally wave aside my doubts and move on, except that I was confronted head-on with a moment of reflection. I was at the ER in the middle of the night with a sick child, and our doctor, being fond of children, and trying to pull a smile out of a six year old, listed all the things he wanted my daughter to promise; don't date until you're 95, eat your vegetables, and get good grades. The first two demands got a giggle out of her, but when he said “good grades” she looked at me as though he were speaking another language. And he was. That was when I realized, I know my children. I know what I expect from them. I know how to gauge their academic progress according to our family culture and not according to what Mr. Dewey imposed on the whole of the developing world. So in a moment of boldness, I declared to the well-meaning physician, “we don't need to grade yet”.

     It was a small triumph for this tired homeschooling mom, but a triumph none the less. He ignored my personally profound proclamation, and we went home with medicine. But there was a definite bounce in my step, all the way across the dark parking lot, because I finally realized that God has created every family different. We all have different goals, and strengths and pursuits. I have only to give an answer for the hope that is in me, not an answer for the lack of red ink in my elementary students' notebooks.

     Need direction in identifying your family culture and how it relates to grading? Check it out here.