he three-year-old learns to roughly write his name… in crayon, possibly on the wall or tabletop, but who cares?! Without delay, you snap a shot and then slap your proof of homeschool competence on social media. The unwritten (but certainly implied) caption says…

Already his seven-year-old brother is reading at an 8th-grade level and strumming brilliantly on a guitar to the delight of grandparents and other willing or reluctantly captured audiences.

Yes, that was me from year one on through the late high school years of homeschooling my guys. As we pushed through behavior and academic battles, I joked about the chaos and celebrated the success post-struggle openly, all for the inspiration of the homeschool community and the chagrin of my worst critics.

There are numerous experiences and milestones that come along to test and validate our abilities as homeschool parents. Of course, many of us are eager to confirm the flourishing of our prodigy under our rebel management! With Facebook posts, living room recitals, co-op mom-chats, and club sports, we bust our apron strings to show the world that homeschooling works, and socialization is for dogs.

One simple page with course titles and a GPA. It seems straightforward enough, right? However, for us parents who’ve dedicated years and our whole hearts into homeschooling, a transcript is an inadequate dry wrap-up of a priceless work of art.

A transcript is a condensed summation lacking personality; easy to read, easy to forget. The reduction of a beautiful, complex soul feels almost impossible for engaged parents. We were there to witness all the curiosity, struggles, successes, setbacks, and character-building challenges. There is more to our child than course titles and decimal points.

If instead our child’s transcript at harvest time were a tree of wisdom dangling with the glowing fruits of the Spirit, what would our efforts have yielded? Letter grades for geometry are easily assigned. But how do you quantify gentleness, patience, joy, and kindness?

Who or what institution asks for measures of these qualities? And yet, when it’s all said and done, and you’re selling your hoard of curriculum on eBay and packing away the wall maps, you’re also befriending a grown adult of your own making. Do they enjoy your company? We hope they want to come home, hang out. That they are always kind to the “oddball” in the room, helpful to the elderly, and patient with turtles plodding across a hot highway.

Self-control, peace, and joy are not quantified or questioned on an application but are just as important to places of employment, universities, group projects, or relationships as simply pre-loaded academic skills, and they take longer to instill.

A world of statistics and charts comparing students to each other in competition for positions makes homeschool parents focus and fret in excess over trivial grades, padded resumes, and achievement recognition. It’s a cutthroat race to grab scholarships and slots in desired programs. Plus, homeschoolers often must work double time, jump through more hoops, and toot their own horns loudly to get noticed or taken seriously.

Ask me how I know…

But we know of all the light the world cannot see on a transcript, and why the task of creating that soulless document is so hard for many homeschool parents. And I now know that post-homeschool graduation, sowing and pruning that character tree is almost impossible as the branches begin to expand out of reach.

Jesus, take the shears! is all we’re left
to pray in many situations.

Competition in academic settings and career opportunities can certainly make us and our kids hardhearted and selfish as we strive to make our mark. In the end, love, faithfulness and a beautiful spirit will light their way more than all the crackerjack curriculum, accolades, and transcript triumphs ever could.

No matter the high-dollar prep courses taken, extraordinary list of extracurriculars, number of Shakespeare works read, mock trials won, musical instruments mastered, homeschool theater starring roles, Latin courses completed, sports championed, Bible verses memorized, historical sites visited, organic food consumed, or preservatives avoided; whether you vaccinated or not, preferred Harry Potter or The Chronicles of Narnia… A 1600 on the SAT can’t cover for a mean spirit.

ennifer Cabrera is a physician assistant/MPH who left medicine to homeschool her three sons, two of which are graduated and studying electrical engineering and professional aviation at university. Jennifer is the writer, speaker, author and homeschool advocate behind HifalutinHomeschooler.com and strives to offer truth, encouragement, and humor to new and seasoned homeschool parents. Jennifer co-hosts The Homeschool Solutions Show podcast, is a speaker with Great Homeschool Conventions, and has written for the Epoch Times. Her publications include the humorous language arts series: Gross-Out Grammar & Revolting Writing and Socialize Like a Homeschooler; A Humorous Homeschool Handbook.