Mutual Accountability
I attended a home schooling support group last night. It was a fun night because this was our annual “husband’s night”. Usually our group is made up of only homeschooling mothers, but on this one night per year we invite our husbands to come too. It’s great to hear their perspective and share together in this area of our family life.
Last night during the meeting the question posed to the husbands in our group was, “What fear or concern did you have when you first started home schooling and how do you feel now?”
When my husband’s turn came this is how he answered. I have been married to my husband for 25 years and we been homeschooling for 19 of those. I had never heard the words that came out of his mouth when it was his turn to answer. The other husbands talked of some fears, but mostly of their belief in this educational choice and the benefits of it.
When my husband’s turn came he said, “Well, unlike most of you, I didn’t buy this whole idea when my wife brought it to me and for a few years after that either. I thought it was a fad. I thought it was a movement to keep our kids “away from something” instead of propelling them towards something.”
Basically what I heard was that he had been skeptical for quite a bit of our journey. Believe it or not we had never had this conversation just the two of us. We had talked about this educational choice to some degree, but never completely openly.
In reality, I had felt this from him, but I was afraid to hear it. It has been hard because I have felt that underlying current and have felt, at times, like I am battling this uphill journey to some degree alone because of his reservations.
But on the other hand, even though he hadn’t totally been convinced, he had believed and respected me enough to give me this liberty. He has supported us along the way even with his own reservations, and maybe it has made us do an even better job, as I knew I was accountable not only to God to follow this vision he had put within me, to the kids to make sure that we did what was best for them, but also accountable to my husband that what we were doing would bear good fruit. He would not let us continue on this path if it wasn’t working... so maybe in the end, it has made us better.
When you are married, there are things that you are called to and things that your spouse is called to that maybe on purpose the Holy Spirit hasn’t poured out overflowing understanding or grace to you about. It gives us opportunity to receive in a whole different area than just who we are because we are joined together. My husband didn’t fully buy into the homeschooling journey but he loved me, and trusted me, and was humble enough to act in a way that said, “I may not fully understand it, but I know you and I know you are led by God and I will trust and support you.” When we do that for each other we reap not only the benefits of who we are as one spouse but we reap the benefits of the gifts and graces that are poured out on the other one. And many times as the years go by the other spouse “gets it”, comes on board and is so glad that they are 2 and not just one.