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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP,
Part of doing "what's best for your family" and staying home with them should have included not being able to pay for private school.
I'm sure you did a cost/benefit analysis, looked at housing choices, retirement accounts, college savings, vacation and extra curricular costs, etc and made it work to stay home, per your own account.
[b]I'm wondering why it never occured to you that part of that choice was public schools?
I'm genuinely asking, you seem like you made a thoughtful decision, but that needed to include schooling.[/b]
[/quote]

OP here.  We did make a thoughtful decision for me staying at home based on a multitude of different considerations.  Several years before having kids, we purchased a house in what's considered a "good" public school district (though not the "top tier" of local public school districts).  We assumed our kids would go to public school in part because the schools were known for being relatively good and in part for financial considerations, and in part because I went to public school myself and had a very good experience.

Since then, a number of things have happened.  One is that I've realized my small-town experience where everyone went to public school because that was the only real option and we lived in a state with really good public schools is very different than the situation around here.  I have also heard some bad things about the public schools that have me thinking they may not be a good fit.

As my oldest has gotten old enough for preschools, I've started paying more attention to schools.  Perhaps in part because of my own background in education, I've been very interested what and how students are learning.  My DD and I did a mommy-and-me class at a local preschool that had a lot of tenants I really, really liked but was expensive and also had some ideological components that I did not agree with.  I chose a cheaper coop preschool when she started preschool (age 2) because I was a SAHM and wanted to be involved in her education and because it was less expensive.  But I saw a lot of the classroom as a result of being in a coop and was not impressed with what I saw.  It was "okay," but there were several things that were not what I was hoping for.  I did more research and found a school I really felt was about as "perfect" as we could get for what we wanted, although expensive, and my DD has gone there for the past year.  It was a financial scrape to send her there, but I have seen over the past year just how much she's thrived in this environment that's just right for her, and I've also seen that this expense can be (though isn't always) worth it.  This has made me think more about whether I should seek out a different alternative for her when she goes to kindergarten.

Beyond that, frankly, my DD does not have the most "go with the flow" personality.  She's a great kid but not someone who I feel will automatically thrive in any environment.  She's very shy, does best in fairly calm and structured environments and with a high teacher-to-child ratio (not because she misbehaves but in part because she's shy), and although shy is pretty stubborn and has a TON of energy that I worry may bubble over into misbehavior if she's in a rote-learning environment where she isn't given a lot of opportunity for self exploration and outdoor time.  I don't think all the private schools would be good for her either, but I do think that it's something worth exploring, as some of the ones I've researched seem to provide some of the things I think would be good for her -- at least in the primary grades.[/quote]

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