A Freelance Student

I love working from home. I can show up at my desk in my pajamas if I feel like it. I can see deer and wild turkeys and sometimes even black bear out my window. I can put my laptop on the porch on a gorgeous September day. I can take a walk down our country road when I need a little break. Best of all, I can be here to mother my child and even to homeschool her when the time comes.

Working from home seemed like a far-fetched idea before I started doing it. But my husband insisted upon the freelance lifestyle for himself, being quite literally allergic to offices. (I have seen his reaction to cubicles, and folks, it isn't pretty. It involves quite a few trips to the men's room.) So I quit my brief New York City magazine career and joined him, living by my pen in the Hudson River Valley. We've each cobbled together something of a career and a better income than I ever thought possible out here in the wilds of New York state.

When we first started to consider homeschooling our daughter, I said to my husband, "Well, we're freelance writers. Why can't Amelie be a freelance student?" Like us she can cut herself loose from big institutions and impersonal environments. She can be her own boss and set her own schedule. She can use the toilet without a hall pass, for chrissake, or go into the kitchen and make herself a peanut butter and banana sandwich whenever she damn well feels like it.

It's a good life. It's a free life. Why should my daughter have anything less?

homeschooling