Many years ago when I was considering homeschooling all of my children, and my oldest was just eight years old, I was worried about what would happen when it was time for shidduchim. I clearly remember asking an experienced homeschooling mother about this during our initial phone call, and now we field calls from others asking the same thing.

Conformity is a big value in my community, and to do something that was so visibly different felt very risky. I was worried that by doing something so untraditional, my children would be written off as suitable candidates for marriage.

The shidduch for my daughter who is currently engaged was suggested almost a year ago, and then was suggested a second time a couple of months ago. The first time I met her mother-in-law, I asked what caused the suggestion to be put on hold initially.

She told me that since her son was raised in the Israeli charedi system, she was concerned that our family was too different. I asked what ‘different’ meant to them. It was very straightforward: my daughter is more comfortable in English than Hebrew, was homeschooled and we live in Yavneel.

I understand the hesitation and I would likely have had the same concerns if the situation were reversed. Cultural differences are real (see my story below), and getting a clear sense of the internal values of a family before meeting them can be hard. Obviously our mechutanim moved beyond the initial concern; our children are a beautiful match and our families are a good match, too!

(Funny story: someone I don’t know called me to suggest an Israeli young woman as a shidduch for my son. I told the caller that as English speakers, culturally someone from an English speaking home would be more suitable. No problem, she says, the young woman knows English well from school. Personality-wise, not a match. Other details, not a match. She had an answer for everything. Until she suddenly asked, “Where do you live?”, and I said “Yavneel”. There was a long pause and she slowly responded, “Ah, it’s really not a match.” I thought it was funny that after all my much more relevant points that it was this superficial detail that meant so little was seen as significant, but relieved to finally be able to end the conversation politely.)

Sometimes people seem surprised to see our kids look so ‘normal’. I find it amusing that they’re so surprised. Do they think my sons walk around chewing on a stalk of hay, dressed in bear skins?

Someone recently visited Yavneel whom I hadn’t seen for thirty years. Her husband had met my teen boys in shul and was impressed by them, and when she came over to visit, she inquired with keen interest as to who my kids married. It wasn’t typical of who she is to care about details like this and I realized she was trying to size up the results of our homeschooling. She was clearly surprised that our kids were all living such ‘normal’ lives, and had made such ‘normal’ shidduchim.

Did I go against social norms by homeschooling my children? Yes. Am I social misfit, or are my kids weird and strange as a result? No, very much not.

Sometimes I reflect on the irony that my children look more mainstream than the children of many families who have gone through the system their entire lives.

When people say someone is ‘different’, sometimes it’s simply descriptive, and other times it’s a pejorative. Regardless of intention, I’ll be the first to agree that I think independently. Doing something because everyone does it isn’t a compelling argument for me. Much more important considerations are if it makes sense to me and is right for my family, which generally is determined by a lot of thought and research.

So many people have told me they’d like to be doing something different than what they’re doing, but they feel bound to live inside the societally defined box they find themselves in. They tell me they’d love to live the way that I do or make the decisions I’ve made, but they can’t.

I understand the discomfort and fear of judgment that comes with stepping outside of societal expectations. Our family has at times come under more scrutiny than others as a result of homeschooling and now because of living in an off-the-beaten-road community. I don’t question if that’s fair or not. It simply is the reality.

Judgments and assessments of who you are are present for everyone to some degree, and there’s a bit more for those of us who have made different choices. It’s annoying at times, but the tradeoff is living a life that I resonate with.

Avivah