Sheltering can help us promote a more conservative worldview than is expressed in the public school environment. In particular, by homeschooling we can stand against some of the things that society says is best for our children, especially in terms of gender roles. Our daughters don’t necessarily need to have high-powered careers; our sons don’t have to go to Ivy League schools and prepare for enslavement in the high-stress corporate world. We don’t need to prepare both genders to be able to exchange roles with ease.

As homeschooling parents, we have the privilege of preparing our children to function within their God-given roles when the time comes for them to have a family of their own. Our daughters learn to be loving and competent wives and mothers by helping Mom around the house; likewise, boys should have opportunities to work around the house or with Dad “on the job.” Public school “home economics” or shop classes are no substitute for home-based training. Instruction can impart certain skills, but only our modeling and sincere encouragement will enable our children to embrace the traditional Christian lifestyle of faith.

Another benefit of homeschooling is that it provides us, as parents, with a unique opportunity to prepare our children for “real life” by training them in productive labor. This just isn’t possible in the traditional public school setting. Let’s face it—in life we will labor. How better to ready our children for this challenge than to ask them to share in household work or to encourage them in entrepreneurial ventures?

Yet the most important conclusion we’ve reached about our schooling objectives reverberated throughout our conversation and re-solidified our commitment to our true priority in homeschooling: not academics, not life skills, not simply “sheltering,” but, quite simply, living the Word of God in an authentic and joyful way so that our children will grow up embracing our lifestyle of faith.

While the net result of sheltering our children from some of the adverse philosophies and influences that are found in schools is certainly positive, what will ultimately please God the most is not that we simply remove these influences, but that we proactively equip our children to grow to love Him and abide by His Word. We can shelter our children from all of those “bad” things and still miss the mark if we fail to fill them up with all the good things. Consider the following Scriptures:

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4, emphasis added)