I can genuinely say....

I can genuinely say, looking back on the past few years - is it seven or eight? - that we've been home educating that I have changed and been changed so much by the whole process.

Long ago, I accepted what newspapers told me, what the neighbourhood gossip conveyed to me, what the internet induced me to read. Anything and everybody had a naive listener in me.

What has changed?

Me, for one thing. Having the time and the ability to question, to advance my understanding, to dig a little more, to apply logic and theory, to consult those home educators who strode across the largely untrodden terrain of home educationland before me. The giants who have gone ahead.

I've delved into subjects I never even heard of at school. I've read about really difficult concepts and re-read the words until I thoroughly understood what was being said.

I have become sentient and aware. I have become ever more thoughtful and empathic.

I think I have started to see the fully actualised person, Danae, emerging from her shell of self-induced hypocritical beliefs and society-induced coma.

My eyes are open, and can use the sparkling new spectacles that I never knew existed.

My children have led the dance, and I've cavorted alongside them, and also alone along merry alleys and paused in colourful colonnaded courtyards.

I'm me, yet I'm different. Improved, I hope. Always ready for the next bout of incomprehension on my way to the aha! moment of comprehension.

I've learned that freedom isn't just a word, it's life's breath.

I've learned that nurturing yourself isn't selfish, it's society's saviour.

I've learned that home educating isn't just a thing to be done, it's everything and it's in everything.

And - ah, bliss - there's still more to come.