How did we get here?

I am often asked why I decided to homeschool my daughter. Believe me, it is nothing I ever thought I'd do. My typical statement when I heard of other people doing it was, "Wow - I could NEVER do that!"

A little history:
DD#1 went to public school from kindergarten through most of 4th grade. We were dedicated to the public school system and for the most part it was fine. Some hiccups here and there, but nothing that ever made me think of leaving. As we got closer to middle school, though, and I started to pay attention to what was happening at our public middle schools, I started to consider some different options. We decided to attend a K-8 parochial school starting in 5th grade so that DD#1 had time to get established there in the elementary school setting before middle school started. At this point, she had a few months of 4th grade left, but we were so unhappy with what was happening at school that we decided to take her out immediately (after trying repeatedly, and failing, to fix what was going wrong there). We homeschooled her for the remainder of 4th grade, and send her to the parochial school the next fall (5th grade).

We also started DD#2 there in kindergarten and looked forward to the girls going to the same school for 4 years.

For various reasons, though, (both having to do specifically with the school, and with different personal issues) we took both girls out of that school in the fall of their second year. DD#2 returned to our neighborhood public school (the aforementioned hiccups having been addressed by new leadership). We decided to homeschool DD#1 for the remainder of middle school. We still don't think the public middle school is a place we want to send our daughter. Many of our friends and neighbors do send their kids to the public middle school and it works for them. I'm sure it would work fine for DD#1 too. But it would bring with it a whole host of issues that we feel are more appropriate for high-schoolers -- not middle-schoolers.

For the most part, the decision was based on quality-of-life issues. At the parochial school, DD#1 had so much homework (in addition to a demanding soccer schedule) that she never had time to read for pleasure, watch a show, hang out with friend, or spend time with family. She never was to bed on time, which made her tired, stressed out and unpleasant. If she wasn't at soccer, she was doing homework, 7 days a week. It was overwhelming. And just enough of it was "busy work" as to annoy me. Why are we staying up past bedtime to do busy work that has no academic value?

So, we discussed homeschooling and reflected on how much we had liked it (much to our surprise) in 4th grade, and made a quick decision to pull her out of the parochial school and commence with what will be nearly 3 years of homeschooling. DD#2 is at the public school. Sometimes I think that it would be more convenient to just homeschool her as well, but I don't feel prepared to deal with the challenges that would present. I also am not sure it would be the right choice for her at this point. It was almost a "no-brainer" with DD#1. That is not the case with #2.