Hmmm...well, it depends how long the kid is at school. If they are in after school activities, especially in high school, they are hardly home except to sleep. I've had two boys go through high school that way. I rarely saw them.

If you just consider the 7 hours a day my teen is gone now and assume the same number of hours per year. 180x7=1260 hours per year that he is gone, over a homeschool child that never goes anywhere away from mom. Without complicating it with shorter hours for Kindergarten or elementary, that is 1260x13 years or 16,380 hours for a lifetime of public school (not including college), which does NOT include extra activities. If you divide those hours down to days then years, you get not quite 2 years (1.86) that they are away from home.

I wonder what the stats would look like if it was counted as waking hours for a day. I didn't see the original stats. Just made me wonder. Btw:I think missing 2 + yrs of my child's life (when calculated that way) is too much, and really unimaginable to me.

If one looks at it that way, Livvy, then it would be more accurate. If oone adds up waking hours lost to school and homework, then it would be 1/2 waking hours, 5 days a week x 36 weeks x 12 years. That is a lot!

I didn't see the original post but when I started reading the thread, the first thing I thought of is but they are ASLEEP 8-10 hours a day also so really, you can't count that as any kind of quality time!

So if they are gone 8 and sleep 8 and then are at daycare after school (maybe 3 hours) that leaves only 5 hours then homework (another 2) that leaves 3 hours of quality time.. Is that really enough???

Debi

Hey, Everybody! Didn't delete it because I was upset. Just wanted to check the math. It wasn't done by me. It was done by a hsing dad who is a mathematician. I emailed him, and asked for an explanation of how he figured it. I want to get his permission to post his explanation before I post it here. I'll get back to you on it.
Thanks,
Laura