Before the industrial revolution, family time was incredibly important. Families worked together, as a unit, to produce goods. As families were working together on the land, children were able to play, learn from, and spend plenty of time with their parents and siblings. Children learnt practical skills like how to cook, garden, sew, and build. Following this era, family members’ lives became separate. Women’s roles in the economy took a major hit, as they began to take on more of a “housewife” role while men had to work long hours to provide for their family. Before the industrial revolution, families would work at their own pace from home, living a comfortable and content lifestyle and choosing their own work hours and days.

Schools as we know them today – compulsory, standardised, mostly state controlled, and mass-educating – were established in around 1870, following the industrial revolution. It makes sense that the 9-to-3 school day loosely models itself upon the 9-to-5 work day that emerged around this time. The problem is that these workplace guidelines were put in place to cater for the needs of manufacturing and factory workers. While manufacturing and factory work still exists, today’s modern society has produced thousands of other industries and workplace domains that are not confined by the hours of 9-to-5. Technology has made it easier to do work anywhere and at any time, employers offer far more flexibility, people are travelling more. A factory model for workplaces and schools no longer works for many families.

My better half, my wonderful husband and involved father, does not work 9-to-5. Sometimes he is home during the day, and goes to work at night. Sometimes he works day shifts, or split-shifts. He almost always works on the weekend. This has been a significant factor in our decision to explore the idea of homeschooling. In the post-industrialisation ‘standard’ work/home model, a parent may work from Monday to Friday during the day while their children are at school. They will then come home and eat dinner together as a family, or spend some special time together, such as putting their children to bed. In addition to this, they have two whole days on the weekend together to spend as a family. On the other hand, in families where work hours do not follow this pattern, time together is sparse. A parent may work evenings or nights, missing out on their children when they come home from school, or they may work every weekend – the only two days the children are home. I know several shift working families where the children can go weeks without seeing their mother or father due to the fact that their parent is working evenings, nights or weekends and the children are at school during the only time that the parent is off work. Moving away from the 9-to-3 school day, and instead choosing to home educate, would be a wonderful option for families where work hours do not follow the traditional Monday to Friday, 9-to-5 model.

The beauty of homeschooling is that, as a family, you can dictate your own hours. Thanks to a magnificently low student-to-teacher ratio, many homeschooling families are able to get as much school work done in a couple of hours that would take a full six hour day to achieve at school. Families with parents who work on weekends could utilise days during the week to spend together, and dedicate weekend days to schooling. Holidays together don’t have to occur in the school holidays and the opportunity to travel or move without restriction becomes possible. In such a flexible, ever-changing and dynamic modern society, it seems to make sense to re-evaluate the rigid hours set by schools that were created to conform to the factory-like culture of the manufacturing and industrial age.

Obviously, the idyllic picture I painted at the beginning of the pre-industrialisation family is long gone. But we have also well and truly moved on from the industrial era – so why are we still structuring our homes, workplaces and schools like this? As society moves on faster still, leaving the information age behind and transitioning into a time where creativity is the new capital, let’s be creative with how we view our work and home lives. Let’s rediscover some of the benefits of family life that flourished prior to the industrial revolution, rethink how we educate our children (not to be mass-produced factory workers), and recognise that not all families are living in a 9-to-5 world.