The Bad Dads Homeschool: On Teaching Beyond Your Strengths

A homeschool dad's perspective on handwriting and more

Apr 29, 2026

Image source. Three of our kids really do have red hair!

In today’s installment of our Bad Dads series, we welcome Christopher Lane to the Bad Moms Homeschool. Christopher is a history professor, the author of Callings and Consequences: The Making of Catholic Vocational Culture in Early Modern France, and a homeschooling dad who used to have really atrocious handwriting. How is it, then, that he ended up in charge of teaching handwriting to his and Dixie Dillon Lane ‘s three younger kids? Read on to find out.

“What would you think of a man who,” after decades of producing chicken scratch, hazarded teaching penmanship to children at three different grade levels? (Bonus points if you caught the L. M. Montgomery deep cut.)

Like another Bad Dad who has written in these pages, I sometimes worry about whether “I am slacking at doing my duty.” And like still another Bad Dad, I hope my kids see “that home education isn’t just mom’s personal project, but a family enterprise.” And yet, Dixie really does almost all the labor. She’s the expert who plans and executes virtually all of my kids’ formal education while I teach other people’s offspring. Sure, I have been known occasionally to step in to execute pre-planned schooldays, with reasonable success. But let’s draw the veil of charity over most of my attempted math sessions.

At my best, I’ve contributed more often to the kids’ informal education, doing the things that many fathers can do, regardless of whether their children are homeschooled: pickup basketball; going on walks, runs, and hikes; reading aloud (character voices attempted but not highly rated); and the like. My conscience sometimes worries me about how intentionally and consistently I show these kinds of love. Which kids are getting less of me than others? Do I let the cycle of work overwhelm my attention and energy for days and weeks?

While I haven’t fully resolved those questions, I’ve stumbled upon a way to think about certain aspects of my involvement in my kids’ education, a way that straddles the formal-informal divide: sharing my own continuing education.

One of the more basic examples of this involves the tried-and-true curation of reading and other leisured activities, especially read-alouds and audiobooks. My literary tastes tend to sit below my grade level. Sure, I could make an intellectual argument for the value of many authors: Evelyn Waugh, Flannery O’Connor, Dante, Homer. But call me a philistine, for I have little internal desire to revisit Brideshead, find a good man, slog through hell, or mourn the death of Achilles. (In certain moods, I might even borrow some of Augustine’s rhetorical condemnations of the classics, but I digress.) I do, however, genuinely enjoy stories meant for the younger set, many of which I never encountered growing up. I’ve been delighted to learn with my children what Katy did at school, who rescued Anne from the sinking dory, and how Farmer Giles tamed the dragon. I often get recommendations from a certain Dixie–who had read everything thrice by the age of 8–but I have also brought my own favorites and new discoveries, sometimes in the audio-visual department. I’ve introduced Gilbert & Sullivan in tandem with Chariots of Fire, as well as the 1967 Raymond Raikes radio production of The Man Born to Be King, by Dorothy Sayers.

More formal has been my recent taking over of handwriting education at three different grade levels, from emerging reader to early middle schooler, a process which began with the transformation of my own handwriting almost three years ago.

Despite duly making it into the “Cursive Club” in third grade, my penmanship had evolved into scratchy print with intermittent, unconscious, sloppy joins. So, in middle age and after years of having it on my to-do list, I bought a copy of Write Now!, the all-in-one adult workbook for Getty-Dubay print and cursive italic, and spent about 10 minutes a day for a month working through it. (I bought all Getty-Dubay products with my own money, and this is not an affiliate link.) Not only did my handwriting become more legible and even (comparatively) beautiful, the process of writing became far more pleasant. Even my more rushed writing (e.g., jotting down notes to self) comes out more far uniform and legible, with less strain on the hand. The metamorphosis was so successful that my insurance company rejected a form I submitted because the signature was all wrong. That is, it consisted of real letters and so looked nearly nothing like my former signature. (It’s comforting that someone in the bureaucracy was actually paying attention to such an analog security vulnerability.)

After a number of later conversations about challenges in some of the kids’ writing progress, Dixie asked this past fall if I might try my hand at teaching Getty-Dubay italic to all three homeschooled kids. Who was I to refuse the school principal? The folks at Getty-Dubay were very helpful with my inquiries as to which workbooks to start with, given the kids’ various ages and previous experience with other forms of handwriting. The experiment began this past January, and they’re all humming along. I’ve benefitted from Dixie’s coaching me on coaching the kids, and it’s been a joy to see their progress.

I’m proud of what these images show. We have not has attained perfection, and not only is that okay, but it may be a key to our success.

My half-baked theory is that, sometimes, a concrete experience of working from “poor” to “decent” is easier to share than an experience of always(?) having been “excellent.” I’ve found myself saying things like, “I find it hard to keep the number ‘8’ smooth, as well,” and “I sometimes curve my lowercase ‘f’s, too, but let’s try next time to keep that descender straight.” I can also advise on the system’s numerous options (degree of slope, joins optional before and after some letters, using the print capitals in cursive writing, etc.), having recently gone through the experiments myself. But most of all, seeing my own positive results gave me hope and confidence about the potential value it might have for my kids.

Some caveats. Many Bad Moms readers are using handwriting curricula that suit them just fine. Not all fathers have the timing flexibility to take up either their own continuing education or that of their children. That’s all okay–this is a low-pressure place with great snacks, after all.

That said, some fathers have already been longing to reach for some new skill, area of knowledge, or other life improvement, one which just might also contribute to their kids’ education. Maybe it’s merely the next read-aloud or classic film. Maybe–as an unnamed Bad Mom archly suggested after I injudiciously admitted to snagging two free library castoffs about English country houses–you do a unit study on an outside-the-box topic. Maybe it’s gardening or woodworking or birdwatching or cane-fighting. Maybe it’s an activity you once loved, but “rusty” is an understatement on your current skill level.

There are many ways to do it. You might solidify your own training first, then bring the kids in, as I did with italic handwriting. You might try something new together, with you either starting at the same baseline or just one step ahead. In the end, I suggest making sure it’s something that’s not all drudgery and duty, something that promises a bit of joy–for both you and your kids–either in the process or the results.

And, if all goes well, you might just find yourself forging your own old signature for your insurance company. What’s more, your children might end up with lovely signatures that never merit changing.