Homeschool-my newest baby

I have only been a homeschool mom for a short time, we just finished our second homeschool year, but I have to say the way homeschooling has captured my heart can only be described as the same type of feeling you get when your new born baby is first placed in your arms-your heart instantly swells with love and all of a sudden all seems right with the world(at least your world!). You know immediately that nothing could take that love from you and you would go to the ends of the earth doing whatever necessary to protect this infant. These feelings come over you and you realize "This is it! This is what I was created for!". Your purpose in life becomes a little more clear. Yeah, that's about how homeschooling feels-like my newest baby. Just like in child rearing, homeschooling starts off with family members, friends and even strangers that really believe they know better than you and like to tell you exactly what you should be doing. Spunky shares a great example of this and adds her own rebuttal to each argument(be sure to read everyones comements as well). Just like in raising my children, I know that I know them-I know what homeschool is and why we do it and why it is the only way. That is one that all mothers/homeschoolers experience pretty early on and each new piece of "advice" strengthens your convictions and confirms that, even though you will make mistakes, you are doing it the right way when you are making God guided decisions with motherly love so you quietly listen to each person rattle off the reasons you should be doing this and definitely not do that and you let their rants slide right out your other ear and go home and raise your baby the way you know is best. That issue has never been too tough for me, I've never been one to crumble easily and follow the crowd doing what others say I should just assuming that they must know more than me. It is the second big issue that has really gotten to me now. Like every new mother, you have those moments when you feel so inadequate. How will you know what to do when this new baby gets sick? How will you ever be able to see that this child makes it all the way to adulthood? What do you do when the road gets REALLY rough and you feel so unprepared and inexperienced? Those are the feelings I am having now with homeschooling. Again I must go back to another recent post by Spunky about one more way the government is trying to take the state's rights away, gain complete federal control over educating American children, and create an even BIGGER government.(if you are not already a spunky reader-I highly recommend it! she is great!!) As we all know, America has recently elected a new president-Barack Obama. The thing I am surprised so many people do not know(or worse, know it but don't care) is that we are heading straight towards becoming a socialist/communist country fast. I really should not be surprised that others don't understand that. After graduating from public high school and attending 2 years of college, I never really knew the ingredients that make up socialism until I decided to homeschool and in turn started reading and researching everything from laws to learning styles to history to public school statistics to what socialization really is and the list goes on. So like a new mother that watches children all around her getting sicker and sicker and trys to learn how to ward off this disease and protect her child at the same time trying to learn everything about the disease and preparing to fight it because all signs point to the probability that her child will eventually get sick as well, I feel inadequate and unprepared. How can I ward of this disease of socialism and keep it as far away from my homeschool as possible? If prevention is not possible, how will I be able to do what I know I must and prevent sure death of my precious homeschool? How do I prepare for something I have never seen first hand, something no one else I know has personally experienced? Like the first sign of fever in your tiny infant, all the most extreme horrible possibilities are rolling through my head but that is something we have all been through. Full on socialism and government control of every aspect of our lives is not. You can call on any number of friends for advice on what they did and how they got through that first fever. I feel totally in the dark with no one on earth to call on to save and protect my homeschool. Again, like my own children, I must place my homeschool in the Lord's hands knowing that He does have a plan and all though He never promises that it will be easy, He does promise that He will always be with us and equip us to endure whatever may come. He is the only comfort available for these unknown waters. I know He is gonna be there and I just wanted to be sure that you would be too.