Since homeschooling has been a hot top here the last couple of days, I thought I’d repost this entry from last year. Deborah Markus, at Secular Homeschooling, has a list of retorts for homeschooling parents tired of the inane questions and complaints they get about educating their own children:
1. Please stop asking us if it’s legal. If it is — and it is — it’s insulting to imply that we’re criminals. And if we were criminals, would we admit it?
2. Learn what the words “socialize” and “socialization” mean, and use the one you really mean instead of mixing them up the way you do now. Socializing means hanging out with other people for fun. Socialization means having acquired the skills necessary to do so successfully and pleasantly. If you’re talking to me and my kids, that means that we do in fact go outside now and then to visit the other human beings on the planet, and you can safely assume that we’ve got a decent grasp of both concepts.
3. Quit interrupting my kid at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir practice, baseball game, art class, field trip, park day, music class, 4H club, or soccer lesson to ask her if as a homeschooler she ever gets to socialize.
And my favorite:
11. Please stop questioning my competency and demanding to see my credentials. I didn’t have to complete a course in catering to successfully cook dinner for my family; I don’t need a degree in teaching to educate my children. If spending at least twelve years in the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we call public school left me with so little information in my memory banks that I can’t teach the basics of an elementary education to my nearest and dearest, maybe there’s a reason I’m so reluctant to send my child to school.
March 30th, 2011 | 1:00 pm
I notice her list is from a number of some four years ago. I hope she’s still hanging in there (if she still has school-age children) – she’s a prize!
March 30th, 2011 | 1:01 pm
My favorites are #3, #10, and #20. The assumption behind #20 is probably the one that gets me most incensed the fastest. That’s probably because I was an ordinary public school kid who had definite personality issues of my own as a kid. “I’m absolutely certain they were made worse by the school experience.”
And for #15, I have an alternate answer: “Quit assuming that everyone needs to rely on a government-controlled institution to arrange their memorable social experiences, just because you seem to need to.”
March 30th, 2011 | 2:02 pm
A brief retort:
1. Please don’t think that withdrawing from society’s problems is better than fixing it.
2. Please understand what “self-selection” means. Homeschooling is DISASTROUS if done by anyone who isn’t rich enough to raise children on one income, or motivated enough to do the work of many teachers.
3. Please also understand that, yes, your kids will not socialize. No, buzzing them from play date to play date or club to club is not socializing. See the point about self-selection up above.
4. Please also understand KIDS NEED TIME AWAY FROM YOU. Capped for emphasis, school often is refuge as much as prison.
Limiting this to 4 for brevity. Homeschooling to me is “Dragon Mom” parenting. Will you raise smart kids? Maybe. Will they be forever dominated by your shadow, and implode in college? A very real danger.
March 30th, 2011 | 3:20 pm
Retort to the retort:
1. Please don’t think that purely because we choose to educate our kids at place A instead of place B, we are “withdrawing from society.”
2. Please don’t assume we don’t know this — or any of the things you bring up, to the extent they’re true, for that matter.
3. Why is buzzing from playdate to playdate “not socializing?” What definition of socializing are you using that has as its sine qua non sitting in a large classroom, but cannot include visiting friends in their homes?
Whence the assumption that 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday inside a school building is the only opportunity kids have to interact with one another or anyone else?
And whence the assumption that homeschoolers don’t ever do anything that closely resembles the kind of socializing that goes on in schools, such as co-op groups, outside classes, sports teams, and the like?
4. See above for “whence the assumption” about how homeschooling families spend the time not directly consumed by academic lessons.
“Homeschooling to me is “Dragon Mom” parenting.”
Then you just need to learn a lot more about it, and get to know more homeschoolers, and don’t rely on your own imagination to construct a picture of what homeschoolers are really like. I know homeschoolers from all over the spectrum as to how intense, how relaxed, how helicopterish, how Free-Range — reminds me oddly of the variety one finds among parents who send their kids to school. And there aren’t just tokens on different parts of the spectrum, but people really all over the map, just like normal people — because we ARE normal people.
It seems like there are a handful of things in this world that people feel free to pontificate on based on non-informed guesses about “what it must be like” to do it, though most educated people wouldn’t dare to pontificate so confidently and exhaustively on other things they don’t have direct experience with or haven’t studied closely. Homeschooling is invariably among them.
March 30th, 2011 | 3:44 pm
Thanks, Pentamom. I, like you, find, oddly, that homeschooled kids are a lot like (gasp) kids. And, I also get really tired of the negative stereotypes about homeschooling.
March 30th, 2011 | 4:55 pm
I found this list odd when I first saw it. I don’t know if homeschoolers in other areas of the country have different experiences, or if it is the anticipation of conflict that makes homeschoolers act as though there are actual regular hostile encounters with the public, but my wife and I have almost never heard anything but positive comments. Maybe some quizzical, soft negativity. But rarely.
And grow some thicker skin. Homeschooling is still relatively rare. If someone asks, “Is that legal?” what is the big deal? How about you just answer the question?
And maybe in lefty New York or San Francisco or such parts such things happen — but she more than once has had someone *demand to see her credentials*? Seriously? I just don’t find this list credible. It sounds more like a fantasy list of some lady who *wants* to be under assault for her choice to homeschool.
But hey, weird things happen. Weirder even than me being wrong.
March 30th, 2011 | 4:56 pm
Oh, please, please, please, pentamom,
You complain because people pontificate based on non-informed guesses? That is what people do. Heck, that is what I do! Grab yourself a sense of humor and laugh.
And while you are doing your homeschooling, you might teach your kids the same thing.
March 30th, 2011 | 5:44 pm
As a college campus minister at a state university, I have met a few Christian young adults who I have found to be socially mature for their age. The majority of the time I have also discovered that they were homeschooled. It’s hard for me not to see a link between the two. I believe if done in a healthy home atmosphere, where the parents are using homeschooling as a way to bring experiences into their lives they could not have otherwise (including socialization) it can be a good thing. As a college football fan, I have been an admire of Tim Tebow for some time. Did you know he was a product of homeschool?
March 30th, 2011 | 6:36 pm
# 11 (Joe’s favorite) cuts both ways, doesn’t it?
March 30th, 2011 | 10:09 pm
1. Please don’t think that withdrawing from society’s problems is better than fixing it.
Her task is to do what is best for her child, not to fix the public schools.
No parent is obligated to send their child into an environment known to be full of drugs and weapons. Look at those protesters in Wisconsin – who would want that teaching their kid?
2. Please understand what “self-selection” means. Homeschooling is DISASTROUS if done by anyone who isn’t rich enough to raise children on one income, or motivated enough to do the work of many teachers.
Who is saying everyone has to or ought to homeschool their kid?
Though honestly, my glimpse of the public schools show a world that is worse than pretty much anything. Leaving a kid unattended in a park full of drug dealers might be worse, but maybe not.
3. Please also understand that, yes, your kids will not socialize. No, buzzing them from play date to play date or club to club is not socializing. See the point about self-selection up above.
Socialization means building social skills. What passes for “socialization” in the public schools are not healthy, positive social skills. The skills they learn there are highly undesirable, antisocial, manipulative, and passive aggressive skills that will not serve them well.
For instance, consider how the school handles bullying. Compare that against how normal grown-ups in the workforce are expected to deal with harassment.
4. Please also understand KIDS NEED TIME AWAY FROM YOU. Capped for emphasis, school often is refuge as much as prison.
Public schools are not supposed to be here to “save” kids from their dysfunctional parents. That is not their function.
And you are not the one who gets to decide how close a family would be.
Of course, that’s the real crux, isn’t it? Just who has the right to tell a family what they “have” to teach their kids about values.
The schools don’t have time to do a good job teaching math because they’re too busy distributing condoms and making sure every girl knows the procedure for procuring an abortion without her parents knowing. American schoolkids can’t name ten Presidents but they know their teacher’s political agenda backwards and forwards.
The public schools have lost their mission precisely because they are too interested in controlling other peoples’ families.
March 31st, 2011 | 1:06 am
Mr. Brooks,
That’s great that you haven’t experienced responses challenging your homeschooling. But many of us have. And please know that, most of the time, we answer more politely than the questions are put. Especially impertinent ones like, “Is homeschooling legal?”
And yes, older questioners especially ask how we are qualified to teach our children. Sometimes they are curious, but oftentimes skeptical, implying that we can’t be qualified unless we have a college degree in education, or every academic subject.
Unfortunately, being asked the sorts of questions to which Mrs. Markus responded does get annoying after awhile. Kind of like when people ask the mother of a newborn, “Is he a good sleeper?” Or say to the harried mother of young children, “You know how that happens, don’t you?” Markus is merely responding, humorously, in kind.
March 31st, 2011 | 10:23 am
I enjoy this. We have often gotten questioned from family and friends about being “qualified” to homeschool.
But while we do homeschool our kids, we are in no way saying that this is the only “Christian” way to do so. See this response to someone else’s article:
http://differentway4kids.blogspot.com/2011/03/response-to-case-for-homeschooling.html
April 1st, 2011 | 12:34 am
I’m mom to three now-grown homeschooled kids – 20, 23, and 26. All three are happy, wholesome young adults – two in college and one in graduate school. Our homeschooling years were relaxed and full of fun and friends. One of the the most wonderful aspects was that the kids had hours and hours to spend in imaginative play. We used to meet a group of friends in the park, once or twice a week, and stay all day and even into the night. The kids made up all kinds of games – little kids and big kids played together much of the time. When there were conflicts, parents were nearby to help kids learn to resolve them. Academics were simple because we parents helped our kids learn in ways that worked well for them. I would call us “facilitators” rather than teachers – we found ways for the kids to learn. I used to trade math tutoring for violin lessons, for example (I’m a part-time college professor in economics and statistics). We also traveled extensively and spent considerable time visiting museums, aquariums, festivals, libraries, and historic sites. Groups of homeschooling families camped together in mountain forests, beaches, and deserts. We took a train trip from Southern California to New York City.
As college students, my kids get nearly straight A’s and have received a variety scholarships and awards (merit based, not need based). They are involved in philanthropic activities.
It sounds like I’m bragging, but what I’m trying to say is that my kids grew up without school and lived very happy and relaxed childhoods. We played a lot, laughed a lot, and the kids learned primarily because we parents created a stimulating and enriched environment.
April 1st, 2011 | 11:18 am
The Bible says much about parents’ responsibility for their kids’ education, and nothing about dependency on “expert” input.
And doesn’t the Tenth Amendment answer once and for all homeschooling’s “legality”?
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Who can imagine George Washington or James Madison reserving decision-making power on educating (or spanking) a child to the states, not the parents?
So to the suffocating nannystaters and private pontificators out there, I repeat Ann Landers’ favorite exhortation: MYOB (Mind Your Own Business).
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