Strange comment I struggled with . . .

[redsquirrel]

That comment is troublesome because it is implying (or flat out stating) that homeschooling is a way to use your children to meet your own emotional needs. If someone thinks that, they really have no idea about the day to day life of most homeschooling families.

 

I have several very dear friends. They are not homeschoolers. Their kids are great and I am happy to have my kids be friends with their kids. I could not want for better friends. And I can promise that I am neither more nor less enmeshed with my kids than they are with theirs. We are all good parents, we are all capable of setting appropriate emotional boundaries between us adults and our kids. 

 

There are thriving homeschooling families and struggling homeschooling families. The same with families whose kids are in public or private or charter schools. Adults who know how to set appropriate emotional boundaries are not limited to the world of public school parents.

[HS Mom in NC]

I think it's because society is bad at imagining differences in people.  As much as American society should be very diverse, it just isn't.  So, the typical American assumes s/he has some idea of why someone is homeschooling even if s/he has never had a conversation about homeschooling subcultures and the wide array of motivations that feed them from a representative sampling of people who actually do it.

S/he assumes that whatever imagination pops into his/her head my not only be true, but is even true enough to say out loud.  They cannot imagine there are motivations they haven't thought of which is what someone with no actual, in depth knowledge on ANY topic should assume.  It should be articulated something like, "I wonder why they do that? What I don't know about ________________________ is a lot." 

This is reason # 25 why I chose Classical Education that incorporates the Trivium.  Until a person knows the facts (grammar stage) and has a working understanding of the cause and effect (logic stage) only then should s/he presume to draw a conclusion and persuade someone they're right (rhetoric.) That's being educated and informed.

 

It's also reason # 14 why it's important for homeschooling parents to be able to articulate concisely why they homeschool.  It not only clears up myths like the one suggested in the OP, it also helps homeschoolers feel confident when someone blindsides them with wacky comments. If you can articulate your motivations well before the wacky comment you won't have to think about it for the first time while you're astonished someone who is otherwise fairly intelligent could make such a wacky comment.  Knowing why you do what you and and being able to say so clearly reads as thoughtful, intelligent and informed.  Why is it that people unfamiliar with homeschooling can make dumb comments and remain unaware of their foolishness while at the same time they read a homeschooler's choice to say nothing as affirmation that they're unfounded assumptions are right?  Because it's a crazy, unfair world.

[OneStepAtATime]

One reason I put my DD in part time daycare as an infant and went back to teaching a couple of university classes a week was because she was a PAIL (Pregnancy after infant loss) baby, and a lot of the books and experts warned that it was very, very easy for such children to be "too precious" and end up damaging both the parent and child emotionally, with all sorts of dire consequences.

 

By age 2, the experts were saying something different-that DD was off the scope of what their tests could indicate, was in the Profoundly Gifted range, and that an institutional setting with same-age peers would not provide her what she needed academically and would cause emotional damage, that PG kids who don't get their educational and emotional needs met are at high risk for all sorts of dire consequences, and that the best thing we could do in my geographic area was homeschool!

 

Talk about mixed messages!!

Good grief!  How confusing!