Backhanded homeschool compliment?

[MrsJewelsRae]

We had several guests stay with us over new years, old friends of ours that we haven't really had much contact with in several years but have recently been renewing our friendship. Both moms have their kids in public school and one is a very involved teachers aid. As we were visiting in the kitchen the one asked me if I homeschool all the children. I answered yes and the other mom interjected "but she's actually a real homeschooler" to which the teachers aid mom asks "oh so you're a former school teacher?" I'm not. So the other mom clarifies "No, I mean she actually homeschools her kids and teaches them instead of all those moms who say they homeschool and don't do anything". Ummmm... thanks...?

 

I have had this "backhanded compliment" from so many people over the years. It's really frustrating. I know a ton of hs moms and nearly every one of them is working her butt off to educate her children the best she can. Complimenting me by insulting them is not only false, it's offensive. I'm sure they may have come across a mom or 2 who perhaps weren't doing a stellar job of hs, but I think their prejudice of homeschooling is seriously coloring their opinions of these homeschool moms unfairly. I highly doubt I'm the first hs mom they've met that's actually doing a good job- furthermore while I appreciate that you think I'm doing a good job, you really can't make that judgment call simply because I am a nice person who has occasional posts on fb regarding hs and has a hs room plasterered with posters and projects, kwim? I realize that many of these non hs moms who have a bad view on hs have likely met that one hs mom that truly neglected her responsibilities- and they let that color their view of all other hs moms. Or... Maybe I am truly an amazing stellar hs mom whose kids will be the next.... Nah, probably the former! ;)

 

So does anyone else get this? I try to kindly explain that most hs moms I know are doing a great job, and that it is difficult to judge ones home and habits while having small glimpses of their lives, or that sometimes hs does not always resemble ps in its hours, curricula, content or philosophy, etc, but usually these moms just smile with glazed over eyes and I can tell they're thinking to themselves "well you've never met the delinquent hs mom I know". I guess this is more of a vent than anything.

[regentrude]

I have gotten similar comments, too. They are meant as a compliment, because the people who say "and she is REALLY educating her kids!" have encountered situations where this is, sadly, not the case. It only takes one bad experience to give homeschooling a bad name.

A colleague's wife has worked in social services and has a negative view of homeschooling, because she had to deal with cases where kids were kept home so they could be se*ually abused - not educated. This is, of course, a rare occurrence among homeschooling families, but nevertheless it is what that person had experienced. Teachers often see the home school failures in the kids who are returning to public school after the parents could not get homeschooling to work - the homeschool successes remain home educated.

 

So, I think these people do not mean to insult other homeschooling moms, but have genuinely had bad experiences and you are different.

Please keep in mind that, while we know many many homeschoolers, many other people know very few homeschooling families (I did not know a single person who homeschooled before I started myself!). So, they simply do not have the more balanced view of the hs community that you possess.

[mom2scouts]

I've heard this comment before too and it really surprised me. I'm doing the best I can to educate my children, but most of the other homeschooling parents I know are also working very hard. I know of several families who homeschooled until high school and their children graduated at the top of their classes. In other situations where I've worked with kids, the homeschooled kids often seem to be doing as well as or better than their peers. I know there are exceptions, but it's sad that so many people have negative perceptions of homeschoolers.

[violamama]

I have a friend who knows a homeschooled person who was ill served by her family. (FWIW, she would have had a terrible time no matter where she went to school, severely nutty families tend to screw a person up.)

 

Because he knows that one person, this friend has decided no one should have the right to homeschool. He believes society should protect kids from homeschooling, essentially. It really bums me out because I know he knows we are awesome, and it's not outweighing the risk in his mind. Wah.

 

Many school teachers hear stories about kids put back into ps without the full set of skills they should have by their age. I think it's statistically very rare, but when it happens it's a good story. Bummer.

 

Sometimes I just don't want to be the advocate for everything in my life, you know? I just want to do my thing. It makes me a little isolationist in real life, to tell the truth.

[stansclan89]

Many school teachers hear stories about kids put back into ps without the full set of skills they should have by their age. I think it's statistically very rare, but when it happens it's a good story. Bummer.

 

 

I think that a common reason to put hsed kids back in school is because the parents know they are behind and what they are doing is not working.

 

I know people at our church have talked about us because my 12yos has difficulty with reading. They think it is because he is hsed and I'm not teaching him. He also has Sensory Processing Disorder and possibly has Aspergers, but I haven't had him tested for that one. Even if they don't know these things about him, surely they can look at his twin sister and see that she is doing just fine and is on grade level or above. He is actually above grade level in math. What do they think--I taught her but refused to teach him?

[Tammyla]

I've grown to find those type of comments insulting for the most part, but I learned not to be drawn into defending hs. I've learned to laugh, and reply something like..."I'm not sure what you want me to say to that..Oh look, a bird."

[AimeeM]

I'll be the naysayer of the post and and say that I've seen the "other side" of homeschooling. Of the homeschool families I know, I would say a good 25% of them do NOT educate their children, or make any attempt at it. I would never suggest we regulate homeschooling more to fix that problem (educating their child is, after all, their right and they will do it their way). I'm just saying that I *get* what your friends are saying.

 

A year or so ago at a neighborhood party I spoke to an acquaintance - he is the principal at a public middle school. He cringed when he heard I homeschool. When i pressed he revealed that almost every homeschooler he's had walk through his doors, at the school, is woefully behind his/her peers... and that when it's necessary to remediate the child or hold them back, the parents get horribly defensive and the children are humiliated. When that's all they see, you can't really expect them to feel differently on it.

[jillian]

I see both sides of it. My MIL is a former elementary teacher and for the longest time she was negative towards homeschooling (my FIL still is). However she sees what we are doing with dd and now she'll say something similar to what you got "oh well you are doing a good job but homeschooling still makes me uncomfortable....oh by the way what about socialization." *insert huge eye roll*. I totally sympathize. Are ther poor homeschoolers or people who just don't want to be bothered with the public school system? Sure. Just like there are parents who don't care to get involved in the public school system and help their child along by furthering their knowledge. It's not a black and white issue, shades of gray abound.

[Word Nerd]

Further musings--I think part of the problem is that the ps only sees the kids who WEREN'T doing well at home. They're not going to see MY kids--they're thriving. They only see the kids that went (back) in and weren't up to snuff.

 

 

That was not true of my DD at all. Homeschoolers have different reasons for sending their kids to school.

[Halftime Hope]

I've told this story before, but I'll repeat it again. Four or five years ago I was sitting in a watiing room reading until I was called for my appt. A lady came in who was very chatty. At some point she mentioned being a high school math teacher in a district a bit further out in the country than our local metroplex districts. I started quizzing her about her experiences, as I was particulalry interested in her workload and how she managed correcting and grading hmwk for 160 students. She told me that she was thinking about going back to her former engineering career, as she was just too frustrated with the students. So many were failing, and nothing she did with them changed their trajectory, no matter how much of herself has poured into the teaching. Come to find out she only assigned ten problems per day, most of those were done in class by the students before they left for the day, and when I asked about grading, she said she just looked to see if the papers had written work on them--she actually mentioned the students holding up the papers so she could see who had work written down and who didn't. She never checked the work, except going over the answers in class. When she found out that I was a homeschooler, she went off on a tear about how badly homeschooler stunk at math. I really wanted to ask her how "homeschoolers all being poor math students" was any different from what she had told me about her own students, but I decided that would be beneath me, and fortunately, I was called in for my appt at about that time, or my resolve might have weakened.

 

I didn't bother to tell her that my kid was a freshman in EE and had tested into Calc2 on the university's placement test between his junior and senior high school years.

[MrsJewelsRae]

I can see the other side somewhat, depending on the circumstances. It's just so darn narrow minded and ignorant- they're stereotyping based on a small number of experiences. The things is, the people that have said it to me I know for a fact they're basing this view on literally 1-2 families they know- and sometimes it's the same 1 or 2 people they're referring to! Personally, I'd feel silly openly spouting a negative opinion on something I knew I had very limited and only anecdotal data on.

[Elizabeth in MN]

It's not intended to be a backhanded compliment - your friends are preemptively defending you against stereotypes and from being attacked. To me it sounds like you have great friends, but that they are not as well informed as you are about the realities of home schooling. Were I in your shoes I'd try and find a way to gently say that all the people you know who home school are hard workers. It'll help with your discomfort and educate your friends. It'll be tricky to find a nice way to do it, though.

[Katy]

I haven't gotten that attitude; most of our friends and even family are surprisingly supportive, especially after Newtown. Some have argued that it's better to learn to deal with boring busy work and social situations than to be academically challenged, but that's basically the only criticism we've heard about it.

 

I have known several families who were awful homeschoolers. One pulled all their kids out of school because they didn't want the 7th grader to be in school once TEA had been fully explained to the other kids in her grade! They did nothing at all except go to very cult-like church services and read the bible.

 

Another family were unschoolers who allowed nonstop TV and video games, and who neither encouraged nor supplied anything educational AT ALL except some rather questionable conspiracy theorist related political books. They didn't believe in bathing "because soap is bad for the acid balance of your skin," and generally distrusted everyone.

 

One other girl convinced her parents to pull her out of school in middle school, I assume because she was being bullied for her weight (I'm guessing about 250 pounds at less than 5 feet tall), and convinced them she could homeschool herself. She did nothing, her parents never checked until the state required some sort of educational review and determined she had fallen 5 years behind where she had tested when she was last in school. She was forced to go to some sort of alternative school until she got old enough to legally drop out. She ended up going to a ministry school to become a worship pastor (she was an amazing piano player), and last I knew she was married to youth pastor and was "Homeschooling" her own kids.