I just have to shake my head and sigh

[ktgrok]

every time I see someone ask, "Is there somewhere I can take my kid to be homeschooled?"

I have seen this almost daily this year, and not ONCE have I replied, "home - it's in the name". 

I want credit for that, lol. 

[Faith-manor]

I give you a lot of credit! All the credit! Bless you. I am running out of filter in my near menopausal state of angst and would have said it. I would a smiled and sounded really passive aggressive sweet. But then it also would have potentially been followed up by eye roll. I am currently not a good diplomat! So I try to avoid these situations.

[Bambam]

My personal favorite? The folks who think they no longer have to pay their school taxes because they will be homeschooling their child. And good luck with that. I'm sure countless retired and childless folks would love to be let in on that secret!  School taxes are not tuition payments! 

Edited August 28, 2023 by Bambam

[Terabith]

Honestly, I would just flat out say what you're thinking.  I think "homeschooling is done at home" is something way more people need to hear.

[Shoeless]

Go Princess Bride on them and say "You keep using that word 'homeschool '. I do not think it means what you think it means".

 

 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

This is a constant question on our local Facebook homeschool site.  Except there’s two hybrid programs that are exactly like school, one is M/W/F and one is T/TH, so there are a number of “homeschoolers” who send their kids to both and they’re gone five days a week.  But they’d never dream of sending their kids to private or public school.

make it make sense.

[Katy]

21 minutes ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

This is a constant question on our local Facebook homeschool site.  Except there’s two hybrid programs that are exactly like school, one is M/W/F and one is T/TH, so there are a number of “homeschoolers” who send their kids to both and they’re gone five days a week.  But they’d never dream of sending their kids to private or public school.

make it make sense.

The only thing I can think of is they get all the credit at church for homeschooling without having to do any of the work.

[scbusf]

Someone asked that exact question on a local FB group recently. It took everything I had to not respond with “Um, yes, what’s your address?”

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

4 minutes ago, Katy said:

The only thing I can think of is they get all the credit at church for homeschooling without having to do any of the work.

There are a few who are at the tail end of a large family—most of the kids have grown up and gone, they’ve homeschooled for 25 or 30 years and are just tired and done, but homeschooling is such a large part of their identity that they can’t let it go. Others seem to think that ANY alternative to “traditional school” is better.  Even if it’s school by another name.

[Faith-manor]

27 minutes ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

This is a constant question on our local Facebook homeschool site.  Except there’s two hybrid programs that are exactly like school, one is M/W/F and one is T/TH, so there are a number of “homeschoolers” who send their kids to both and they’re gone five days a week.  But they’d never dream of sending their kids to private or public school.

make it make sense.

I can't..I am not smart enough to twist that into a co.plocated.pretzel so it forms a coherent thought. This one is just beyond me!

These people! 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[Annie G]

Our county has an active Facebook page and SO many people ask who to call at the school district to help them w homeschooling.  But then again, the pandemic did put the idea into parents’ heads that they were homeschooling. 
I do give you credit for not saying anything, but I bet you didn’t contain your eye rolling. 

[Katy]

19 minutes ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

There are a few who are at the tail end of a large family—most of the kids have grown up and gone, they’ve homeschooled for 25 or 30 years and are just tired and done, but homeschooling is such a large part of their identity that they can’t let it go. Others seem to think that ANY alternative to “traditional school” is better.  Even if it’s school by another name.

Are they religious but these co-ops are cheaper or more fundamentalist than the private schools in the area? 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle Again]

Just now, Katy said:

Are they religious but these co-ops are cheaper or more fundamentalist than the private schools in the area? 

One is religious and one offers some Bible classes but is more inclusive.  There is only one private elementary Christian school within any reasonable commute and the co-ops are probably cheaper.

Judging by the “homeschool mom” listed as occupation on their Facebook and the homeschool mom t-shirts and swag they carry, I think it’s really an identity thing.

[bolt.]

I'd be tempted to do fake-ignorance and say things like, "Well, you can take them places like the park, zoo, library, or rec centre -- but in my experience, the days where I've tried to homeschool somewhere other than at the house, but it was a lot of trouble to bring all the books and things -- and the kid really struggled to focus in places like that. Mostly if I had a day where I wanted to take them somewhere, I did a half-day of homeschooling (at the house) and just did the other half as a field trip or a break. It's really most convenient to do home education at home."

[itsheresomewhere]

2 hours ago, ktgrok said:

every time I see someone ask, "Is there somewhere I can take my kid to be homeschooled?"

I have seen this almost daily this year, and not ONCE have I replied, "home - it's in the name". 

I want credit for that, lol. 

Go ahead, be bad and answer. 😜

[katilac]

2 hours ago, Bambam said:

My personal favorite? The folks who think they no longer have to pay their school taxes because they will be homeschooling their child. And good luck with that. I'm sure countless retired and childless folks would love to be let in on that secret!  School taxes are not tuition payments! 

Wow, that's one I've not heard before! 

[scbusf]

2 hours ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

This is a constant question on our local Facebook homeschool site.  Except there’s two hybrid programs that are exactly like school, one is M/W/F and one is T/TH, so there are a number of “homeschoolers” who send their kids to both and they’re gone five days a week.  But they’d never dream of sending their kids to private or public school.

make it make sense.

YES. Same here. 

[Eos]

2 hours ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

Judging by the “homeschool mom” listed as occupation on their Facebook and the homeschool mom t-shirts and swag they carry, I think it’s really an identity thing.

Whoa, is this a thing?  

[ktgrok]

4 hours ago, Shoeless said:

Go Princess Bride on them and say "You keep using that word 'homeschool '. I do not think it means what you think it means".

 

 

Would it be too subtle to just post the meme of him saying that? LOL. 

[ktgrok]

3 hours ago, bolt. said:

I'd be tempted to do fake-ignorance and say things like, "Well, you can take them places like the park, zoo, library, or rec centre -- but in my experience, the days where I've tried to homeschool somewhere other than at the house, but it was a lot of trouble to bring all the books and things -- and the kid really struggled to focus in places like that. Mostly if I had a day where I wanted to take them somewhere, I did a half-day of homeschooling (at the house) and just did the other half as a field trip or a break. It's really most convenient to do home education at home."

I love this! I may do that one day when I just can't take it anymore. 

[Shoeless]

22 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Would it be too subtle to just post the meme of him saying that? LOL. 

I'll give you a dollar if you do it 💵 😆

[Shoeless]

44 minutes ago, Eos said:

Whoa, is this a thing?  

I have seen it, yes. T shirts for themselves and the kids. Sometimes t shirts for the entire h.s. group they are in, because mom is also a BossBabe and can sell to the group. 

It's weird out here. 

[Indigo Blue]

Yikes. Things seem to be so not like they were before. I was in the in between era where it wasn’t all super religious. There was a new crop of secular homeschool moms, too. All the ones I knew were so smart and polite. They got down in the trenches, researched their curriculum, and taught. Hard workers who excelled academically. Those seem to be vanishing. Are they? Are they vastly outnumbered by these new ones who don’t want to actually homeschool their children? 

[Shoeless]

2 hours ago, Indigo Blue said:

Yikes. Things seem to be so not like they were before. I was in the in between era where it wasn’t all super religious. There was a new crop of secular homeschool moms, too. All the ones I knew were so smart and polite. They got down in the trenches, researched their curriculum, and taught. Hard workers who excelled academically. Those seem to be vanishing. Are they? Are they vastly outnumbered by these new ones who don’t want to actually homeschool their children? 

From my perspective, homeschooling is greatly influenced by fb and other social media. I don't run into a lot of people locally that are invested in academics.  I stopped seeking out other homeschoolers because the scene was too political, and I was tired of it all. 

Online, it's also polarized. There's the "school/college is a scam" crowd vs the "must-take-every-ap-exam/nothing-is-ever-good-enough" crowd.

It feels tribal and I find it exhausting. 

[KidsHappen]

I don't know. That sounds kinda radical to me. 😉

[TravelingChris]

11 hours ago, Bambam said:

My personal favorite? The folks who think they no longer have to pay their school taxes because they will be homeschooling their child. And good luck with that. I'm sure countless retired and childless folks would love to be let in on that secret!  School taxes are not tuition payments! 

We have three sources of school funding here -  non-vehicle property taxes. Income tax and, I think a bit of the sales tax.  ANyway, if you live in a home that you own, You don't have to pay property tax once you are 65 or if you are permanently and totally disabled.   But you still have to pay sales taxes and possibly income taxes too.   (I am not sure we will when dh retires because his military pension is already excluded, and I think Social Security is too.  Though I know 401K are not nor are our interest or dividend earnings/

[TravelingChris]

10 hours ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

There are a few who are at the tail end of a large family—most of the kids have grown up and gone, they’ve homeschooled for 25 or 30 years and are just tired and done, but homeschooling is such a large part of their identity that they can’t let it go. Others seem to think that ANY alternative to “traditional school” is better.  Even if it’s school by another name.

When we were stationed at SHAPE, there were a number of schools because of all the NATO countries having different languages and school systems.  (There wasn't one for every country but there definitely a few of them).  Anyway, the Canadian school there would have been a choice for my youngest except for the fact I would have had to drive her there and back - I, like most of the parents didn't live on base.  But that school was so much more like a homeschool.  Different ages mixed together and small classes and non-textbook learning. Lots of outdoors and field trips and reading actual books and other things that I was already doing in my homeschool.

OTOH,  When we were living in the VA suburbs of DC, there was some new so-called homeschooling program that was super rigid (and expensive too)  and there probably was that program here too when I was homeschooling but I had a high schooler only by then and wasn't paying much attention to that and no longer attending any homeschool conferences either.  I can't remember the name of that program but know that we have discussed here in the CHat forum before.

[Indigo Blue]

I’m so out of touch with all this because I don’t have any other social media besides here. I’m blissfully ignorant, I suppose. I don’t even visit the academic side of this board, lol. 

[Heartstrings]

I don’t know which I hate most, that question or the fact that people and churches are setting up places for just that thing.  “Bring your kid to us so you can homeschool”. 🙃.  Not co-ops, not university model schools, full time “learning centers” for “homeschooling”.  

[PaxEtLux]

21 hours ago, ktgrok said:

every time I see someone ask, "Is there somewhere I can take my kid to be homeschooled?"

I have seen this almost daily this year, and not ONCE have I replied, "home - it's in the name". 

I want credit for that, lol. 

Be careful -- they might think it means your home...