The Bitter Homeschooler’s Wish List

I don’t usually re-post articles in full, but this is one just too good.  And timely, too.  I was primed to post some snark about an uninformed swat at homeschooling I saw on TV recently, but this puts it better than I could have.
From Secular Homeschooling Magazine, via

andrearice

:

The Bitter Homeschooler’ s Wish List
by Deborah Markus

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.

4 Don’t assume that every homeschooler you meet is homeschooling for the
same reasons and in the same way as that one homeschooler you know.

5 If that homeschooler you know is actually someone you saw on TV, either on
the news or on a “reality” show, the above goes double.

6 Please stop telling us horror stories about the homeschoolers you know,
know of, or think you might know who ruined their lives by homeschooling.
You’re probably the same little bluebird of happiness whose hobby is running
up to pregnant women and inducing premature labor by telling them every
ghastly birth story you’ve ever heard. We all hate you, so please go away.

7 We don’t look horrified and start quizzing your kids when we hear they’re
in public school. Please stop drilling our children like potential oil
fields to see if we’re doing what you consider an adequate job of
homeschooling.

8 Stop assuming all homeschoolers are religious.

9 Stop assuming that if we’re religious, we must be homeschooling for
religious reasons.

10 We didn’t go through all the reading, learning, thinking, weighing of
options, experimenting, and worrying that goes into homeschooling just to
annoy you. Really. This was a deeply personal decision, tailored to the
specifics of our family. Stop taking the bare fact of our being
homeschoolers as either an affront or a judgment about your own educational
decisions.

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.

12 If my kid’s only six and you ask me with a straight face how I can
possibly teach him what he’d learn in school, please understand that you’re
calling me an idiot. Don’t act shocked if I decide to respond in kind.

13 Stop assuming that because the word “home” is right there in
“homeschool, ” we never leave the house. We’re the ones who go to the
amusement parks, museums, and zoos in the middle of the week and in the
off-season and laugh at you because you have to go on weekends and holidays
when it’s crowded and icky.

14 Stop assuming that because the word “school” is right there in
homeschool, we must sit around at a desk for six or eight hours every day,
just like your kid does. Even if we’re into the “school” side of education –
and many of us prefer a more organic approach – we can burn through a lot of
material a lot more efficiently, because we don’t have to gear our lessons
to the lowest common denominator.

15 Stop asking, “But what about the Prom?” Even if the idea that my kid
might not be able to indulge in a night of over-hyped, over-priced revelry
was enough to break my heart, plenty of kids who do go to school don’t get
to go to the Prom. For all you know, I’m one of them. I might still be
bitter about it. So go be shallow somewhere else.

16 Don’t ask my kid if she wouldn’t rather go to school unless you don’t
mind if I ask your kid if he wouldn’t rather stay home and get some sleep
now and then.

17 Stop saying, “Oh, I could never homeschool!” Even if you think it’s some
kind of compliment, it sounds more like you’re horrified. One of these days,
I won’t bother disagreeing with you any more.

18 If you can remember anything from chemistry or calculus class, you’re
allowed to ask how we’ll teach these subjects to our kids. If you can’t,
thank you for the reassurance that we couldn’t possibly do a worse job than
your teachers did, and might even do a better one.

19 Stop asking about how hard it must be to be my child’s teacher as well as
her parent. I don’t see much difference between bossing my kid around
academically and bossing him around the way I do about everything else.

20 Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet,
boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because
he’s homeschooled. It’s not fair that all the kids who go to school can be
as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of
anything but childhood.

21 Quit assuming that my kid must be some kind of prodigy because she’s
homeschooled.

22 Quit assuming that I must be some kind of prodigy because I homeschool my
kids.

23 Quit assuming that I must be some kind of saint because I homeschool my
kids.

24 Stop talking about all the great childhood memories my kids won’t get
because they don’t go to school, unless you want me to start asking about
all the not-so-great childhood memories you have because you went to school.

25 Here’s a thought: If you can’t say something nice about homeschooling,
shut up!