Negative Attitudes About Homeschooling

I've been pretty lucky so far in our homeschooling adventure. I haven't come across many negative attitudes or comments from people I've come in contact with. Maybe it's because we live in a small, rural area and a pretty conservative section of our state. I'm sure homeschoolers in Western Washington State, where the demographics are predominantly liberal, deal with this on a more regular basis.

But now that I've put myself out there on Club Mom as a Christian, homeschooling Mom, I know that I will have contact from a much more varied group of people than my own circle of family, friends, and acquaintances.

I found this comment on my article, Why We Homeschool, today:

Any mother who thinks that she can effectively teach her children their math and reading without losing the mom factor is deluding herself. With very few exceptions, home schooled kids are not able to keep up once they hit the real world. And when the kids have exceeded the mother's knowledge base, they can't function in real schools as suddenly they are expected to sit still for a period of time and do what the teacher requests.

Can I just say....Aaarrgh! (Warning: rant coming!)

This irks me in so many different ways. First of all, when we teach our babies to talk and walk and know colors and how to interact with people, do we lose the "mom factor"? I think not. That's primarily what being a mom is! So why should that change when it comes to reading, writing, and arithmetic?

Then, she says this: "With very few exceptions, home schooled kids are not able to keep up once they hit the real world." What is she basing this on? The main-stream media's portrayal of homeschoolers as anti-social, overly-weird individuals who can't cope in society? She is definitely not basing it on any of the valid studies that have been done recently that show that homeschool graduates excel in college, the business world, and as responsible citizens who volunteer and vote at a much higher rate than their public-schooled counterparts.

Lastly, why would my kids have to ever exceed my knowledge base? I'm a college-educated individual, and even if I wasn't, I'm fully capable of learning anything my kids need me to teach them. As are any parents who desire to home educate their children.

I'm going to choose to ignore this comment and let my articles speak for themselves. And one of my topics for next month will address this issue of homeschool graduates and how they "cope" in the "real world." But I had to rant somewhere, so here it is. I know with most of you I'm "preaching to the choir," but I feel much better for having gotten it all out instead of walking around all day sputtering, "But, but, but...how dare she!"