You Don't See Anyone Anymore!

My husband and I were enjoying dinner at Land's End's local's night last night when an acquaintance I hadn't seen since June walked by and stopped to chat. Her daughter had moved on to the middle school and she exclaimed, "How are you doing? We're not up at McNeil so we don't see anyone anymore!" When I commented that I homeschool now then she said, "Oh, then you don't see anyone anymore either!" I thought that was an interesting comment. Since homeschooling the kids it's true, I don't see as many faces, walking by and saying hello or nodding my head. However, I feel like we see plenty of the people we want to see, so it doesn't feel like deprivation in any sense. This person seemed genuinely excited to see us, but once I mentioned that we were homeschooling I was startled at how quickly she got up and left. It seemed like it was a "bad" thing. Amazingly, we have not gotten a lot of negative reactions from people about our homeschooling. There is curiosity, there is reservation, there is complete lack of knowledge, but rarely are people outright against it. For those who know anything about homeschooling, they realize that every situation is different, and it can be an awesome thing, or it can be the worst thing to happen to a child. It depends, in large measure, on the parent and how valued the teaching/learning is.

The only other negative incident we had with anyone was when I took the kids to church one morning and a lady said, "I'm the school police! Why aren't you in school?" She was kind of joking, but it made the kids very self-conscious. I thought she knew we were homeschooling, but when I spoke to her a few days later I discovered she didn't know, so she was more serious than I'd realized.

Mostly, though, these things roll right off. I can see the benefits of homeschooling with my kids, and few others take the time to really learn about what homeschooling is like for us. I do want to protect my kids from negative comments, though, because I can see their self-consciousness about not being "in school".