You're not the Boss of Me

Most of my friends happen to be homeschooling parents. Sometimes, however, I have to converse with adults outside the homeschooling world. These conversations are what have helped convince me that secular homeschooling, particularly, is a revolutionary act.

Here are some examples:

One or more of my children has participated in the local Little League for about 6 seasons. As a conversation starter, most parents ask which school my kids attend. We all know what my answer is.

Well, one time, one of the moms involved in this dialogue with me said,”You know, I believe the schools have become a sterile environment since all religion has been removed from them.”

All sorts of thoughts were whirling around my head at that moment. I kept telling myself to be quiet and to just nod and smile. But then I said it. “You know, there is that nice section in the Constitution about the separation of church and state.”

The other mom nodded and smiled. And never said another word to me the whole season.

I would have just passed off this mom’s distaste for me as a basic distaste for snarky remarks if this next conversation hadn’t occurred with another mom during the first game of the season. We had the initial part of the discussion wherein I state that my child doesn’t attend school and then she says something like, “Oh, I could never do that,” and then I assure her that she certainly could. Same old, same old. But then she asks me what church I attend. I tell her that I am basically a non-believer and haven’t gone to church since I left home at 17. She raises her eyebrows and then excuses herself from continuing the discourse -- forever.

When I thought back over the 12 years I’ve been homeschooling, I realized that these discussions are only two examples of the dozens of the same sort I’ve had in that time.

I started wondering at the revulsion that seems to come not so much from the fact that we homeschool, but more from the fact that we don’t homeschool for religious reasons.

Then it hit me.

These people are upset with me because nobody is the boss of me.

As I’ve described before, I believe that mass schooling has become a replacement for religion. Parents buy into the structure and rules and live their lives accordingly. I had a parent describe an outside school reading program to me – a certain number of books required at certain graded levels, comprehension tests that need to be passed with 80% of the questions correct or the book doesn’t count, all administered by the parent – and when I acted horrified at these onerous rules, she looked shocked and told me how great the program was. So when I say that my kids don’t go to school, many parents are offended that I am, in essence, rejecting the organizing principle of their lives

But then, they think, it will all be o.k., if my religion tells me what to do. When they find out it doesn’t, it blows their minds.

I’m speaking, of course, in broad generalizations. There are a lot of people who don’t have a problem with secular homeschooling. But the incidents I’ve described happen more often than not.

Secular homeschoolers pick their level of structure, from using a boxed curriculum all the way to no curriculum. But we pick these levels of structure based on our needs and those of our children, not based on societal norms or religious expectations. For my family, at least, I’m hoping that my kids’ background in homeschooling will help them, eventually, feel confident in their ability to control their own education.

I guess that’s really what makes it a true revolution, right? We’re producing a future generation of people who can think for themselves.

Imagine.