Types of Homeschool Critics, Part I

Types of homeschool critics

1) The Worrier:  She is so sad that your children are going to miss out on the best years of her, oops, their lives --  the friends, the clubs, the boys, the dances, the student council, the pep rallies, the school newspaper; all the delights of the self-contained world of the public high school.  She thrived during her school years and assumes everyone else will enjoy them as much as she. 

But there is not a mean bone in her body.  And she is sincere in her concern, just not particularly imaginative.  She'll come around eventually.

2) The Socialization Expert:  This person fears your homeschooled child will become a weirdo, unable to function in society with anyone who is not his mother.  See, she once met someone who knew of a homeschooled child who had trouble working in groups.  Case closed.  Of course, she completely overlooks the obvious, that the vast majority of unpleasant people in our society went to public schools.

3) Homeschoolers are Segregationists:  This person is a bit more mean spirited than the previous two types.  She believes homeschoolers are all racists and misogynists who want to isolate their children from contact with people unlike themselves.  While she has never actually known anyone who homeschools, she and her friends have read about it in various liberal news sources.

While attributing to you the worst of reasons why to homeschool, she and her proper thinking friends send their own children to private schools or buy into good school zones -- the acceptable upper-middle class way of walling off one's child from the masses.

More types later....

If you want to get a good feel for how the squares view homeschooling, read this debate in the NYT. 

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