JILL F. writes:

Twenty-five years ago I was expecting my first baby and was a preschool teacher in a childcare center. One of my charges was a quiet, introverted little boy, much like I was as a child. During our parent/teacher “conferences” little Bryce’s parents confided in me that they were thinking of keeping him home for two days of the week and only sending him to preschool for three days…and they were so worried that doing this would mean that he would miss out on “enrichment.” I remember feeling so glad that, somehow with my college degree and absolutely no experience in being a parent, I was in a position of authority and that these parents took me seriously enough to listen to me. I told them to keep him home and bake cookies with him and read to him. I told them that, much as I loved and enjoyed their son, he wanted to be with his mother and that that was the most enriching thing they could do. I also confided that if it was up to me there wouldn’t be any preschool centers!

Fast forward twenty years and I am now the mother of eight. My husband invites a co-worker and his wife and son to dinner. They are nice people with a eight-year-old who is very quiet and exceedingly introverted. Both parents work full time and so their son is in school and many, many activities. We all sit in our dining room and talk while my home-educated teens join in the conversation. My kids are so verbal I am tempted to shoo them out the door so I can get a word in edgewise but they are engaging and fun and so we all converse together.

Later, after dinner, the topic of homeschooling comes up and, again, my children begin sharing anecdotes and experiences. Our eight-year-old has gone out to play but comes home just as our dinner guests ask that question that is fired at every homeschooler, “But…what about socialization. Are your children involved in activities and meeting other people?” The eight-year-old has come in the door. She has invited a few friends in for dessert and I begin to count them. There are seven neighborhood children trailing through our kitchen and helping themselves to cake. Children of all ages. Children laughing and talking and enjoying each other.

At the end of the table our guests’ little boy is trembling. He has not said a word throughout dinner. He does not look us in the eye. But his parents still ask their ridiculous question in all sincerity, “Aren’t you concerned that they won’t be socialized? That they will be isolated? That they won’t know how to interact with people?”

I open my mouth to reply but no one can hear me because there are too many people in the room.

                                           — Comments —

Hurricane Betsy writes:

Well, Jill, that’s a hell of a story. Since you knew, even when you were working in a child care center, that not all children (if any) should be in such a place, maybe you are a bit of a “genius”. Go back to Robert Graves’ article on this site; the last few words are as follows:

“Although illness can result from distress at watching the oppressive effects of modern living on too many of our neighbours, sympathy with their sufferings should urge our genius into action-a cannon ball hurled through the boat-rather than keep us lying hopelessly on our bunks.”

Maybe you should, when your dinner guests expressed concern for your own children’s possible “lack of socialization,” have hurled a cannon ball.

Kilroy M. writes:

Jill F.’s description of her guest’s blindness, is a scene from the daily routine of living the Big Lie. Even the stark truth of reality will not rouse the liberal from slumber. The liberal’s child could be illiterate, and Jill’s child could start reciting Virgil after dinner, but we could expect more “concern” about how home schooling “impoverishes” a child’s education. These people are programmed – they don’t think – they just parrot liberal platitudes. I doubt the liberal would be able to coherently even answer the question: “what exactly do you mean by socialisation”?

Rita writes:

I absolutely LOVE this story. I did some homeschooling myself and so I can’t tell you how many times I heard THAT question.

When people say these very predictable things…even in the face of FACTS like in Jill’s story…that’s called being brainwashed!

Clark writes:

I always thought that the question, “Aren’t you afraid that your homeschooled child will not be socialized well?” was a perfect example of the lack of historical perspective among modern know-it-alls. Most people throughout history did not attend large schools. Did Leonardo da Vinci suffer from a lack of socialization? Gutenberg? All of the great inventors, artists, writers, composers, political leaders, and philosophers, not to mention the ordinary people who made the daily economy succeed, for millennia before the invention of the public school, suffer from lack of proper socialization? Did they all fail to learn how to deal with other people? How did the world survive to the present day?

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