Homeschooling

Savannah of the website Hammock Tracks has included an email interview with me on her website as part of her "Who Homeschools" feature. Check it out right here and then explore other parts of her site.

Speaking of homeschooling, it's been funny recently some of the responses I've had when talking with strangers, at protests and around town, and they find out I'm homeschooling my children. One person I talked to recently started onto how great that was I was homeschooling because then I am not being forced to vaccinate my children. Another person said that it was great I'm homeschooling because if more people did that she wouldn't have to pay so much in school taxes. In the first conversation I tried to politely contribute a bit of information about how the autism-vaccine link has been fully discredited and in the second conversation I ended up just smiling and nodding and backing away slowly. I don't know what to say to those who begrudge money spent educating the next generation or who fail to realize that it isn't really cheaper overall to have children educated in small family units.

Of course there's other times when the knowledge that I am homeschooling leads people to go on about how wonderful that is and how much better for the children it is. In some ways that is equally awkward. I'm homeschooling and I hope that doing so is going to give my children a good education and good experience, but I don't know it will. I don't think anything has guarantees.

If you homeschool, what were the weirdest responses you've received?