Reasons to Not Homeschool

Reasons Not To Homeschool

I’m not trying to talk you out of it, but there are certainly reasons not to homeschool and I've heard them all. Really. At least I haven't heard a new one in a long while. The three most popular, and most lame excuses to not homeschool are:

1. I'm not organized enough
2. I'm not patient enough, and
3. I'm not smart enough

General fear of inadequacy is the biggest barrier for new homeschoolers. Let me say this about that.

Organization: If you have visited a homeschoolers house and it was clean, then they cleaned it just for you. Martha Stewart could never homeschool. If you wanted you home to be ready at any moment for the photographer from ‘Better Homes and Garden’s’, you shouldn’t have had kids in the first place. Learn to embrace the chaos. When your kids are grown and gone, then you can clean up.

Patience: Every homeschooler I know has had a crying-in-the-closet breakdown where they were ready to send all their kids right back to public school. It passes. Take a break. Call on your support network. A million families are doing this. You can too.

Intelligence: Every homeschool parent I know is blindingly brilliant, but they may not have started that way. You can't teach it without learning it. Everything I've helped my kids learn has given me a new perspective and forced me to deepen my own knowledge and clarify my own thinking on the subject. Home education makes you, the parent, smarter! Think of it as a perk. The more of them I meet and the longer I know them, the more amazing I find the homeschool mom. They are the smartest and wisest people I know.

And seriously, don't even try to make the argument that since you don't have a diploma/degree/certificate of some sort, you're not qualified. Many of the worst teachers I’ve had were highly schooled, certified and degreed. We’re talking about YOUR CHILDREN and YOU ARE QUALIFIED TO TEACH THEM.

If you feel that you absolutely must have a state-issued certificate to home school, frame your child’s birth certificate and hang it on the wall. There! Now you’re more certified than any teacher could ever be because THEY ARE YOUR KIDS and YOU love them. No teacher will ever love them even a tiny fraction as much as you. And as Mark Hegner says, “All you need to homeschool is love and a library card.”

Other, more legitimate reasons not to homeschool include:

Abject Poverty. It's tough to homeschool without a home. And eating trumps even homeschooling. You must have some sort of income, but do you really need that second income? Most likely you could get by on one. What’s more important, your job or your kids? If you have a place to live and a reasonably healthy stay-at-home parent, you can homeschool even on the most modest of incomes. Library cards are free.

Custody issues. You can't homeschool from jail. If both parents aren't on board, whether they live together or not, it's not worth it. Remember, family harmony comes first, even if the family doesn't live together.

Single parenthood. It's been done, especially with older kids or a parent who can work from home. But without major support it's difficult.

Can't stand to be with your kids. Now I don't pretend to understand this, but I've heard it much more than I would ever have imagined. "If I had to be with my kids all day I'd go crazy." This fits into the category of 'not patient enough' but to the extreme. If you would hurt your kids by being around them all day, don't homeschool. But understand that your attention and presence may be exactly what they are after with their troubling behavior. Being with them all day may give you a chance to implement discipline far beyond what you've had a chance to do in the past. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, after a parent has pulled their kids out of school to home educate them, “I finally got my son back.”

Serious illness. If you or someone in the family requires major time and care, sending the kids to public school for a year or two can help a lot.

Abuse or other criminal behavior. If you're running a crack house, a brothel or the local branch of the KKK you might consider the advantage of getting the kids out from underfoot by sending them to school.

And last but certainly not least, you should not homeschool if you do not want to. If you hate the idea of homeschooling, then don't do it. You may or may not give your kids a choice about homeschooling, but you, the parent, have a choice, and no parent should be forced, coerced or guilt-tripped into homeschooling against their will.

Clue-less and Bogus Reasons to Not Homeschool
Here are a few truly bogus reasons I’ve heard why home educations should be banned, and homeschoolers ridiculed, ostracized or jailed. Please excuse my sarcasm.

Socialization. Interrelations with other students and teachers is a crucial part of every child’s development, and the simple social interactions they get at home are clearly not enough. Team building, problem solving, working near those one may not like, creating and following rules and exposure to those from different backgrounds are best done in a school environment. Homeschooled children are not ‘classed’ with others their same age, they never go out into the world, grocery shopping, to the doctor or dentist. They avoid team sports and club activities like scouting. They never participate in musical groups, church events or organized sports. Any child who spends all his time at home, exposed to only his parents and siblings will inevitable becomes an improperly socialized adult.

Isolationism. By cocooning your children at home and sheltering them from all diversity of thought while encasing them in only your biased and narrow minded religious and political world views, you will produce shallow, fragile and gullible adults who are unprepared for the rough and tumble of the real world. They need school so they can learn to handle bosses, bullies, badgering and the daily battering ram that is life. How are they going to learn to say no to drugs unless they’re exposed to them in school?

Racism. Without exposure to the diversity of races and cultures in our fully integrated public schools, your children will become bigots, intolerant hicks, incapable of coexisting with anyone whose accent, skins-tone and eye-shape isn’t exactly the same as theirs.

Sexism. Your chauvinist sons will believe all women are property. Your daughters will learn only how to cook, clean and make house. They need public schooling to learn their proper gender roles.

Elitism. What, you think your kids are special? (yes) You think they’re better than everyone else? (yes) The school down the street just isn’t good enough for them? (that’s right) The nerve! And worse, you are not only harming your child, you are creating a brain-drain, skimming the cream of the public schools (cool!), thus depriving them not only of their best students, (thanks!) but of you, their most involved parents (wow, thanks again) while leaving those who cannot afford to opt out to struggle with worsening conditions (too bad).

Collectivism. Thousands of researchers, experts and education professionals are dedicated to ensuring public schools use the best curriculum and practices. How astoundingly presumptuous to assume you, only a simple parent know better than all that accumulated wisdom. It takes a village to raise a child and you are merely the village idiot. You can’t do it on your own, and you shouldn’t try.

School funding. By homeschooling you are maliciously draining money from the local school district, since they would get more minority, special-ed or per-pupil funding if you enrolled your children. By keeping them home, that money just disappears into vapor, never to be seen again.

Poor citizenship. Home education is bad for democracy. Homeschoolers have too much freedom and not enough professional guidance. Without the civic training and exposure children receive daily at school, and without the balance and diversity of political views represented in schools, your children will become self-absorbed adults disinterested in the public discourse and unaware of their duties as citizens.

Poor education. You know what homeschooling is, really? It’s child abuse by educational neglect. You can’t possibly educate a child at home as well as they do in public school. It’s impossible to make up for lost time or bad practices in a child’s education. Experts agree that home schooling programs cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience blah-dee-blah-dee blah blah blah

No Test Scores. If I homeschool I won’t have standardized test scores to wave under the noses of other parents showing how superior my children are to theirs. Any test scores I have would be suspect, since everyone knows that homeschool parents help their children cheat on all those multiple choice exams. How else could they score so high?

Hidden abuse. Everyone knows that the real reason anyone homeschools is to abuse their children in secret. Without the daily monitoring by trained teachers, councilors and child-psychologist that a child receives in school, their abusive parents can continue to starve, beat and exploit their children undetected.

Special needs. Your child has special needs that you, their parent are incapable of providing. They need professional treatment, drugs and counseling. The schools have special classes for your children where they’ll be better off. I know they’re your children, but you’re just not capable of taking care of them. The more meds and needs your child has, the more he needs school.

Personal accomplishment. You, the parent, will not have the personal time you may have been looking forward to since your kids were born. You can not stash them on the big yellow bus, then crawl back into your warm bed on days you’re not feeling well. You will rarely be alone, and you will not have the company and stimulation of other adults and the challenges and bustle of a modern corporate career. These things are important for your personal growth, just as important as your children’s education, so go ahead and send them off to school. Perhaps a boarding school, which would maximize your opportunities for self actualization.

Economics. It is unwise and unfair to you not to take advantage of the public schools, since you have to pay for them anyway. You don’t get a break on your taxes, you know. You’d just be paying twice for your children’s education.

Facilities. How many homes have classrooms, blackboards, wall maps, school busses, libraries, chemistry labs, biology labs, greenhouses, computer labs, football fields, gyms, tennis courts, baseball diamonds, pools, copy machine rooms, wood shops, metal shops, bike racks, and a nurse’s office. Your home will never replace a school.

No diploma. Without a diploma you will never get anywhere in life. That piece of paper is your ticket to success, your ticket into college, to a job, and to better life. Without it your children are destined to dig ditches for a living and smoke crack for the REST OF THEIR LIVES.

College entrance. How will you ever get into any college, much less a good college without proof of high school graduation? You can’t! (yes, you can)

Wannabe Teachers: This is really about you, the parent. Isn’t it! Pretending to be a teacher. Or you’re trying to relive your youth through your children, trying to undo your own failed education. But face it, teaching children is difficult even for experienced professionals. You wannabes have no idea. You think just because you bought a history book or a math or science book that you can automatically teach that book’s content? Just because you had a child doesn’t make you any smarter, or make you qualified to teach children. That takes years of professional training, experience and certification. You may be well-meaning, but really you’re just gullible. Worse yet, if you already are a teacher and have stayed home to teach your own kids, you should be ashamed, depriving the public schools of your knowledge and experience. Government schools may not be perfect, but they’ll only get worse as those who can afford to leave stay away.

If you actually buy into any of these truly counterfeit arguments, I want you to go to the bank. Take some money out of your account. Go to the store and buy a clue.


Please read on.