Socialization is for suckers.

This here post is gonna be what we bloggers call a 'rant.' So get yo'self ready.


The number one objection to homeschooling is an all-encompassing word call 'socialization.' I hear it all the time. Maybe you knew some homeschool kids growing up and they were a little freaky deaky. Maybe they were hyper-religious and believed the Smurfs were of the devil. Or they weren't allowed to listen to secular music. We all knew somebody, homeschooled or not, who was just weird. I'm here to tell you that homeschooling does not inherently cause poor socialization, and to think it does would just be silly. Here's why:


A public school education creates an artificial social structure. Never in your life, in your whole life, will you be surrounded by people who are the same age as you. Not at work, not in religious life, family life or in any other scenario will you be socially tied to people because you were born the same year. But the problem with public school socialization is not that kids are grouped together in this way, it's that this structure lends itself to negative socialization. Which is my second point.

I was a jerk in the seventh grade. Junior high, in my estimation, has absolutely no social value in the development of a person. Somehow this structure turns sweet little girls and boys into monsters. My number one fear in these years was being mocked or embarrassed in any way. And to avoid this, I would participate in the mocking or embarrassment of other kids. Everybody has a story from these years. Will has stories, my sisters have stories, everyone EVERYONE became someone's victim or someone's bully. And what is the value if this time? I see none. Because you will never again in your life deal with this kind of treatment, unless you're an enemy combatant of some sort. And if you are willing to subject yourself to hazing as a free-thinking mature adult, then I'm sure you got your psychological motivation in your junior high years.

Parental control is diminished in a school structure. This, in itself, is not a bad thing. I realize as a homeschooling mom, I will have to create situations where my kids can actually choose their own friends. I also have to let them go outside, unsupervised, so they can get away from me for an hour or two everyday. But when I think back on every good kid gone bad, it almost always stemmed from an association with another good kid gone bad. And those relationships were formed at school. I think it's quite possible to give kids too much freedom, too many opportunities to screw up. But the line between hovering over your child's every breath, and letting them go smoke the doobie behind the bleachers after school is a broad one. And by staying home, I made that line a whole lot harder to cross. I consider this an advantage, not a detriment. Yes, there will be problems. And yes, a rebellious kid is going to find a way to rebel, no matter what. Homeschooling just removes a couple of weapons a kid has in terrorizing their parents.

Homeschooling can ultimately create a very nurturing and healthy social environment. The most important social unit is the family. Without strong families, every part of society begins to crumble. I would rather my kids leave childhood with a vivid picture of how a family works together than whatever social skills they could have gained in a public school. Because, ultimately, their very happiness will depend on it. They will need to know how to work through problems with their spouse, how to be self-sacrificing, how to parent effectively, how to budget, how to maintain a household, and most important, how to live with other people day in and day out without giving up on them. The most successful people in the world could stand to learn this lesson. And I want my kids to get that from me.

We'll do soccer, church, VBS, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, gymnastics, music lessons and countless other things to get my kids around other children. But here's a little secret: kids are born socialized. They don't need artificial venues to teach them how to play or talk to other children. Many objections to homeschooling are valid and worth considering. But, in my mind, socialization isn't one of them.