{"id":23327,"date":"2015-04-12T22:54:51","date_gmt":"2015-04-13T02:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=23327"},"modified":"2015-04-12T22:54:51","modified_gmt":"2015-04-13T02:54:51","slug":"picking-things-up-from-the-culture-homeschool-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2015\/04\/picking-things-up-from-the-culture-homeschool-edition.html","title":{"rendered":"Picking Things Up from the Culture, Homeschool Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

If you\u2019re a regular reader, you may have noticed that, when speaking of my conservative evangelical homeschool upbringing, I frequently say \u201cI was told X\u201d rather than \u201cmy parents told me X.\u201d There is a reason for that\u2014sometimes I can\u2019t remember whether\u00a0my parents actually taught me some specific aspect of purity culture or\u00a0political conservatism or whether\u00a0I just picked it up from the Christian homeschool culture around me. After all, I read the homeschool magazines we subscribed to, listened to the speakers at homeschool conventions, and socialized with the other homeschooled children.<\/p>\n

My parents removed my siblings and I\u00a0from public schools in order to remove us from external influences. But they didn\u2019t remove us from external influences entirely, because, short of locking us in our rooms, they couldn\u2019t. What they did was change the set of influences we were exposed to. But in their choice of\u00a0a new set of influences\u2014that of Christian homeschool culture\u2014we were sometimes\u00a0exposed to things they may not have agreed with in a way they never\u00a0never\u00a0thought about.<\/p>\n

For example, when I was a senior in high school a friend of mine tried to talk me out of going to college. She said\u00a0women were supposed to serve, and that college was entirely hedonistic and self-centered. She told me she planned to spend those years as a mother\u2019s helper in other homeschooling families, before marrying and beginning her own family. I agreed with her premises, and was left unsettled. If my parents hadn\u2019t had such a solidly upper middle class expectation that I would go to college, I might have been swayed.<\/p>\n

For\u00a0all of homeschooling parents rhetoric about how \u201cpeer dependent\u201d public schooled children are, we homeschooled children could be quite influenced by our homeschooled peers. Part of me finds this ironic. But then, the point was not so much to remove us from peers entirely as to change the set of peers we were around. My parents\u00a0opted\u00a0to expose us to Christian homeschooling culture rather than to the culture of the\u00a0local public schools.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019m glad my parents didn\u2019t subject other Christian homeschooling families to a detailed theological review before allowing me\u00a0to socialize with their children. I mean yes, they did draw some<\/em> lines, but they could have drawn those lines much more narrowly. By way of example, I recently came upon an article titled When Catholic Homeschool Kids Get Lonely<\/a>\u00a0that really made me cringe. Here\u2019s an excerpt:<\/p>\n

\n

It\u2019s easy to think that if Catholic parents put their children in the Catholic Youth Group at the local parish, all will be well and this will solve the \u2018loneliness\u2019 or the \u2018socialization\u2019 issue, but my husband and I have found that sometimes this can create other problems. Simply put, our experience with the Catholic Youth Group in our particular area has been mostly negative and counterproductive in helping us to raise our daughters for Christ. When we would bring our children to some of the youth activities, we were disheartened by what we experienced and witnessed.<\/p>\n

Many of the children who attend these functions also attend the public school. They go to these functions because their parents make them, not because they really want to be there. While there, we would hear them using foul language and witness them picking on other children, bringing that whole \u201cpublic school mentality\/environment\u201d with them into the youth group activities. The parents who were chaperoning these activities couldn\u2019t be everywhere at once, so much of the cursing and mean-spiritedness took place when the chaperones weren\u2019t watching.<\/p>\n

Not only this, but my husband and I were appalled at the way in which the girls who attended these functions dressed. We decided not to sign our children up for any more youth group activities in this area.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons why I made the decision to homeschool was because I didn\u2019t want my children to be negatively influenced by bad peers. If I keep them out of the public schools for this reason, but then put them around those same children in a youth group activity, what have I accomplished? They\u2019re still around the bad peers.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

If there is a local homeschool support group in your area, this can be a good thing, especially when most of the parents whose children are in these groups are doing what they do for the same reasons as you. However, I do want to offer you a word of caution regarding some of these groups. Not every homeschool support group is Catholic.<\/p>\n

If you are raising your children in the Catholic Faith, it is better to be a part of a Catholic homeschool support group than a Protestant one. Experience has taught me over and over again that when Catholics join a Protestant homeschool support group (especially an evangelical one) subtle attempts are made in order to \u201creach out to\u201d and \u201csave\u201d the Catholic\u2019s soul. Religious tracts are distributed, and invitations are given to attend this church service, that Bible study, this Children\u2019s Kids\u2019 Klub, or that Vacation Bible School.<\/p>\n

Because of this, I refuse to allow my children to participate in any of these groups. If a group of kids and parents want to get together for the sake of picnicking and playing ball, that\u2019s one thing. But when one group tries to impose its religious beliefs on another because it does not accept and respect the religious beliefs of others, a line has been crossed.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

If there are no Catholic homeschool support groups in your area, you might consider starting one yourself. Please don\u2019t make the mistake of thinking that in order for it to be successful, it has to be complex, time-consuming, and difficult. Just getting together once a week in a park for a game of kickball with hot chocolate and doughnuts could be a great way to start. Using a church fellowship hall in order to host these meetings is something that a lot of Catholic homeschool support groups pursue.<\/p>\n

Although having companions can be fun, nothing can take the place of a close Catholic family.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If a parent chooses to homeschool to remove their children from the influence of public school children, and then chooses to opt out of both church activities and established homeschool groups again because the children involved are deemed bad companions . . . well, let\u2019s just say that if a parent refuses to allow their\u00a0children to socialize with any children who do not share their beliefs in exactitude, the children will be very lonely indeed.<\/p>\n

But because my parents did expose us so fully to Christian homeschooling culture, I\u2019m often unsure what my parents actually believed and what I simply picked up from that culture. Sometimes I know the answer without hesitation, because\u00a0I remember this comment or that. But other times I don\u2019t. And I find that fascinating.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re a regular reader, you may have noticed that, when speaking of my conservative evangelical homeschool upbringing, I frequently say \u201cI was told X\u201d rather than \u201cmy parents told me X.\u201d There is a reason for that\u2014sometimes I can\u2019t remember whether\u00a0my parents actually taught me some specific aspect of purity culture or\u00a0political conservatism or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[288],"class_list":["post-23327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homeschool","tag-socialization"],"yoast_head":"\nPicking Things Up from the Culture, Homeschool Edition<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you're a regular reader, you may have noticed that, when speaking of my conservative evangelical homeschool upbringing, I frequently say "I was told X"\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2015\/04\/picking-things-up-from-the-culture-homeschool-edition.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Picking Things Up from the Culture, Homeschool Edition\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you're a regular reader, you may have noticed that, when speaking of my conservative evangelical homeschool upbringing, I frequently say "I was told X"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2015\/04\/picking-things-up-from-the-culture-homeschool-edition.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Love, Joy, Feminism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-04-13T02:54:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2015\/04\/picking-things-up-from-the-culture-homeschool-edition.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2015\/04\/picking-things-up-from-the-culture-homeschool-edition.html\",\"name\":\"Picking Things Up from the Culture, Homeschool Edition\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-04-13T02:54:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-04-13T02:54:51+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\"},\"description\":\"If you're a regular reader, you may have noticed that, when speaking of my conservative evangelical homeschool upbringing, I frequently say \\\"I was told X\\\"\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2015\/04\/picking-things-up-from-the-culture-homeschool-edition.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2015\/04\/picking-things-up-from-the-culture-homeschool-edition.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2015\/04\/picking-things-up-from-the-culture-homeschool-edition.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Picking Things Up from the Culture, Homeschool Edition\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/\",\"name\":\"Love, Joy, Feminism\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\",\"name\":\"Libby Anne\",\"description\":\"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. 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