The following is copied from a Facebook status. I don't know the original author yet, but have asked, so if I find out I will add it here.
1 Please stop asking us if it's legal. If it is — and it is — it's
insulting to imply that we're criminals. And if we were criminals, would
we admit it?
2 Learn what the words "socialize" and
"socialization" mean, and use the one you really mean instead of mixing
them up the way you do now. Socializing means hanging out with other
people for fun. Socialization means having acquired the skills necessary
to do so successfully and pleasantly. If you're talking to me and my
kids, that means that we do in fact go outside now and then to visit the
other human beings on the planet, and you can safely assume that we've
got a decent grasp of both concepts.
3 Quit interrupting my kid
at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir practice, baseball game, art
class, field trip, park day, music class, 4H club, or soccer lesson to
ask her if as a homeschooler she ever gets to socialize.
4
Don't assume that every homeschooler you meet is homeschooling for the
same reasons and in the same way as that one homeschooler you know.
5 If that homeschooler you know is actually someone you saw on TV,
either on the news or on a "reality" show, the above goes double.
6 Please stop telling us horror stories about the homeschoolers you
know, know of, or think you might know who ruined their lives by
homeschooling. You're probably the same little bluebird of happiness
whose hobby is running up to pregnant women and inducing premature labor
by telling them every ghastly birth story you've ever heard. We all
hate you, so please go away.
7 We don't look horrified and
start quizzing your kids when we hear they're in public school. Please
stop drilling our children like potential oil fields to see if we're
doing what you consider an adequate job of homeschooling.
8 Stop assuming all homeschoolers are religious.
9 Stop assuming that if we're religious, we must be homeschooling for religious reasons.
10 We didn't go through all the reading, learning, thinking, weighing
of options, experimenting, and worrying that goes into homeschooling
just to annoy you. Really. This was a deeply personal decision, tailored
to the specifics of our family. Stop taking the bare fact of our being
homeschoolers as either an affront or a judgment about your own
educational decisions.
11 Please stop questioning my competency
and demanding to see my credentials. I didn't have to complete a course
in catering to successfully cook dinner for my family; I don't need a
degree in teaching to educate my children. If spending at least twelve
years in the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we
call public school left me with so little information in my memory banks
that I can't teach the basics of an elementary education to my nearest
and dearest, maybe there's a reason I'm so reluctant to send my child to
school.
12 If my kid's only six and you ask me with a straight
face how I can possibly teach him what he'd learn in school, please
understand that you're calling me an idiot. Don't act shocked if I
decide to respond in kind.
13 Stop assuming that because the
word "home" is right there in "homeschool," we never leave the house.
We're the ones who go to the amusement parks, museums, and zoos in the
middle of the week and in the off-season and laugh at you because you
have to go on weekends and holidays when it's crowded and icky.
14 Stop assuming that because the word "school" is right there in
homeschool, we must sit around at a desk for six or eight hours every
day, just like your kid does. Even if we're into the "school" side of
education — and many of us prefer a more organic approach — we can burn
through a lot of material a lot more efficiently, because we don't have
to gear our lessons to the lowest common denominator.
15 Stop
asking, "But what about the Prom?" Even if the idea that my kid might
not be able to indulge in a night of over-hyped, over-priced revelry was
enough to break my heart, plenty of kids who do go to school don't get
to go to the Prom. For all you know, I'm one of them. I might still be
bitter about it. So go be shallow somewhere else.
16 Don't ask
my kid if she wouldn't rather go to school unless you don't mind if I
ask your kid if he wouldn't rather stay home and get some sleep now and
then.
17 Stop saying, "Oh, I could never homeschool!" Even if
you think it's some kind of compliment, it sounds more like you're
horrified. One of these days, I won't bother disagreeing with you any
more.
18 If you can remember anything from chemistry or
calculus class, you're allowed to ask how we'll teach these subjects to
our kids. If you can't, thank you for the reassurance that we couldn't
possibly do a worse job than your teachers did, and might even do a
better one.
19 Stop asking about how hard it must be to be my
child's teacher as well as her parent. I don't see much difference
between bossing my kid around academically and bossing him around the
way I do about everything else.
20 Stop saying that my kid is
shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative,
pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he's homeschooled. It's
not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they
want to without being branded as representative of anything but
childhood.
21 Quit assuming that my kid must be some kind of prodigy because she's homeschooled.
22 Quit assuming that I must be some kind of prodigy because I homeschool my kids.
23 Quit assuming that I must be some kind of saint because I homeschool my kids.
24 Stop talking about all the great childhood memories my kids won't
get because they don't go to school, unless you want me to start asking
about all the not-so-great childhood memories you have because you went
to school.
