22. What Makes You Different?

20 THINGS I CAN TELL YOU ABOUT HOMESCHOOLING…based on personal experience.

1. Sometimes I DID stay in my pajamas all day. And yes, it was awesome.

2. My grasp of basic algebra is probably about that of a 3rd grader. Being home schooled did not automatically make me a genius, but it did give me opportunities to learn on a broader scale.

3. Almost every person I have ever talked to has asked me one of the two versions of this question upon learning that I was home schooled: “How do you make friends?” or “Do you have any friends?”
  Throughout high school it grew increasingly more tempting to look at them very earnestly and answer in a tone of desperation, “No, I don’t…I’ve…I’ve never had a friend before. Will you- maybe, if you feel like it- be my friend?” I never did, but I still think about it.

4. When asked how I got any exercise without a PE class every day, I would answer that dancing with toddlers has proven to be very good exercise.

5. In 18 years I spent more time writing and painting than most people will in their entire lives.

6. I hated doing math work and, depending on the book, worldview studies. But my mom made me do it anyways, because home school is still school.

7. Despite having never been forced to face a jury of my peers numbering in the hundreds every day, being home schooled did not protect me from being teased. Instead, lots of people- especially my “friends”- gave me crap about it all the time. I was told I didn’t “get it” because I was home schooled, and they were even so thoughtful as to send me links to YouTube videos of people mocking homeschoolers.

8. As alluded to in point 7, high school can still suck even if you aren’t in the public school system.

9. Being home schooled was a big part of the reason that during my high school years I was able to have several jobs, pay for my own insurance and gas and phone bill, learn about neurodevelopmental therapy, and feed an ostrich in the Caribbean.

10. There were lots of times that I wished I was “normal.” Thankfully, I didn’t get my wish.

11. People still take shots at me about being home schooled. Funny how even when we’re not in school any more, everyone thinks it’s such a big deal.

12. Being homeschooled did not keep me from making stupid decisions. 

13. Being home schooled did not keep me from hanging out with people who were smoking weed, drinking, having sex, shoplifting, atheists, or drug addicts. I know plenty of real people who are completely different from me, and I love them.

14. Staying out till 1am for a really good dirty rock show in Seattle on school night was made possible by the fact that my mom would sometimes let me sleep in the next morning.

15. I’m not anti-social, social inept, socially awkward, unprofessional, or incapable of carrying on a conversation. Some homeschoolers are, but so are some people who were publicly or privately educated. Your educational setting does not determine your social aptitude.

16. Playing Apples-to-Apples is maddening.

17. I read the classic literature in ninth grade that other people read the comic strip of. I feel like the “you’re home schooled, so you’re uninformed” comments should stop due to this.

18. When telling a girl that I was homeschooled once, she turned to in complete surprise and gasped, “Wait, that’s a real thing?”

19. I graduated at both the top and bottom of my class.

20. I spent almost all day every day with my 4 younger siblings. As a result, 4 of the people that I will always be related to are my best friends, and we have written songs together that will always be hysterical.