Community college

Dealing with Culture Shock: Latebloomer’s Story

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HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Latebloomer” is a pseudonym. Latebloomer’s story was originally published on her blog Past Tense, Present Progressive. It is reprinted with her permission.

There was always an expectation in my family that I would go to college. Both of my parents had a college education and saw its value, and they didn’t cave to the general attitude at our homeschooling cult church that higher education wasn’t appropriate or necessary for girls. Even though my parents’ expectation was for me to attend an extremely fundamentalist Christian college simply to get a skill to “supplement my future husband’s income, if necessary,” that expectation was more than what many of my female peers at church had, and I’m grateful for it. And, unlike many homeschooling families in our circles, my mom also put in the necessary work to make sure I wouldn’t encounter any roadblocks on my way from homeschool high school to college–she made a very professional-looking and detailed high school transcript that included my GPA, she signed me up for the CHSPE (California High School Proficiency Exam) so that I could have a legal high school diploma, and she made sure that I took the SAT.

Still, it took me three years after graduating from homeschool high school before I began to pursue higher education. Years and years of severe isolation had not emotionally or socially prepared me to deal with the world outside my home. Years of listening to sermons about the evils of the outside world had left me terrified to leave the “shelter” of my home, even though my home life consisted of nothing more than broken family relationships and debilitating depression during those years. Years of heightened spiritual sensitivity had also paralyzed me with no sense of direction in life, waiting for a sign from God about what to do with my life, terrified of making a mistake.

With no end in sight, the darkness of those years gradually increased my sense of desperation until it was finally enough to overcome my inertia. I decided to be a moving vehicle that God could steer, and I would simply make the best decisions I could until I heard from him. I started taking a full load of classes at my local community college a few months later.

I entered my classes confident in my academic ability. Thanks to my mom’s willingness to administer yearly standardized tests and my scores from the SAT, I knew that I was an above-average student. As I expected, I performed well on tests and got great grades.  But I had other college struggles that caught me off guard. For instance, I was used to simply reading textbooks for the info I needed, so I had no idea how to take good notes in class, and my handwriting and rushed spelling looked like a child’s. In class, I’d get distracted occasionally by hearing the pronunciation of words that I had only ever seen on paper and had been saying wrong in my head for years. I sometimes had questions, but no idea about the etiquette of asking questions during the lecture.  Additionally, my teachers were surprisingly fond of group work, something that I had no experience with, and I was at a loss as to how to collaborate or give/receive feedback.

But for me, the worst thing of all was my discomfort with myself, my body, my existence. While everyone around me seemed to just plop down easily on any available floor space or chair in order to study and eat and chat, I simply couldn’t do it. I could never relax and be at ease where there was even a chance I might be seen by another person, and attempts to talk with others left me breathless and sweaty, with my heart racing.  At this time in my life, I couldn’t even eat in front of another person–not because of an eating disorder, but because of anxiety. The pressure of eating and chatting at the same time made me physically shake, because I had only really experienced eating silently together with my family, and we never had people over for meals. Because of these issues, I couldn’t handle being on campus for a second longer than necessary. For breaks between classes, I would sit in my car or drive home and come back just in time for the next class. The stress of being in public and being surrounded by people was too much.

But over time, my continued practice and effort started to have positive effects. As I went into my second semester in community college, I wasn’t constantly teetering on the edge of panic, and I started to notice positive things happening despite my social stress. People around me didn’t seem bothered by me. People sat by me in class. People smiled at me. People tried to talk to me. I started to feel a spark of human connection and see that people could be kind and decent even when they didn’t share my beliefs and even when they had no agenda and nothing to gain from it. It confused me because it didn’t fit the narrative I grew up with, but it also gave me a vague sense of hope about the life I might be able have as an adult out on my own.

Meanwhile, I was ramping up to transfer to a conservative Christian university far from home, in a place where I didn’t know a single person. It sounds like a big deal, except that I really had almost nothing that I was leaving behind–really, just one close friend that I had made several years before and that I’d been able to confide in, a person who was similarly sheltered and homeschooled. The thought of a fresh start somewhere was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. I figured that the culture of the Christian university campus would feel at least a little familiar, and that having my own room on campus to hide in would be a welcome relief. I made sure to request an international roommate so that my weirdness–my odd clothing style, my poor conversational ability, and my nearly-total ignorance of my peer group’s slang, movies, music, etc.–wouldn’t be as obvious.

In the environment of gender-segregated dorms, no alcohol, no sex, no drugs, and no dancing, there wasn’t too much around me to shock me at my Christian university. Instead, it was the little things that made life challenging. One of my daily challenges was dealing with the shared dorm bathroom, where there were always at least a couple other people milling around. Even though it was set up so that there was no need for public nudity, I didn’t have any idea how to pee or shower in a shared space. I couldn’t stand around casually wrapped in a towel doing my hair and makeup and chatting with the other girls, not a chance. I couldn’t even pee while other people were listening.  This was a completely foreign experience to me and one that took me months to get used to.

For the first semester, my life on campus consisted of going to class, doing homework in my room, and hanging out in my room, which was luckily often empty since my Chinese roommate, despite having just arrived in the country, already had a life and friends. It sounds like a recipe for homesickness, but this is something that I never experienced the whole time I was in college. Instead, I was the happiest I’d ever been (really, it was just that I was less severely depressed, but at the time it felt like happiness in comparison to the previous years). Even though I had no idea about how to connect with the other girls in my dorm and was too anxious to really try, I saw that they were nice people and I felt like the future was full of possibilities.

Things started to change after a few months, thanks to a couple good dorm events that brought me out of my room. This proved to be just enough for one of the outgoing girls in the dorm to seek me out later and start to pry into my little closed-clam-shell of a life. Friendship with just one outgoing person in the dorm served as a bridge to making more connections and boosted my confidence to attend other school events. Although at first I just drifted along trying not to cause anyone any trouble by having opinions or problems, during the next few years I was able to start figuring out more about who I was, what my interests were, and where my place in the social scene of life was.

Figuring out my place in life turned out to be much more complicated than simply getting past the worst of my anxiety though. Even though I was several years older than my dormmates and classmates, I had years of catching up to do, learning about things like cliques, gossip, power dynamics, the art of self-deprecation/teasing/complimenting, and how people seem to group themselves based on life habits, clothing choices, and hobbies. It’s hard to explain, but I simultaneously felt I was decades older than my peers, and also much much younger, which meant that I either felt like I was taking someone under my wing or basking in their glory. I had no idea how to connect to someone as an equal, and I didn’t even start to learn that until I was about to graduate from college.

Looking back now at my transition from homeschool to college life over a decade ago, I feel a sense of pride in how much I grew and changed in a few short years. I finished college able to relax in class and chat comfortably with friends. I no longer hid away in my room all the time. I stretched myself. I attended dorm events. I cheered with enthusiasm at sports games. I worked out at the school gym. I went to parties. I dated. I asked out a guy. I got away with breaking the campus rules about gender segregation and alcohol. Years of pushing through my anxiety paid off, and I finished college feeling ready to tackle life and live on my own as a working adult.

Given my set of issues, I can’t imagine how I would have transitioned to adulthood any other way. The most important things I learned in college were not academic, but instead life and social skills that paved the way for me to have a satisfying life today.

Ninja Training: Chloe Anderson’s Story

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Ninja Training: Chloe Anderson’s Story

My best memories from high school involve dressing up in suits, sorting through philosophy books and shopping for office supplies for the next speech tournament.  It was a dignified, serious existence.

This will be explained later.
This will be explained later.

And then there’s this photo — which I will get to.

A lot of this post may seem like it focuses on my parents more than homeschooling per se.  However, from what I have seen the homeschooling experience is made or broken by the parents doing the homeschooling.  Homeschooling was a lifestyle for our family.  Everything — every experience, every family friend, every activity we did and book we read was all centered around my parents work homeschooling us.   And they did that work with passion and care.

A Little Bit of Backstory

My homeschooling experience had its ups and downs.  I loved the ups: Choir tours (all by my-middle school-self!) with my co-op friends; Highschool trips to Europe to visit the historical sights I’d studied for years;  Family weekends at the Scottish Festival; Learning beekeeping… The ups were largely thanks to an amazing peer group that I adored and a good relationship with my parents and siblings.

The downs were mostly usual issues; teen angst, and the occasional tousle with my parents.  I never felt like I really fit in with the more conservative majority of our social/church circle.  My parents were alright with that.  They never really fit in with them either.  My parents were reformed, but they rejected heavy handed theology that sidelined women or centralized church authority to squash dissent and learning.  Because of this we found ourselves moving often from church to church, even though my parents desire was to be active, participating members of a stable church community.

My family wasn’t perfect.  A couple members of my extended family vehemently, sometimes explosively, disagreed with my father’s relatively liberal interpretation of “biblical patriarchy”.  My mother, an educator and a passionate advocate of higher education for girls, was sidelined more than once from homeschool conventions for that perspective.  My relationship with my father was sometimes rocky, but he has been more than willing to invest time in working through those issues with me.

Today, I value our relationship more than ever. 

When my parents’ marriage ended three years ago, I was confronted with a mountain of baggage that was compounded last summer when my mother suddenly passed away to cancer.  Now I’m left picking up pieces while building a life for myself in California, and I’m struck by the rich silver lining to all my drama.

My family wasn’t perfect.

But for all its imperfections I think that they got a lot of things right.

My parents home schooled me K-12, not because they thought they had discovered the perfect formula for parenting, but because they loved me and my brother and sister, and wanted to give us the very best of everything.  And in the process they gave me, a lot of tools I treasure now that I’m on my own.

And that brings me to explaining the picture at the beginning.

I was a speaker/debater for all of highschool and I loved it.  My biggest challenges, and best friends growing up were found there.  One of the debate camps I helped coach had a ninja debater theme.  Needless to say it was awesome.  I believe that this is a carefully staged photo illustrating the mesmerizing power of effective criteria.  Through homeschooling my parents inadvertently passed along a plethora of moments like this filled with possibility, wonder and hope, which I have only just begun to mine.

They have helped me sort the other wounds that I have received in the normal course of life.

School in your PJ’s?

Similar to many of you reading this, my education was largely custom built.  Both of my parents were college educated, lifetime scholars with a passion for knowledge.  My mother worked to bring education to life for us on a daily basis early on so we’d catch the passion too.  History lessons about Egypt tied into real-life biology lessons as we dissected and mummified a frog – which we then placed for display in the handmade sarcophagi we’d done in the art lesson that day.

What kid wouldn’t like that?

Or in highschool we volunteered at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science for their new space exhibit, getting cutting edge lectures from NASA/NOAA scientists and then running cool experiments on a daily basis for the museum patrons.  School was a wonderful time for me and my parents did a good job of teaching me not only tons of information, but how to find it and how to love the search for knowledge.

My mother was the primary teacher, but as we got into highschool years my dad took over languages and History.  A Russian linguist for many years, he taught me Russian for high school language studies.  Now I have a degree in Russian and endless cocktail conversation about my semester abroad in Russia to accompany it.

We also were not limited to classes taught by my parents. 

From very early on me and my siblings were involved in classes taught by outside tutors whether it was in a co-op setting early on, or a community college setting later in our schooling career.  All three of us graduated highschool with at least a full year worth of credits from the local community college. Those classes were especially helpful for areas that my parent’s weren’t so prepared to teach like upper level math or chemistry.

 Silver Screen Dreams

While many of my peers were limited in their consumption of media, my parents encouraged an active dialogue on just about any topic.  I remember the awe in my friend’s eyes (and the horror in her mother’s) as 12-year-old me happily announced at lunch one day that I had seen The Matrix the other night.

Granted, my parents watched it with us and they had remote-edited a couple of scenes they didn’t think were totally appropriate.

But the fact remained that I was raised in a really rich creative environment.  Movies were a part of my life from early on (I literally can’t remember I time I didn’t have all of the original Star Wars movies memorized).  Natural next steps for me were interests in living out these movies somehow.

What started as imagination and play acting turned into a real passion for acting, writing and producing for both film and theater.  My parents were delighted with my creative talents and encouraged my theatrical tendencies wherever they could, even though I know my mother in particular was a little worried about what might happen to me were I ever to pursue them professionally. As I grew however, she was willing to work through those concerns as I demonstrated that I was thoughtfully investing in my God given talents.

She knew she had to let her girl fly and she was willing to make that sacrifice even if it meant that she was a little uncomfortable.

That willingness on her part, to let me try things that scared her, was key in building a relationship that allowed me to actually grow up — not just get older under her watch.  T

hanks to her encouragement early on I’ve had the tools and the courage to step out on my own now and go beyond just being a productive member of society.  I’m chasing dreams out here in California and hopefully you’ll be reading my name in the credits of your favorite summer flick someday soon.

Learning to Speak My Mind

My parents also encouraged debate.  But long before the competitive bug bit me, I remember my parents hosting “Soirees” at our house after church; potluck food, and a grab bag of topics to discuss ranging from literature to politics to science.   I loved them and felt so grown up when I was included at 11 years old in the adult discussions.  We’d invite the most interesting people we could find.  My Dad often would actually seek out people with odd views just to have them over so we could have an interesting discussion. “All opinions are welcome here.  If you have a problem with that, you can leave.”  That was his rule.

Looking back, the group was mostly varying shades of conservative and the occasional communist friend of Daddy’s from the Tattered Cover Bookstore where he worked.  (They liked us because we were all a little bit different.  He liked them because they knew about Russia — his deepest passion in life.)

But while the opinions weren’t that diverse, those afternoons ingrained in me early on that everyone deserves a voice.  Even if you think you don’t agree with them.

That attitude served me well as I emerged from the homeschooling community into a liberal college where I encountered people with actual differences in opinion.  They weren’t scary to me.  They were just different people – with opinions of their own.  And since I knew how to listen, it didn’t take me long to figure out that “the world,” as many christian worldview apologists like to call it, is just made up of people like me;  People who have passions, who have loved ones, who have been hurt, who have dreams.

And when the debate is over and the ideas are put to bed, you should still be able to sit down with them over a lovely meal and ask them how their kids are doing.

One of the Boys

Boys.

Oh, boys! 

I was kind of odd in our circle of girls, because I never got the romantic fascination with marriage and boys and Mr. Darcy.  Frankly, if you ask me even now he’d have made a really boring husband.

But, that meant that after about 9 years old, a giant chunk of my good friends growing up were boys.  Even in college they were often the most interesting (drama-free) people around.  I’m sure that there were mothers who thought that was odd or inappropriate, but my parents were fine with it. They were great guys and I’m proud to say that I’m still good friends with many of them even after almost a decade in some cases and marriage in others.

I love them like brothers — totally inappropriate brothers who would let me rough house with them, who would play stupid games with me, who would match my banter word for word, who would take me swing dancing and who would talk theology, politics, video games and movies with me till dawn. I am deeply grateful for those guys in my life because I truly believe that without them I might not have been able to process the Daddy issues which are inevitable for any girl whose parents divorce.

In those friendships my parents gave me a piece of the external security net that has kept me grounded as I begin to live life as an independent adult.

Learning to Say, “No”

My parents’ marriage was far from perfect.

But, with all their issues, they were a rock of help for several families struggling with abuse.  They worked so hard to provide a harbor in the storm.  My dad partnered with other men to help mentor a few of the fathers who were struggling.  My mother hosted bible studies and invited single moms over to learn how to make jams or study child development.  They even included us kids in a limited fashion, asking us (never forcing us) to watch the young toddlers while my parents had coffee or dinner with one or both parents.

I was never really privy to details and for that I am grateful.

But in light of the little I did know, my mother made sure that my sister and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that we never had to stand for abuse whether it was verbal, physical or emotional.  It was an especially important lesson to her because of the systematic abuse we observed all around us which was justified under the label of “biblical patriarchal theology.”  When seeking help from many churches for their own marriage issues the constant refrain aimed at my mother seemed to be, “If you would just submit better to your husband, your marriage would be fixed.”

With this useless advice ringing in her ears, within our conservative circle there was no one able to help until it was too late.

When my brother was a senior in high school, my sister was finishing her last year of college and I was doing my first year of internships post-college, my parents finally ended their marriage.  They had sacrificed much to try to make a home that was healthy for me and my siblings.  And when they finally ended their marriage I was witness to another step they were taking, at least in part, for us kids; they had the courage — even in the face of the social stigma in the church against divorces — to walk away from the marriage so that they themselves could heal.  Many people would see this result as a total failure.  But as I watched both of my parents wrestle through that time, I saw two people emerge with an even greater capacity for grace and forgiveness than ever before.

The divorce was not a failure.

It was the first step towards healing and restoration. 

 Hindsight, Always 20/20

The area that I look back on with the most pause is just how much I held my parents up as perfect — especially my mother. They were responsible for introducing me to the most fascinating ideas, the most wonderful people and for sheltering me from as much of the junk theology as they could.  So their opinion of me, their blessing, their respect was something that I not only wanted, but it was something that I needed on a deep and very unhealthy level.

This was something I didn’t fully register until recent years.

As I hit the later years of high school and throughout my college years I found my opinions shifting as I experienced the world without parental filters.  I knew the filters they had applied had been applied in love, but they were filters never the less.  My experiences began to show me that perhaps my parents aren’t infallible after all.  Especially spending as much time as I did with the theater department at my school my perspective on LGBT issues, sex, drugs, alcohol, democrats, republicans, “world view”…. all of it was shifting in light of my new experiences —

And the thing that tore me up was that I felt I had no tools for telling anyone from my family. 

At school I was one person, and at home I became expert at active listening, passive questions, sidestepping issues, or sometimes just lying to avoid telling my parents I’d come to a different conclusion than they had.

The internal dissonance didn’t really come to a head until I met the love of my life.  His name is Dylan.  We met in Stage Combat learning to sword fight.  It was awesome.  And really quickly we became fast friends.  He was the adventure I’d always hoped for in the moments when I dropped my usual “one-of-the-guys” act.  He was kind and smart, better read than anyone I knew, a professional athlete, on a full ride scholarship for acting and passionate about making a positive impact through politics.

But he was also a Democrat, a former player with the ladies, and I had no idea where he really stood on the spectrum of religion but I knew it wasn’t nearly “christian” enough.

I was terrified to bring him home. 

I didn’t even tell my family I was dating him for about a month.  I knew in my heart that our relationship was healthy, that I was growing and that I trusted him with my life even with our differences.  The fact that our friendship was based on a choice to be invested in each other rather than a checklist of intellectual compatibility was freeing.  But my parents didn’t know how to handle him. They were shocked by my choice because for about 7 years I’d been hiding behind my silent nods.

They didn’t know me anymore because I had stopped letting them in for fear of losing them. 

I had to learn to speak again.

And this is the juncture at which I find myself today.  My mother passed away last summer, so I never got to finish letting her back in. But my father and I are watching our relationship slowly heal.  I still have the need for approval of people I respect — but I think that’s more me than any homeschooling-bred need for perfection.  And I’ve finally been able to be honest about my choices — choices that I make on a daily basis using so many of the tools that my homeschooling experience gave me.  I would never give back that experience.  The glue that held it all together and kept my parents from being dysfunctional task masters, or chronic busy bodies with a messiah complex was that they loved us kids and wanted the world for us.  And they sought every day to live out a faith that convicted them to serve, love and empower.

That is perhaps the greatest example that they left me. 

And while I now no longer really identify as a conservative as they did, I carry that passion of theirs with me.  And I carry a faith that I have inherited but have also grown to own as mine.  In many ways I’m still the crazy kid in the photograph: Obviously not totally put together, but self possessed enough to fake it till I make it — and wise enough to love the journey along the way.

For that, I have my parents and my time homeschooling to thank.

From Bullying to As You Like It: Skjaere

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From Bullying to As You Like It: Skjaere

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was a guest post by Skjaere and was originally published on Patheos on January 27, 2013.

I was home schooled full time in eighth grade, and part time in ninth and tenth. Up until that time, I had been enrolled in our local public schools, where my dad was a teacher.

I’d been having problems with bullying at my middle school (both by my peers and by teachers, WTF?!).

When my mother asked me if I wanted to try home schooling, I jumped at the chance. It sounded almost too good to be true. I could choose my own reading lists and projects? Sign me up!

We were not a terribly religious family by any definition at that point. We attended the Episcopal church a block from our house because it was closest, and I had a lot of friends who went there. Our home school curriculum was not based on conservative politics either. We did things like visiting the local National Park and helping them plant seedlings. We went whale watching. I researched my family tree as a history project, and read Lewis and Clark’s journals.

It turned out the promise to pick my own reading list was too good to be true.

I loved to read, but my interest was mostly limited to fantasy fiction. I was allowed to choose books from a pre-selected list, however, which included such classics as 1984, Fahrenheit 451, To Kill a Mocking Bird, as well as various works by Mark Twain and William Shakespeare.

We also frequently got together with other home schooling families for Latin classes (our parents let us choose what language we wanted to take), and they all fell more into the hippie home schooler mold than the religious as well. One of my best friends was part of that groups, and we hung out together a lot. Many of us also took ballet classes together and participated in the Girl Scouts, so I don’t feel like I missed out on socialisation, especially when compared with the experiences I had suffered at my middle school. At the end of my ninth grade year, we organised a dramatic reading of “As You Like It” with an all-female cast and a five-year-old Duke. It was pretty awesome.

I was lucky to have two educated parents, and a mother who was able to stay home and teach my sister and me.

My dad was a math and science teacher at the local high school, and my mother had an English degree, so we have most of our major bases covered right there. I also took some correspondence courses through the University of Nebraska, did a year a our local community college through the Running Start programme, and then went to the high school full time my senior year. By the end of all that, my transcript was a confusing mish-mash, and it was pretty much impossible to calculate my GPA, but I did well on the SAT and was accepted to some wonderful univerisities.

After almost twenty years and some major shifts in my personal politics, I still feel pretty good about my home school experience.

Hope For A Better Tomorrow: Matthew Gorzik’s Story

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Hope For A Better Tomorrow: Matthew Gorzik’s Story

Hello, my name is Matthew Gorzik.

I’m a 19 year old from Missouri, recently liberated from my parents and my homeschool. I was taught via the curriculum offered by Alpha Omega Academy, a YEC-oriented set of curricula which taught the wrong things and didn’t even teach them well. I learned that Pi = 3, that the Earth is 6,000 years old and that the *only* way fossils could possibly exist is if a great flood happened. It also tended to use History class as indoctrination, and tried to teach 9 and 10 year olds that they should only vote for Christians in elections because ‘otherwise, we’d have to live by Man’s law, and not God’s.’ All of this, of course, paled in comparison to the largest problem this caused.

I was completely isolated from civilization for most of my life, with the exception of the internet.

My parents were extremely sheltering, to the point that they demonized things like public school. Because of this, I only knew my family. I knew some of my extended family, but only got to see them on a monthly basis. Otherwise? I didn’t know a single person that I did not share a blood relation with.

And my family? They were not nice people.

My father was emotionally abusive, constantly reminding you that everything you had was his, that he could take it away at any time. He would threaten to kick me out of the house for speaking against him, and would openly say to my mother that I was lucky that he didn’t slap me into submission. My mother, of course, was a parent of the same vein. She would use my father as a mouthpiece when she didn’t want to get her own hands dirty, and would basically lie you into doing what she wanted. If the lies didn’t work, she would basically say “I’m the parent. I run barter town. You don’t get to question me, you get to do what I tell you to.” Failure to comply would result in having things taken away from you, or being slapped if you didn’t apologize for daring to question her authority.

I lived in the belief that this was normal.

I lived thinking it was normal to obey your parents without question. I lived thinking it was normal for someone of my age to not even be considered a person in their own home, thinking that it was normal for a parent to be nothing but a fear-monger to the child, demanding respect and complete obedience under threat of physical abuse or being kicked out. It drove me to a deep depression for a time, to the point that I considered myself completely without worth.

Then the internet found me, so to speak.

I had been online for a few years at this point. I had made friends – good friends. Friends that still stick with me to this day. They helped me realize that life wasn’t meant to be full of fear, and they helped me find a voice for myself. They helped me find my own personality – something that I would be completely lacking without their influence. I didn’t realize, though, the true extent to which they would help me. I found a forum for a site devoted to poking fun at the overtly religious and downright insane people of the internet. My boyfriend poked me into showing them some of my schoolwork, and telling them about my family.

They did not like what they heard.

My family situation, and their anger about it, escalated to the point that they banded together, raising $1,000 for a rescue operation. One of the members of that forum literally drove out to MO with a friend and picked me up in the morning without my parents even noticing until I called, I even got out with most of my belongings. We then drove for three days straight into Salem, OR.

Nowadays? I’m living with the family of the member that saved me. They have done more for me than anyone could possibly know, and they have been more of a family to me than my own. I’m going to a community college – trying to get my GED – and they’re doing everything they can to help me make up for lost time.

Where my life before was left empty — and I wondered if I would ever amount to anything more than just another person forgotten by time — my life is now filled with hope. Hope for a better tomorrow and, with the fact that the word is getting out about this kind of behaviour, hope that nobody will ever have to suffer my yesterday.

Confessions Of A Homeschooler: Faith’s Story

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Confessions Of A Homeschooler: Faith’s Story

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Faith” is a pseudonym.

Being homeschooled is an incredibly unique experience. It feels like you’re part of a giant club that no one else understands unless they also grew up being homeschooled. It’s impossible to explain to “outsiders”, not to mention that I have always felt a tremendous burden to avoid breaking ranks, so to speak, and making any criticism of homeschooling to the uninitiated. To me at least, there always seems to be an unspoken agreement amongst homeschoolers that we might quibble and squabble between ourselves but we present a united front to the public.

I am in my late 20s now so my education started in the early 1990s. Homeschooling was not quite as popular, particularly in the area of the country where we were living, nor were there as many resources available to homeschoolers. I honestly am not 100% sure of what motivated my parents to decide to homeschool (I’m the oldest) but I do know that, initially, their parents, my Grandparents, were relatively skeptical and not quite “on board” with the crazy kids. Between the relatives and the oddity of homeschooling itself, I have always felt a bit like my siblings and I have carried the burden of proof — living, breathing results that the experiment didn’t go horribly wrong (so we all hope!).

I have never felt like I could discuss my conflict, particularly criticism, with my homeschool experience with my other homeschool friends as they all seem quite happy with their education and plan to homeschool their own children. Not my parents because they would take it as a personal attack on their lifestyle. Rarely with my non-homeschool (and let’s just say it…the non-Christian) friends nowadays because, as I said before, the pressure to maintain the united front still has influence on me. Having the opportunity to write this is incredibly liberating.

First, I want to preface my “true confessions of a homeschooler” by saying that, from the bottom of my heart, I am sincerely grateful for my parents and for all the time, money, energy, and love they have invested in me and my siblings. I understand and have always known that they chose to homeschool us with the best of intentions. Their commitment and sacrifice has been tremendous. I want to acknowledge that and say that I love them, respect them, and hope that, in many ways, I can be as incredible a parent someday as they have been.

Throughout elementary and middle school I really enjoyed being homeschooled. To this day, I can honestly say that I sincerely believe that I would not have such strong relationships with my siblings if we had not spent so much time together. It’s a privilege to be able to say that my brothers were my first best friends and that my sisters (10 and 12 years younger than me) are some of my favorite people to call and talk to. I have great memories of “going to school” with my brothers. The moment one of them zoomed his roller chair into the corner of the wall and broke off a big chunk of plaster, which we then proceeded to color in an attempt to hide the damage. Or the moment my Mom drove down the driveway heading to the grocery store, my brothers burst into a loud rendition of “Ninety Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” The opportunity of spending time with extended family, particularly my Great Grandparents, who have since passed away, has given me so many priceless memories. Our ability to vacation was much more flexible, which was really great and we took some exciting trips. The hours and hours we spent playing outdoors when we probably would have been cooped up in a classroom somewhere are fond memories as well. I have such positive reflections on my homeschool experience during elementary/middle school that I am fairly certain that I would like to homeschool my own children at least through elementary.

I can also say that my early education was quite solid. My Mom never really “stuck” with any one curriculum. There was some cherry picking from various publishers but I recall using Saxon Math, Bob Jones, Calvert School, Abeka…the usual that I’m pretty sure most homeschoolers have seen and used.

Once high school hit things got a little more hairy. I am a classic example of the tendency that, at least in the past, homeschoolers have been minimally educated in math and science. My Dad really did his best (math at that level was beyond my Mom) but he was working all day so I definitely wandered through Algebra 2 at my own sweet will. The same with geography and history and basically everything my 10th grade year. I’m pretty sure I learned…just about nothing that year. The one thing I actually remember is writing a paper on Eva Peron. So, I have that in my bank of knowledge! Every year most of my friends would go to the church school (the “umbrella” school for those of you who will recognize that term) for the standardized state testing but since my Dad was a college graduate, he was able to administer the tests himself.

The one time I darkened the doors of a public high school was when I took the SAT. I actually don’t remember much about that experience but I do remember that sometimes we’d go to high school football games because some relatives lived near the high school. I had a great time observing that other species, the public schooler, those heathens!

The best part of high school was taking classes twice a week at the church school and for 11th and 12th grades I took some classes at the local community college. Quite a few of us from the local homeschool community took classes there so we would generally meet up and have lunch together or walk around campus. In general, my teachers were impressed with me. My English teacher told me I was the best student he had that semester (between several classes) and one memory in particular stands out…he asked the class what the Luftwaffe had been. I responded that it had been the Nazi air force during the Second World War. He looked at me and said “How do you know that?!” and I just shrugged and said “I read a lot.” Good times….

But, on a personal level, high school was hell for me in regards to being homeschooled. I had an extremely negative relationship with my parents, particularly my Mom, for various reasons that I won’t detail. But I can tell you that when you don’t get along with your parents whatsoever and you are miserable, that being at home with them 24/7 is not quite the way to deal with that. I struggled with depression and self-injury throughout high school, of course without ever seeing a counselor or getting any sort of professional help.

Being homeschooled throughout that period of time was damaging in the sense that I felt trapped, which did not help my emotional stability whatsoever. I was not involved in any sort of social group, not even a youth group because my parents didn’t approve of youth groups. My Mom was very occupied with my younger siblings so she had little time to talk and never any opportunity to sort out our issues. I certainly won’t blame my struggles on being homeschooled but I am sure, without a doubt, that homeschooling exacerbated them.

To be honest, I have spent the past 9 years struggling with how bitter I am about my high school experience. There are moments that I wish I had been able to go to a prom, that I had been able to wear the “cool” clothes, that I had gone to the mall and movies with friends like “normal” high schoolers (my friends and I did go sometimes but it was always planned in advance and was never a “spur of the moment” event), not to mention that I really, really wish I had dated in high school. I wish that I had gotten some of the “crazy” out of my system in high school and had more freedom to experience the “real world” and meet non-Christians and sort out my own thoughts and beliefs for myself.

This has been pointed out by other bloggers, but it can be frustrating for those of us who are “first generation” homeschoolers because our parents never had the experience of being homeschooled. I understood that my parents had their reasons for choosing to homeschool and they tended to reflect more negatively on their public school upbringing. But I have always thought it ironic that they seemed to believe that being homeschooled was the best thing since sliced bread and couldn’t understand why we could possibly dislike any aspect of our experience but they had no idea what it was actually like. Sometimes I wish that we could have an honest discussion about it so that, someday, they will understand why I won’t homeschool my own children “all the way through.” Perhaps one day we will. Even if we don’t, at least I will get to make those decisions on my own.

The face of homeschooling has significantly changed, so it seems to me. I don’t think my sisters ever had that fear of being taken away by social services (I avidly read the HSLDA magazine and all the horror stories), they have an extensive social life, they have gone to prom, and have a well adjusted, mature relationship with my parents. They are far better educated than I was upon graduation from high school and I am happy for them. Their experience seems to have been tremendously different from mine (from what I observe) and that is encouraging to me. It definitely seems possible to homeschool without some of the negative results that I experienced and I hope that it is an opportunity I can provide for my own children one day, if possible.