answering: Why aren't your kids in school?

Nan at Wrath of Mom is talking about handling the 'why aren't your kids in school?' question and that desire to not only say "we homeschool" but also to explain why, and convey that we're, well, nice and normal and maybe not like the preconceived notions of homeschoolers you may have.

I've been homeschooling for well over 10 years & finally I think I'm getting a grip on this.

If people ask WHY - & most don't, btw - I say: It just turned out to be best for my family. And you can't beat the teacher student ratio! With a small laugh if I'm feeling particularly cheerful (which in this wet, cold, rotten spring is not very often. SHAKE FIST AT SKY!)

With that answer, even people with kids in school (let's face it, the vast majority) don't seem to get their hackles up and this ends up being a good place to kind of let the conversation politely drift away,  because if you go down the road of 'why' more than a few steps you come onto the highway of  I made choices different than yours and, obviously, I think my choices are better & yours stink of poo-poo!

We don't really want to go down that road. I used to want to go down that road. I used to be an evangelical homeschooler. I used to care.  If I saw a glimmer of interest (or even a mild hesitation about school as the de facto only way to educate children) I used to try to stoke that fire, to get the person interested in alternatives, in this wonderful thing that they too could do.

Now? I don't care if anyone else homeschools. People pretty much have to throw themselves at my feet begging for a hint of how this is possible and whether they could somehow do it, and if I'm feeling particularly magnanimous I might give them the link for BCHLA. Maybe.

And as for the clarifications of 'but we're not religious, young earth creationist, reclusive polygamists!' I don't particularly care what people think so it doesn't bother me if they choose to assume I'm a weird religious person (actually, I kind of get a giggle about the possibility that someone thinks of me that way). I guess I could wear the Dawkins scarlet letter A t-shirt at all times in public. Or a "what would evolution by natural selection do?" t-shirt. But I don't really care enough to make that effort. (though, now that I think of it, I really want the t-shirts)

I'll tell you a common follow-up question that still trips me up: "What grades are the kids in?"

Long pause while I hum and haw & desperately add & subtract in my head and, if the kids are there they gape blankly at me, telegraphing: "Gee Maw, we ain't never heard of them things? What is they, Maw?"

Yeah, helpful kids, mine are. They seem to not give a damn what people think. I don't know where they got it from.

I've now decided that truth is the best policy here:

"We don't do grades. That's the beauty of homeschooling: we can follow our own levels. The kids are 16 and 13 years old.

Now git off my land before the second wife sics the dogs on ya."