School Has Always Been the 'Great Equalizer'

I just want to clarify something: My kids are weird. And so are yours.

For some reason, people mistakenly believe homeschooled children are higher on the weird scale than their schooled peers. Some of them are. And so are some schooled children. There’s weirdness everywhere.

Kids are inherently strange. Some more than others, to be sure. Anyone who wants to argue this point with me, I’d have to get all philosophical on them and ask, what IS normal?

I have had people say to me – in front of my children, no less – “I would never homeschool. I don’t want my kids to be weird.”

What I want to say is, “Too late.”

But instead I try to be gracious. Why, I have no idea, since they aren’t making the tiniest attempt. But I do anyway. I usually say something to the effect of, “Well, when you were in school, you never knew a kid who was different? There are strange kids everywhere.” Then chuckle. And back away slowly.

My kids do strange things. I have even, on occasion, said to them, “If you were in public school, you’d get beat up for that.” It’s my less-than-sensitive way of telling them they are behaving in a way that society will deem unacceptable.

Granted, school does have a way of scaring the “different” out of you. Sometimes that’s good. Sometimes that’s bad.

When there’s a habit that would haunt a child for life and keep him from being gainfully employed or find a spouse, it’s good. When children act a certain way only to gain peer acceptance, that’s bad.

In a homeschooling situation, parents have to be more proactive in making their children aware of behaviors that will not serve them well in adulthood. But I’m pretty sure that parents of public and private schooled children need to have the same talks.

It’s a fine balance for parents – all parents – to guide their children to individualism without driving them to hermit-hood. Or prison.

But M.I.T. would be good!