Friday, March 30, 2012

Welcome to my blog! I've been homeschooling my three kids for three years, and it's been a blast. Last year, however, we moved to a very rural area where there are very few homeschooling families, and the majority of the few we have found are homeschooling for religious reasons. It's been interesting.
Originally, we tried joining the only local homeschooling group, which was recommended to me by the public school. It's held in a Baptist church, but hey, I'm open-minded, I have no problem with Baptists or Christians in general, and a little religious education isn't going to scar my kids, so why not?
Turns out the Baptists aren't as open-minded as I am. Shocker, that one.
I had the following conversation six time on the first visit alone:

Helpful Baptist Homeschooler: So, what church do you belong to?
Me: Um, none, actually.
HBH: Oh, are you new to the area?
Me: Well, yes, sort of.
HBH: So you're looking for a church? Because let me just tell you about how wonderful our church is!
Me: Actually, no, we're not looking for a church, but thank you.
HBH: Oh.

Then they sort of back away slowly while avoiding eye contact....
We gave up after the third trip, when I was warned that the botany group would be discussing plants featured in the Bible. I didn't mind the topic, but being warned was a little unsettling. 

I get asked why I'm homeschooling a lot, especially since religious reasons are definitely not a contributing factor. Well, there are a lot of reasons, but it wasn't something I originally set out to do. I have found, though, that there are more and more reasons every day, and I can't imagine sending my kids to school at this point!

2 comments:

  1. I am very thankful for the fact that this is something that I don't really have to deal with due to the large secular population of home/unschoolers in our area. We keep talking about a move (south...eeks) and I could see this being a problem, especially with my wonderfully, outspoken 10 yr old.

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  2. Actually, we had no problems when we were living in the South. We were near Atlanta, though, which is a very diverse area. We even belonged to a Pagan homeschooling group! There were a ton of secular activities that we did, and almost every museum or attraction has homeschooler days or homeschooler discounts. It was awesome.

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