Homeschooling hits record numbers

Lemme just question how home schooling is at all possible without one parent (statically more likely to be a woman) staying home to supervise the learning. I don’t think we’re talking about remote ranch situations where you either do online school or have to send them to boarding school.

So I’m genuinely wondering if there’s a corresponding exit from the workplace or other demographic trends allowing/pushing this boom in home schooling to happen?

We’ve homeschooled all our kids up to 8th grade. Our oldest is now a sophomore at the public high school but will start attending community college next year, paid for by the school district.

Most of the adults you see at the various group things are stay-at-home moms. Most. Some stay-at-home dads. Some of the moms have part-time jobs. I don’t recall any dads with part-time jobs. But many dads are present while also working full-time. You get into a rhythm, have a schedule, etc. and you can work it out. My wife is fairly unusual in that she runs her own full-time business. Many moms don’t like her, presumably because they gave up their careers to do this and are jealous that she does both.

It only requires that one parent has enough free hours to assign coursework. They don't have to exit the workforce, and don't necessarily need to directly supervise learning (but of course some of this is necessary for K-5).

I think a lot of how homeschooling can work, along with much of median/lower household income life in general, is misunderstood.

Source: Was homeschooled by a mom who worked.

"Meaning husband is likely forces wife to never work and socialize, while taking care of kids and all home cleaning and maintenance"

"so the real motivation is to isolate his family"

Are you drunk ?

> Lemme just question how home schooling is at all possible without one parent (statically more likely to be a woman) staying home to supervise the learning.

There are at least two good answers to this:

1. The first is a via a home-schooling collective. With as few as 5 families, one can easily do a once-per-week rotation of home schooling responsibilities. Also note that the formal education part of this can be done fairly comfortably in 4 hours (even down to 2 hours with 1-1 instruction). As such, all that is needed is a 4-day a week job, or a job with a flex schedule who can do work on the weekend. I know one family that does something like this.

2. The second is to have a tutor do the instruction. For folks who are high earners, paying a tutor who can come in for 2-3 hours a day costs about the same as a mid-tier private school. Child care would still need to be covered, but that’s usually cheaper than a tutor.

So it’s doable, but either time or money will need to be sacrificed. I don’t think that’s a surprise.

That said, below are some things about home schooling that I’ve learned over the years from people who have done it:

- When done well, it’s probably close to an ideal education. When done poorly, it can mess up the kid, and many of these kids are very vocal about how bad it can be. Obviously there will be a whole range of outcomes between these extremes. Just be aware that it’s not necessarily a panacea, and it’s not necessarily an ideological cesspit.

- There is a ton of support for home schoolers in some communities, especially for socialization and specialization. Many people do not realize this.

- That said, some (perhaps many) home school parents are just ideological extremists — extreme beliefs, extreme (sometimes illegal) lifestyles, etc.

- A good litmus test of where a home school parent is on the thoughtful-extremist continuum is to ask them why they homeschool their kids. The thoughtful parents can rattle off dozens of learning opportunities that their kids have had that don’t exist or barely exist at normal schools. The less of these types of specifics they talk about, the more likely they are to have ideological reasons that they may or may not openly discuss.

- For folks who want a good learning environment for their kid, I strongly recommend a good Montessori school. I emphasize “good”, because some of them stray far from the Montessori ideals. This just requires a small amount of research and some observation. All that said, a good Montessori school almost always sets up a kid to be a solid person and life-long learner. Note that some kids absolutely hate the Montessori style, and you will know this in about a day or two. I will go out on a limb and say most of these kids will need special attention in home school contexts as well (imho).

> So I’m genuinely wondering if there’s a corresponding exit from the workplace or other demographic trends allowing/pushing this boom in home schooling to happen?

I don’t think so.

Most of the people I know who home school are already stay at home parents (mostly mothers, but one dad), or they have plenty of disposable income to throw at the problem via tutors and home school support services.

I will also say that some parents absolutely punt on the education part, and they can do their part (often negligently) while doing a full time work-from-home job — think handing out some work sheets and pointing their kid(s) to an online learning environment with very little scaffolding. There are some kids who respond well to this, but most don’t.

Yes, it (effectively) requires a parent to stay home, at least 90% of the time.

But that has happened for a long time, at a rate high enough that you wouldn't need to see resignations to increase homeschooling.

Why do you assume wives just want to work and many wouldn't jump at the chance to be able to stay home with their children, and also socialize with other friends outside of some office job environment?

that’s a great fantasy but when you consider, statistically, how many marriages end in divorce - that’s a foolish plan. EVERYONE thinks their marriage is different or special.

Maybe working part time is OK, you at least have some job history. But no work history for 10+ years? Great ways to put all your eggs into 1 basket and potentially end up a poor single mom. And i say this as a husband and father.

Interesting point. I know of one home-schooling family—and the wife quit her career to homeschool.

Is this family well off financially? Of course they are. I suspect the data on homeschoolers is going to reflect a generally affluent slant.

Anecdotally, I know of one child who was homeschooled recently. The mother is a single mother, of modest middle-class means. There was a homeschooling group nearby with a few volunteer mothers handling most of the logistics and teaching. This particular mother did not have to give up her job. It does stretch the definition of "homeschooling" a bit when it's a neighbor teaching in a neighbor's home, but they made it work.

> My wife is fairly unusual in that she runs her own full-time business. Many moms don’t like her, presumably because they gave up their careers to do this and are jealous that she does both.

FWIW, my experience is that the dynamic at play in these situations is that women who run their own businesses or otherwise have high-powered careers tend to have a constellation of personality traits that is significantly shifted vs. those of stay at home moms, plus their daily lives are very different, so they don't really fit in. Saying that without value judgement, just an observation.

Optionality has costs. If you live your life like it's going to go astray, then you miss out on a lot of the upside if it doesn't go astray (such as by being a stay at home mom, if that's what you actually want to do). The statistic that 50% of marriages end in divorce is often bandied about, but it also means that 50% don't. Which means that going all-in on your marriage is a completely reasonable thing to do.

Wait... you homeschool your kids and yet you write "...and [they] are jealous that she does both." No, they are ENVIOUS: one envies what they don't have and are jealous of what they have.

Sorry, couldn't let that one slide! :-)

Or there could be absolutely no force or coercion involved: the mutual desire for him to work and her to stay home and raise and homeschool could have been how they met in the first place. You're not going to find people wanting that life on Tinder or Hinge or whatever people use for finding one another these days but it's easy if you want that kind of life.

That's not true. Who told you that?

Product of homeschooling no doubt. Technically correct, but missing the forest for the trees re: colloquial usage.

what you say is true. But consider, the “cost” of going back part time is not very big. It’s not very stressful, and _greatly_ reduces long term risk.

Your take is a bit like saying in the year 2000 “i believe Apple is an amazing company, i’ll go ALL IN with my life savings”. If you’re right the you think you’re a genius. But what if you were wrong? What if apple turned out like IBM? Then you’d look back and think “how could i have been so stupid? so naive”.

If your wife wanted to stay home with the kids and not work, you would have forced her into the rat race or given her what she wants? It is not a foolish plan to confidently honor your vows and act accordingly. Condemning a wife who wants to raise her children as best as possible and to enjoy herself, to working for the man in some corporate gig and then blaming it on her need for work experience once you guys get divorced is dystopian nonsense. Just be a good husband and father, ya know? You do not have to saddle yourself with the problems of others which you yourself don't have out of some statistical optimality calculation. Just take control of your life. I say this as a father and husband.

"I know you wanted to stay home honey, and yes we have enough money and yes it would be good for the kids... but you have to think of your resume and work experience, we might get divorced someday. This very achievable situation is simply a fantasy" lol. My wife would be horrified and incredibly sad if I treated her this way.

Yea, that does stretch it. At some point, it becomes less "homeschooling" and more "an unlicensed private school." Uber for Schools?

It's a really bad analogy. And the "cost" of working part time for someone who doesn't want or need to work is literally every single hour they spend working. If they're working 20 hours per week, that's 20 hours per week spent doing something they don't want or need to do. It's a huge cost.

The vast majority of courts award spousal support for this exact reason.

Post-divorce, the vast majority of stay-at-home moms with limited recent work history are supported by court edict.

and the cost IF you become a single mom at 40, and you’re unemployable? How would we quantify that cost?

We can agree to disagree. :) Hope you at least appreciated my different perspective.

If you approach it like that then sure LOL. Hilarious honestly. We also haven’t even discussed being eligible for social security and how that would play into finances post divorce.

Anyway the conversation would be more like this:

“hey, you know you can do whatever you want and i’ll 100% support your decision. We’re a team. And your contributions as a stay at home mom would be very much valued. But I also don’t want to take away your independence, and I want to make sure you’re not screwed if (god forbid) our marriage ever ends up in divorce. Have you considered working part time? If that’s still too much then OK - i’ll support your decision. Think about it.”

Basically:

- i support you 100% because we’re a team.

- don’t ever feel like i’m “asking” you to stay home with the kids.

- god forbid we end up divorced, don’t “complain” afterward that i wasn’t looking out for your best interest or i didn’t warn you of the worst case outcome.

but all of this is kind of moot anyway. If someone dreamed of being a stay at home mom since like 10, then that’s different. That’s supporting a dream. But it’s unethical for me to not inform someone of the possible downsides and have a conversation about it.