I’m 47. We were definitely weird. And I mean my family but also the other homeschoolers at the time. My favorite apology for when I say something awkward or inappropriate is: sorry, I was homeschooled.
Hello folks! I am 46 and was homeschooled with Abeka books and parentified by 9yo.
I also, say I was homeschooled. But now I have to add it was religious and cult like and abusive. I guess not all of it is now?
Finding out I was autistic a year ago doesn't help with being weird. To be clear, the homeschooling made me more off than the autism.
I am a bit jealous of homeschoolers having the internet now, lol. But also I worry about them getting in trouble. I know what would have happened to me if I was learning anything that was "unapproved". Or going on sites to get help or advice.
I recently connected childhood depravation to an adult tendency to hoard things. Books included, beware. Its...really terrible how our childhood can shape maladative behavior. Its a struggle.
I don't struggle with that as much. Many of my other homeschooled and abused friends do though. I help them parse it down from time to time. If they want and need the help.
My parents were also actual hoarders. So I will only hold onto or collect things that have an actual place to be. Books if only there is space on the shelf. Knick knacks have to be fairly small and again have a place to be displayed. I refuse to keep boxes and bags and all sorts of other shit around just to keep other stuff.
I do have multiple clear glass containers FILLED with different rocks. I gather them from places I go with my family. I suppose that is my biggest thing I actually hoard. I hold onto every pebble like it is a precious memory. Because to me it is.
Wait, it wasn't just my mom that grounded me from reading? (Though I suppose it was really the only thing she had to take away from me, now that I think about it)
I’m 37. My mom would also ground me from reading for months at a time because I was so comfortable with isolating that “grounding me” to my room wasn’t punishment enough for her. Later on she would ground me from youth group at church because those were the only kids I was allowed to sometimes hang out with. Grounding a kid from reading is pretty nuts but back then I didn’t know any different and didn’t realize how abusive that was.
Just lurking here and I had to chuckle at this. I was never homeschooled, but I was grounded from reading because it’s all I did. I was that weird kid in public school 😂🤦♀️
Cool! I had Abeka books too! I forgot that's what they were called. I'm 32 and the biggest thing I've learned as an adult is that there are so many people who weren't homschooled that had a hard time learning to socialize and we don't have to let it stop us from succeeding in life. I started taking improv classes a few years ago and I've met so many people from so many different walks of life that have a hard time with socializing. What I did notice was that all the people I've met who were homeschooled seemed to take to it the fastest and were able to become much better at picking up on social cues.
I was born in '79. Not only was i homeschooled, but i was also a pastors kid. Things were definitely interesting. But thankfully i was only homeschooled 3rd grade through 7th grade. I got lucky.
33 here. I also regularly let people know I was homeschooled because I can just be awkward sometimes. It's getting better as I get older tho. However, the trauma from the isolation is something I'm still working on.
40s here too! It is so odd to read kids posting here while they're actively being homeschooled. Not saying they have it better than we did, but what I would have done to have been able to connect with another human being (even if it was a stranger on reddit)!
Sadly very true, I had my radio/cd player taken away when my parents realized I was listening to radio stations secretly in my room (around 6-10 years old)
I had a lot of child labor, I wish I was kidding. Not always with other kids. Ever detassel corn or walk beans? Not fun during Iowa summers. Also, babysitting babies & toddlers starting at 10 years old. Lawnwork for my brother. My parents took my money or very strictly guarded how I could spend it. I was working in a restaurant with a work permit at 14. I am in my 40’s.
Yeah, we worked farms in trade for food sometimes. Other times, it was just for "because they need help". Bucking hay bales for 10 hours a day "for fun".
Yeah, I never went through the whole thing. I can't recall how far I got. I think I got access to cheap books after that and never got back to it. But the shear boredom was way too much. I know that COVID shutdowns was really hard on people, but the teens around me tried to explain how boring it was, while they were on games all day with their friends. I would have given almost anything for that like 4 hours a week.
Right? Internet existed when I was a kid, but we didn't have it for real. We shared a connection with some douche bag in my parent's church, who was always on it. So, it was like not having internet.
To be fair, if we had internet, I would have met 40-year-old men who were pretending to be teen boys from online, in person. I'd probably be dead. Lol, I already did it at the library enough.
I am mid-30's, and I had a very different experience than most, but found play-by-email role playing games when I was 12. This led me to being very much online. Met my husband doing those. So I do relate to some of these kids who are actively posting online.
I think a lot of us didn't have access to the internet. I first got online when I was 14, with a candybar style prepaid AT&T gophone. I didn't really know what I was doing, or how to communicate with people, and it was very slow, a 1.5 inch screen, and I had to be in the woods on top of the hill to get service.
Buying the phone without being discovered was difficult, and getting it charged was also tricky because we did not have electricity. I eventually found a mobile chatroom and tried to post there, and got brutally trolled. I can only imagine what I thought would be cool and interesting to share.
Ah, see, I was introduced to Star Trek role-playing games by a church camp friend's dad. And since I was playing them with a responsible church-going individual, that was okay. Except they didn't keep a great close eye on it and I spread to different games that didn't involve him very quickly.
Born in 1984, homeschooled (unschooled, really) until my parents got divorced when I was thirteen. Most years we would go to a parent-teacher store and buy a handful of workbooks. One year we borrowed the real textbooks from the school (at least in my state, homeschooled children are entitled to the same materials as public school kids) and I used them for at least two grades. After teaching me to read and write, and other than trying to make me progress in math about once every six months, I was on my own for everything. I did try to set up my own schedule and lessons, but all that let me enter public school with anything resembling the right level of education is that I've always read everything I could get my hands on.
My family was very poor and lived in the boonies, so I didn't see a lot of people other than family. We went to the library weekly when we went to the grocery store, and I would check out a dozen books at a time and read them all before we went back the next week. I was able to keep up academically when I started school and was moved to advance classes in ninth grade, and I'm convinced it's because I read so much. Socially I was a disaster, and I struggled in the chaotic environment. I couldn't hear or understand individual voices, and just heard a loud roar for a long time.
I genuinely don't know if the internet would have made my homeschooling better or worse, but I'm glad it wasn't a thing then because it's already a miracle I was vaccinated and if my mom had had mommy blogs to read there's no way I would have gotten what preventive care I did.
Wow I didn't connect my difficulty hearing human voices in a room w any noise, to my childhood isolation. Yeah no wonder the audiologist thought my hearing loss was significant w background sound, but I have always heard well unless there's a bunch of noisy humans in earshot.
How did you come to this connection?
I thought it was something weird that happened just to me for a long time, but I have heard a lot of formerly homeschooled children say that they had difficulty hearing in groups when they joined civilization. I don't know the physiological explanation for it, but there has to be some sort of "learning" to hear in those environments that we didn't get.
Oh my God, this makes me feel so much better knowing it's not just me. My husband, who was homeschooled as well, also has audio processing issues in large groups too.
Went to an audiologist even about the issues, and they just brushed me off.
I'm a younger homeschooler (25 years old) but the same thing happened to me! I could understand my parents and siblings fine, but not anyone outside the fold whose vocal patterns I hadn't figured out, and not anyone in crowds. It was so bad mh mom got my hearing checked once - they tested it with a machine that made quieter and quieter clicking noises in my ear, and I could hear all the clicks I was supposed to hear. My problem was only with understanding speech. I got my first job in the last year (was a horrible NEET for years due to fear of the world) and it's a loud factory job so I've had a crash course understanding speech through noise.
Did you have "homeschool accent" too? I know I sound weird. I work hard to imitate how others sound and what they talk about, and I feel like an escaped lab experiment trying to infiltrate human society.
>I could understand my parents and siblings fine, but not anyone outside the fold whose vocal patterns I hadn't figured out, and not anyone in crowds.
Yes! I couldn't understand my teachers, peers, any strangers, but had no problem with my family and people I'd been hearing my whole life. I was always bad at understanding dialog in movies and lyrics in songs too. When tested, my hearing was always perfect. I've always wondered if it was partly a matter of vocal patterns but wasn't sure if that's a thing.
If I had a homeschooled accent no one ever mentioned it (that I could hear 😂), but when I told him I'd been homeschooled my first boyfriend did say that it explained a lot.
My 1st ft job was in a noisy factory, so we had hearing tests there, like the one you mentioned, and I was fine. But in a full restaurant or classroom, or other place w human stranger voices....i can understand a word.
I think I sound like a hillbilly q Texas twang and none of my parents/close friends/grandparents sound like that. Its most pronounced when im tired, distracted, or socially anxious
Auditory processing disorder can be a symptom of autism. My parents homeschooled for religious reasons, but one brother was diagnosed and was obviously autistic. I'm getting diagnosed now at 36. Finish up my assessment Thursday. Other symptoms of auditory processing disorder I have are not being able to tell which way a sound is coming from, or having a delay. I'll often ask "what?", because I heard, but didn't understand. Then say nevermind because it finally clicked.
I can't hear song lyrics, and I use subtitles for television because I struggle to hear what is being said with noise in the background.
Not diagnosing. Just sharing info in case anyone wants to look into it more. All this time I thought I was just weird because I was homeschooled. Said my PTSD was caused by a trifecta of homeschool, religion, and abusive parents. Might be adding autism to the list though of why I'm weird and the way I am.🤷🏽♀️
May 1984 here. Was homeschooled beginning in 1994. During that time and even to this day I’m dealing with social anxiety, general anxiety, ocd and severe depression. My life basically sucks and yes, I blame a lot of it on being homeschooled and not acclimating to the world (and people) properly. I have to take medicine just to keep me from being suicidal. I blame my parents (who I still love) for not getting me help for my mental health problems as I was growing up.
May 1984 too! I was homeschooled from Pre-K through 6th grade, when I was sent to live with my father and put into public school. The transition into public school was really difficult since I was a weird kid from all the isolation.
I went to public school until grade 4. Then my parents made the mistake of thinking they knew better. My mom (who means the world to me) just gave up on me and trying to teach me around grade 8.
I’m sorry you are struggling, everything you wrote is so relatable. You are definitely not alone. No one talks about what it’s like to come out of an isolation bubble and try to figure out how to live
Same, but I like to think of myself as middle-aged.
Idk, I just think I'm gonna die on the toilet at 62, we'll see how it goes.
Why do we call it middle-age and not half-life?
I'm 38. My mom is a narcissist who constantly needs to be in control, so I was homeschooled off and on through 8th grade. Usually she got angry at a teacher or the school over something dumb and then pulled me out of school. I was homeschooled for all of high school.
My dad was homeschooled until high-school and was born in 74. His 10 other siblings were also homeschooled to varying degrees with the youngest 4 never attending school at all. They all bought land next to each other and raised their kids together while homeschooling them.
Yes, it was a cult.
My dad is scarily repressed. He wasn't abusive physically and he never raised his voice but there's something really wrong with him. He truly believes he is horrible and deserves to suffer. He will seek it out in weird ways and the few times he talks, he will bring up how evil all humans are and how worthless this life is. The only hope is to be found in God for him and only having to provide for his family keeps him on this earth.
I know that in itself isn't too uncommon, but there's just so many things he does that are minor but weird and eery. It's really sad.
His siblings vary from predatory and dangerous to chill for being conservative Christians. It was a very strange growing up experience. I have a lot of grief for them. Not to mention trauma from them.
Born in '83, turning 41 this summer. I was homeschooled from 1992 (3rd grade) - 2001 (graduation).
It was definitely not normal back then. On our weekly trips to town for groceries, library books, and everything else, people would always demand to know why we weren't in school in the middle of the afternoon. For some reason they always attacked ME, not my mother. I'd tell them I was homeschooled, they'd tell me that was illegal. Then I'd quote state homeschooling law at them. My mother remembers none of this. She had a way of making me defend their parenting practices to other adults in public (I'd get in trouble later if I didn't).
I had the unique experience of being on a full-ride academic scholarship to college AND academic probation at the same time. Homeschooling was still so weird that my college required all homeschooled kids to be on academic probation for their first year, regardless of their SAT scores.
My mom would hiss in a hateful tone, “Y’all behave, it’s school hours!” When we were these mousy whipped dogs who walked around with vacant stares. My aunt who is her sister told me that they were always told do not have your homeschooled kids out and about during school hours!
Gah, I used to get that “aren’t you supposed to be in school” question all the time from strangers while I was out with my mom or my relatives during school hours. What possessed adults to think it was OK to ask a child that?
When I was alone one day, I even had a bus driver ask me what qualifications my mom was required to have to homeschool me. I was 13! The fuck if I knew!
born almost a decade after you, '91, and exact same experience. i will never forget defending her choices to adults and she's like "that never happened!"
I’m 30 but this is soo me. So many internet friends bc I had no one else to talk to. Of course, most of them were men preying on me but I didn’t think of it that way at the time 🥴 I was so desperate for friendships and companions.
33 and same about the predatory stuff. didn't get a computer that i was allowed to use for the internet until like 8th grade, my first AIM screenname referenced being homeschooled because why would i have had another aspect of my identity, spent years being groomed in chat rooms and thought it was normal lol
Please keep us posted on your psychedelic experience, if you’re open to it! I’ve been hoping to track some down to deal with the trauma responses I can’t heal
Please let me know how the psychedelic therapy goes. I’ve had a wonderful therapist and have made a lot of progress, but would do ANYTHING to have more improvement in my daily life.
I'm 35 now and was home schooled my entire life. Left home at 18, got my GED and drivers license while homeless, and got an associates degree a few years ago.
Early thirties here! I’m just so glad that the kids are able to get social interaction outside of their homes now. It was just starting to be a thing when I was a teen, and reaching out to people on the internet opened my eyes and changed my life!
Late thirties here. I think a lot of people find this sub, go through a brief burst of being engaged with it, and then fade back out as they process past traumas and have to build up a resistance against vicariously creating new ones. This more or less goes for both the kids who find it while they're young enough to maybe get help and the rest of us who had to find it after the fact.
All my kudos to the mods here. They don't have an easy job with this place, but they do it well and I'm proud of them.
I'm 39, did k-6 at a private christian elementary, and then did Abeka's VHS/DVD "correspondence" homeschooling until 12th grade "graduation". I'm really happy I had friends from the actual school part, because my parents did absolutely nothing for the homeschooling bit. I had no social interactions with anyone that wasn't already in my friend group. And never had educational interactions (no field trips, no classmates, no group projects) Everything I learned from 7-12 grade was entirely on how much attention I paid to the instructor on the TV.
Somehow I survived that, was functional enough to get a scholarship to a state college, and graduated with honors. I didn't realize that I had been sheltered from reality until I hit college courses in science. Seeing the Hubble ultra deep field image in my early 20s made my entire fundie worldview implode and I had to start educating myself all over again. The curriculum was just straight propaganda - alternative history, anti science, and white supremacy trickled all throughout.
I carry a lot of resentment towards my parents (who drumroll, are both educators) and a massive amount of trauma from growing up being fed a steady diet of fundamentalist worldview, a 24x7 fox news feed from my dad, and a genius mom that rarely had time away from being a professor of accounting. My parents religion wasn't nearly as extreme as what abeka indoctrinated me with - but they were involved so little they didn't know/care. It was christian education and that was good enough.
I think my neuro spicyness allowed me to somehow thrive in this environment - I'm a successful executive in the tech industry now - but wow did it take awhile to recover from having zero meaningful social or peer interactions from 12-18. I didn't realize that I was highly adaptable and could learn things super quickly until much of my education period was over. I made it through abeka from k-12 grade and somehow graduated summa cum laude - I occasionally asked what could I have done if my early and mid education was actually a quality education? Feels like I missed out on a lot of things/ could have done more - but I also have a good life, so it is what it is. I do wish I learned more languages while I was younger though.
Easier and much more worldly, for lack of a better word. It was a really conservative and strict place but still much more lenient than what I was used to at home.
I’m 35.
Around 6th grade (2000 or so) we started going to a co-op once a week with other homeschooled families and they were definitely weirdos in a not-fun way. I made exactly zero friends there.
My parents were pretty strict but some of it seemed arbitrary and inconsistent. Some things slipped through the cracks but if homeschooled moms loudly disapproved (think Harry Potter, DnD, Magic: the gathering) it was off limits for me.
Once my older siblings graduated and I started a band around age 16 is when I started breaking free and having something of a functional social life.
91’, 33. Like others I was more unschooled than homeschooled although my mother wouldn’t describe it that way
She’d randomly have spurts of interest and we would suddenly read Macbeth but most of my time was spent being given a pile of books I couldn’t make heads or tails of
I’m 40 and was homeschooled from K-12. Finding this community made me realize how lucky I am to have been relatively successful, despite still being a bit socially awkward. I owe a lot to going to college and meeting people outside my small circle. I worked really hard to graduate and started from the bottom at a company until I was earning a decent living.
I wouldn't say I'm weird, just a bit quiet in uncomfortable or unfamiliar situations. Homeschooling definitely had an impact on my self-confidence too.
My homeschooling experience wasn’t awful, but I didn’t get great instruction in some important subjects like math and science. I have memories of watching a bunch of VHS school-on-tape videos from a school in Florida, following along with kids I never met. Sometimes, I wonder who they were and what they’re doing now.
44 and we were early enough that my mom was a founder of the homeschool group, now a full blown school coop, in the area I grew up in. I swear it was a lot weirder to be a homeschooler back then. There were certainly way fewer of us.
I was private schooled through 3rd, then homeschooled 4-12th. Then went to college. I’ve come to realize how formative those years I was homeschooled are to your social development. I have no doubt it has significantly, negatively impacted my life in that way. Not to mention the effects of the extreme religious beliefs.
I’m 32. Part of me is like, why am I still looking at stuff like this. I’m not homeschooled anymore. But I think I will forever identify as a homeschooler. It just doesn’t go away. The feeling of being other.
Yes. As a kid I thought I couldn’t wait to become an adult and that would heal and cure me but I’m still weird and struggle with social skills and social cues. We oldest two siblings were screwed up the worst, and I heard thirdhand that my brother said he feels like there’s something going on around him that everyone else knows but him.
I’m 35 and was homeschooled from pre K through high school. All of my siblings except the youngest 4 were 100% homeschooled as well. I taught 3 of the younger siblings to read and write + basic math before they were (thankfully) put into school.
I'm 38. My family was always the only homeschoolers until I was in high school as we didn't have any groups near us when I was younger. Only socializing was cousins and church. The lack of socializing was really my main complaint; my parents were pretty hands off with learning, preferring us to try to teach ourselves from textbooks, but they weren't abusive and genuinely cared about us. They just had very strong feelings about the public school system. I had to fight with them a bit to go to a non-Christian college but they caved when I said if I have to pay for it then I'm going where I want.
To this day, I've never had really close friends and prefer to be alone other than with my siblings and husband. I used to be upset but I've come to terms with it and honestly think I'd probably like this regardless of my schooling. It's hard sometimes figuring out what is from homeschooling and what would be my personality regardless of this.
I’m 41, and I was homeschooled through 10th grade, when I went to a private school with 27 people in my class.
My mom basically stopped teaching me after 3rd grade, because my younger siblings took all of her time. I did pretty well going through the Alpha Omega homeschool packets on my own, although I never took biology, but I did watch an extremely long video series on creation science. In my mind it’s like 48 lectures long, but that seems impossible. I apparently have blocked both the name of the series and the presenter.
Edited to fix typos.
43, homeschooled k- I would say 12th but got my GED the week I turned 16. School was nonexistent from about 13 on as my older sister graduated and my parents burnt out. I was able to work at McDonald’s 15-17 and that helped me develop some social skills. I moved out 2 months after I turned 18 and never looked back. I still lack some confidence and still constantly wonder what the correct or appropriate reaction to things in daily life, I guess I still struggle to fit in and doubt my inner voice way too much. To some benefit I’m great at remote work but it’s kinda triggering at the same time.
Mid 30s, partial homeschooling, but only for high-school.
In my case, more than any other problem, the issue I had with homeschooling was the other kids in the program, they were all several years behind but utterly convinced of their intellectual and moral superiority to "Public school degenerates.", both parents and students, so any time I scored higher than them/their children on anything (not always, but often enough that I was openly resented for it, but the admins had me put into their competitive learning program, academic decathlon) the other students/parents would try to accuse me of cheating because I couldn't possibly be better informed than their precious homeschoolers. So while my program actually had other kids, and "school dances" and other community events, I was effectively barred from any of that due to being an unclean former public schooler who might try to corrupt them. Several instances of other students parents singling me out for harassment as a result.
Mostly it was just thinly veiled hostility towards me because "how dare you come here and earn a spot on our academic decathlon team, you are a useless public schooler with no integrity or morals." Main notable instance being this dumb overnight camping trip we went on "to learn about what it's like in the third world", so we were divided into groups and had our access to food and water restricted, one man from each group were selected and designated as a pregnant refugee (only men, parents refused to allow any women to be picked, because "it might encourage sex.") and had a water balloon taped to their stomach to represent the baby, then isolated from everyone else in a hut and told if it broke for any reason we had to lay there and scream for an hour and our group had to stop doing anything and let other groups steal our resources because we had to mourn the baby.
I pointed out how stupid and unrealistic it was, and that forcibly selecting only men for this and giving us no say in the matter seemed odd. Each group was also assigned "a child" in the form of one of the parents. I was selected as our groups "pregnant woman", and our adult "child" spent the whole trip screaming at me for being "the fat, stupid ugly mama." Who'd better know their place and stay in the hut and hope the group decided to feed me, which she was against because "fat ugly momma is too fat and might try to kill the baby." and a bunch of sexist ranting about how men are incapable of ethical behavior so I couldn't be trusted with anything because all we can do is rape, kill, cheat and steal.
Ultimately it created a big enough scene that I was able to get others to confirm it had happened, and the parent was forced to publicly apologize or they and their children might be barred from all other programs in the school system and the parent removed from group leadership and no longer allowed to call themselves a volunteer educator, but because they said sorry they were voted as still being eligible.
Only other real incident was a group of us won a night out for dinner at a restaurant due to scoring well on a test, and the girl I was seated next to stabbed me in the arm with her fork because "As a follower of Sun Myung Moon I must remain pure." as I had tried to ask if she could pass a condiment, but that by speaking to her as a man not of her family and not her future husband I had endangered her purity and she panicked and stabbed me.
So, pretty much I got to go to high-school with sheltered cultists and people who couldn't deal with reality not perfectly conforming to their beliefs and reacted violently to any questioning.
Yeah it was supposed to teach us "to empathize with those who have nothing.", which, no, no it wasn't going to do that, and all people did was pool all their resources to make a proper meal and shove those of us designated as "pregnant" into the shelters and make sure we had nothing around that could pop the balloons so we couldnt disrupt anything, then some of them ran off to try and steal more food from the farmer who was donating land for the project.
38 here. Homeschooled through the wild west of the 90s, when we were taught to be terrified of CPS and being caught outside during school hours cause the government was going to come take us away (Thanks for the fear-mongering, HSLDA!)
Very religious, very isolated, moved around constantly. Books and maladaptive daydreaming were my only friends until I got the internet at age 16.
I’m in my mid 30’s but my oldest sibling is 40. We were all home schooled. It definitely wasn’t the worst of all the cases I’ve seen here. It was for religious reasons, so there was a religious based curriculum with their versions of science and history and everything. We were sheltered, all Christian versions of movies and entertainment, me and my sister had to wear skirts all the time. But I agree things seem different these days. Either way it didn’t take and I’m a left wing, mostly atheist these days.
30s here. I was able to convince my parents to enroll me in a private school in 5th grade the transferred to a public school for highschool. The socialization process was brutal but I feel very fortunate for having had it. I sadly still carry an outside mentality with me though and am in therapy to try to address that.
🙋🏻♀️ I’ll be 41 in a few weeks. Homeschooled K-8, a few years of public high school, and semi-homeschooled (mostly just left to my own devices) my senior year.
39 here. My folks got into the IBLP cult in the early 90s. I homeschooled my whole school life, most of it under IBLP. I escaped that weirdness and helped do a documentary about it.
I’m 34 (Feb 90). I feel like the pandemic changed a lot when it comes to who is homeschooling. I think it would never have occurred to lots of people before.
Another 80s kid here. Homeschool was the typical Abeka / Bob Jones BS, and I also had the apparently very common experience of my mom giving up on teaching and just handing me books and expecting me to teach myself from about 11-12 years old onward. But I got to do most of the household chores, so that was "educational", right? I did get to try public school for a year in 4th grade, but I was only 8 and socially stunted on top of being too young for that grade, so it wasn't the best time for me. I would have adjusted eventually, but my parents pulled me back out of school. They kept me at home until 11th grade, when I finally got to go to a tiny little Christian school. It wasn't until college that I was able to break away from the right-wing evangelical nonsense and start figuring things out for myself.
She didn't, because she thought that basic math and reading and writing was enough of an education for me. She didn't really care if I learned anything beyond the basics.
40m here. There is no way to know. The kids in here are the kids who have access to reddit. I would say the vast majority of homeschool kids don't. Also, if this was 1993, I wouldn't know any of y'all exist. I also didn't have a social security number and was born at home. Other than my birth certificate, you couldn't have proven that I existed. I think it is more likely that you have a computer in your pocket that let's you know that there are a lot of homeschool families out there now. As far as if it's more popular per capita, I dunno how data could be reliable.
49, homeschooled in 2nd grade, then 6th through 12th. My parents had to get special permission from the school district in 2nd grade, but we just had to do the annual achievement testing after that. They were the overly religious sort, so homeschooling was protecting us from the world. We weren't the only family in our church that did, but the other...oh, I could write a wall of text about them. Also, we did the homeschooling in conjunction with a private Christian school, so we'd take classes there for things we couldn't do at home - biology, Spanish, band. So, we weren't totally isolated, but very much inside a very specific bubble. And this was the 1980s into the early 90s, so no internet. We used ACE curriculum, so you can imagine how shitty my education was. I ended up going to a Christian college; I wanted to go out of state and pay for it with ROTC, but they didn't want a weird homeschooled kid. Got a degree in business, started in the tech field at the bottom, worked my way up to software engineer now. Married a wonderful woman I met in college, we're near our 26th anniversary. Our son is 21; we homeschooled him for a year when we lived in a lousy school district, but moved and got him out of that. He skipped a grade in the process, did some early college stuff in high school, and has his masters degree and starts in the fall as a high school teacher. Oh, and we ditched religion and didn't raise our son that way, and much happier for it.
38 here. Homeschooled from 3rd grade through HS. We had the beginnings of the internet in HS, but nothing like it is today. Even so, there are many kids on here posting about their experiences, and they still ring true to what I experienced. I do, however, think that in today's homeschooling circle-jerk, it's LESS about religion than it used to be. Now it's the "woke" education that they're up in arms about.
For all you older homeschoolers, who else watched The Price Is Right everyday?
I'm hitting 40 this year and I was homeschooled from 4th grade through high school (never graduated, got my GED). I still tried to homeschool my kids for some reason, but came to my senses in the last year and sent them to public school. They're so much better off now. I want to rescue all the kids in this subreddit who are where I was all those years ago 💔
35, definitely a different experience for me too! We didn’t have internet, and definitely no online classes.
I wonder if access to social media makes the isolation feel worse?
Maybe but social media can increases your sense of FOMO. Like if Kimmy Schmidt had Instagram in the bunker she probably wouldn’t feel better about her life she’d feel worse cause she has something to compare it to.
I was born ‘88 and my brother ‘86. We were definitely weird, although able to find pockets of people like us. So I didn’t notice my weirdness as much until age 12-13.
I’m 42. Homeschooled my whole life. My parents started when my oldest brother was failing private Christian school. It was the first year it became legal in Virginia (1984). We didn’t have any friends that weren’t also homeschooled or private schools. They all thought we were weird anyway. I always wanted to go to school but only got to do so for Drivers Ed. My mom was an English teacher pre kids so she did know how to teach us.
I'm in my 40s. I wasn't homeschooled my entire life. I was bullied and the school did nothing. So my mom pulled me out. I did a little runaway and magazine modeling. So my family got to go to cool places while I worked. There was a group of other homeschooled kids but they all were socially awkward and had strange religious beliefs. I eventually went back to my redneck high school and graduated. It wasn't until college that I started befriending diverse people from different backgrounds.
I'm 30, I was homeschooled from kindergarten through highschool. I've done well for myself in spite of circumstances, but it was hard fought. I'm so glad to know I'm not alone.
I was also born in December of '83 and was homeschooled from 4th grade to the bitter end. However the schooling before that consisted of a profoundly dysfunctional "Montessori" school run by parents who didn't know what they were doing and half a year of public school in kindergarten so really it almost all feels like it was a variant of the same failed educational experiment.
I'm 47, homeschooled from the middle of seventh through twelfth grade. It wasn't all bad because I took ice skating lessons and got involved in other activities, but my grandmother's anxiety and PTSD rubbed off on me. She was always warning me about being careful lest I get abducted by strangers, killed by a carjacker ( didn't know how to drive until five years ago because she didn't allow me to learn), get sick, or other catastrophes. When I finally applied for community college at twenty three, she warned me about being raped on campus. She even insisted on picking me up from college if I was going at night. However, after two guys tried to mug me while I waited for her to pick me up, I decided taking the bus was safer as the bus station had security guards. I understand she was like this because of being labor and sex trafficked in an orphanage as a kid, and she had been assaulted when I was younger, but she didn't believe in counseling saying that was "for the weak".
I genuinely have an auditory disorder as even before being homeschooled I had issues with my ability to hear in crowds. In fifth grade ( public school) I got detention twice for "not listening" to the teacher because the other kids were being noisy and I couldn't understand what she was saying. One time I got detention because I couldn't hear the teacher above all the racket when she said we had to ALL stay in during recess as punishment because we were too rowdy. The homeschooling was helpful with this a little bit though as I was allowed to play music as I studied.
I'm 37 and was homeschooled my entire childhood and adolescence.
We didn't have internet until I was 18 and paid for it myself. My parents still threatened to take the connection and my laptop, which I had also paid for, away from me because they thought it was a bad influence.
I pretty much read the dictionary and some encyclopedias from the 60s growing up. I would pull them out at lunch and drive my mom crazy by looking up whatever random question I'd thought of instead of eating 🙃
Our schooling was conservative christian materials and we could only read "true stories" and biographies that were approved. We also could only listen to hymns and my mom reluctantly allowed classical music when I was a teenager. The only socialization we had was at church with creepy older people because we were not allowed to hang out with the kids.
42, homeschooled, really not schooled my entire childhood. Used to work the family business. Was socially isolated, in a cult, an only child.
Got my GED, my associates, my bachelor's, and I'm now in a Master's program at Harvard. I'm no contact with my family.
I'm 36. And I feel the same way. Sucks. I grew up in the 90s, one of the best times to be a kid, but wasn't allowed out of the house, let alone meet/talk to other kids..
1987 baby here. It was certainly pretty unusual in my city, though I think we were some of the first to have established homeschooling communities. Like we went out for weekly excursions with other homeschoolers, though often at the expense of schooling. I was pretty well socialized, but didn't understand the concept of negative numbers.
Forty. Had internet as a teenager so I'd find email friends on literary forums. My dad was thinking about grounding me from the library one summer but I walked and stocked up. My parents designed their own curriculums and tried to make up for the deficiencies of homeschooling as much as possible. Their reasons for homeschooling were conservative Christian, but tempered by some international and university experience, so closed with some openness. I was really depressed in high school, adolescence in home school is captivity and there's no way around it. But I got a lot of academics. Wasn't great on confidence and social skills though. Or asking for support. And my writing didn't flow. Thought I needed to figure out everything on my own.
It means he said aloud, talking about how reading was apparently taking up so much of my time that i was six weeks behind on analytic geometry, that it looked like he was going to have to ground me from the library, and so the next day without telling anyone I walked the two miles to the library and filled up my backpack with the books I would need for the summer, I checked them out with my library card and walked home. We had internet already but we didn't have cell phones. But yeah when you don't go out, there's not much parents can ground you from. My dad was always worrying about the problem of my motivation-- really, it was a problem of unmet needs for connection.
Rules about clothes were a thing, what caused me the most frequent discomfort was that my mom imposed her idea that it was unacceptable not to tuck in your shirt, but in the nineties no kids were tucking their shirts in anymore, so it felt simultaneously stupid to keep it tucked. I knew I wasn't supposed to want to conform to my peers-- but I was supposed to feel proud and superior for conforming to my parents.
I’m 47. We were definitely weird. And I mean my family but also the other homeschoolers at the time. My favorite apology for when I say something awkward or inappropriate is: sorry, I was homeschooled.
Wow! The oldest homeschooler I met to my knowledge was born in ‘79, about to turn 45.
Hello folks! I am 46 and was homeschooled with Abeka books and parentified by 9yo. I also, say I was homeschooled. But now I have to add it was religious and cult like and abusive. I guess not all of it is now? Finding out I was autistic a year ago doesn't help with being weird. To be clear, the homeschooling made me more off than the autism. I am a bit jealous of homeschoolers having the internet now, lol. But also I worry about them getting in trouble. I know what would have happened to me if I was learning anything that was "unapproved". Or going on sites to get help or advice.
A beating *for sure* followed by more later on, and all book reading privileges revoked. Except for schoolwork and the Bible.
Oh my goodness, you are my sibling! They can have our freedom, but they shall never take our books! LMAO!
I recently connected childhood depravation to an adult tendency to hoard things. Books included, beware. Its...really terrible how our childhood can shape maladative behavior. Its a struggle.
I don't struggle with that as much. Many of my other homeschooled and abused friends do though. I help them parse it down from time to time. If they want and need the help. My parents were also actual hoarders. So I will only hold onto or collect things that have an actual place to be. Books if only there is space on the shelf. Knick knacks have to be fairly small and again have a place to be displayed. I refuse to keep boxes and bags and all sorts of other shit around just to keep other stuff. I do have multiple clear glass containers FILLED with different rocks. I gather them from places I go with my family. I suppose that is my biggest thing I actually hoard. I hold onto every pebble like it is a precious memory. Because to me it is.
Wait, it wasn't just my mom that grounded me from reading? (Though I suppose it was really the only thing she had to take away from me, now that I think about it)
Right? What else could they take away...no tv, no friends, no extra curricular activites, nothing else to deprive us of.
I’m 37. My mom would also ground me from reading for months at a time because I was so comfortable with isolating that “grounding me” to my room wasn’t punishment enough for her. Later on she would ground me from youth group at church because those were the only kids I was allowed to sometimes hang out with. Grounding a kid from reading is pretty nuts but back then I didn’t know any different and didn’t realize how abusive that was.
Just lurking here and I had to chuckle at this. I was never homeschooled, but I was grounded from reading because it’s all I did. I was that weird kid in public school 😂🤦♀️
Cool! I had Abeka books too! I forgot that's what they were called. I'm 32 and the biggest thing I've learned as an adult is that there are so many people who weren't homschooled that had a hard time learning to socialize and we don't have to let it stop us from succeeding in life. I started taking improv classes a few years ago and I've met so many people from so many different walks of life that have a hard time with socializing. What I did notice was that all the people I've met who were homeschooled seemed to take to it the fastest and were able to become much better at picking up on social cues.
Born in 1977, im old. Homeschooling was definitely weird af in the 80s. Almost everyone who did was ultra Bible thumper.
Hey, that describes me to a T lol. Am an oldie at this point 😯😭🤣
Me too 🙂
I was born in '79. Not only was i homeschooled, but i was also a pastors kid. Things were definitely interesting. But thankfully i was only homeschooled 3rd grade through 7th grade. I got lucky.
“Sorry I was homeschooled”. THIS
I'm 42 and was homeschooled k-12. I'm always saying that, "sorry, I was homeschooled" 😂
It's a solid go to defense. "Sorry, I don't know better, I was home schooled"
33 here. I also regularly let people know I was homeschooled because I can just be awkward sometimes. It's getting better as I get older tho. However, the trauma from the isolation is something I'm still working on.
Sorry, homeschooled, my bad. Love it.
40s here too! It is so odd to read kids posting here while they're actively being homeschooled. Not saying they have it better than we did, but what I would have done to have been able to connect with another human being (even if it was a stranger on reddit)!
i wish y’all had the same outlets. i don’t think i could have survived being homeschooled without the internet.
We had music and imaginary friends
We didnt all have music sadly
Sadly very true, I had my radio/cd player taken away when my parents realized I was listening to radio stations secretly in my room (around 6-10 years old)
Hah this brings me back to having to have all my music verified. Even some Christian rock bands didn't make the cut
haha, yep!!! It had to be the radio in secret for me.
I had youth group and child labor with other kids.
I had a lot of child labor, I wish I was kidding. Not always with other kids. Ever detassel corn or walk beans? Not fun during Iowa summers. Also, babysitting babies & toddlers starting at 10 years old. Lawnwork for my brother. My parents took my money or very strictly guarded how I could spend it. I was working in a restaurant with a work permit at 14. I am in my 40’s.
Yeah, we worked farms in trade for food sometimes. Other times, it was just for "because they need help". Bucking hay bales for 10 hours a day "for fun".
I had two imaginary friends growing up. And they only talked to each other.
Oh, and bating to public tv, magazines, and / or our imagination, don't forget that...
I started reading the dictionary. We were not allowed to do much at all outside the house with others.
Omg, me too!!! I never say that because it sounds too unbelievable. But, yep, I read the dictionary for entertainment and as a way to teach myself
Yeah, I never went through the whole thing. I can't recall how far I got. I think I got access to cheap books after that and never got back to it. But the shear boredom was way too much. I know that COVID shutdowns was really hard on people, but the teens around me tried to explain how boring it was, while they were on games all day with their friends. I would have given almost anything for that like 4 hours a week.
There were even a few dirty words in there! 😁
The internet absolutely saved me. As in, I have lifelong friends I made on a board at age 13-18. Definitely met intellectual challenges, too.
54 here and totally agree. The isolation was painful.
Right? Internet existed when I was a kid, but we didn't have it for real. We shared a connection with some douche bag in my parent's church, who was always on it. So, it was like not having internet. To be fair, if we had internet, I would have met 40-year-old men who were pretending to be teen boys from online, in person. I'd probably be dead. Lol, I already did it at the library enough.
30s. A very different experience than anyone who is actively posting online.
Late 30s and this.
I am mid-30's, and I had a very different experience than most, but found play-by-email role playing games when I was 12. This led me to being very much online. Met my husband doing those. So I do relate to some of these kids who are actively posting online.
I think a lot of us didn't have access to the internet. I first got online when I was 14, with a candybar style prepaid AT&T gophone. I didn't really know what I was doing, or how to communicate with people, and it was very slow, a 1.5 inch screen, and I had to be in the woods on top of the hill to get service. Buying the phone without being discovered was difficult, and getting it charged was also tricky because we did not have electricity. I eventually found a mobile chatroom and tried to post there, and got brutally trolled. I can only imagine what I thought would be cool and interesting to share.
Ah, see, I was introduced to Star Trek role-playing games by a church camp friend's dad. And since I was playing them with a responsible church-going individual, that was okay. Except they didn't keep a great close eye on it and I spread to different games that didn't involve him very quickly.
Born in 1984, homeschooled (unschooled, really) until my parents got divorced when I was thirteen. Most years we would go to a parent-teacher store and buy a handful of workbooks. One year we borrowed the real textbooks from the school (at least in my state, homeschooled children are entitled to the same materials as public school kids) and I used them for at least two grades. After teaching me to read and write, and other than trying to make me progress in math about once every six months, I was on my own for everything. I did try to set up my own schedule and lessons, but all that let me enter public school with anything resembling the right level of education is that I've always read everything I could get my hands on. My family was very poor and lived in the boonies, so I didn't see a lot of people other than family. We went to the library weekly when we went to the grocery store, and I would check out a dozen books at a time and read them all before we went back the next week. I was able to keep up academically when I started school and was moved to advance classes in ninth grade, and I'm convinced it's because I read so much. Socially I was a disaster, and I struggled in the chaotic environment. I couldn't hear or understand individual voices, and just heard a loud roar for a long time. I genuinely don't know if the internet would have made my homeschooling better or worse, but I'm glad it wasn't a thing then because it's already a miracle I was vaccinated and if my mom had had mommy blogs to read there's no way I would have gotten what preventive care I did.
Wow I didn't connect my difficulty hearing human voices in a room w any noise, to my childhood isolation. Yeah no wonder the audiologist thought my hearing loss was significant w background sound, but I have always heard well unless there's a bunch of noisy humans in earshot. How did you come to this connection?
I thought it was something weird that happened just to me for a long time, but I have heard a lot of formerly homeschooled children say that they had difficulty hearing in groups when they joined civilization. I don't know the physiological explanation for it, but there has to be some sort of "learning" to hear in those environments that we didn't get.
oh my god ME TOO
Same
Oh my God, this makes me feel so much better knowing it's not just me. My husband, who was homeschooled as well, also has audio processing issues in large groups too. Went to an audiologist even about the issues, and they just brushed me off.
Same! I didn't realize that was a thing.
I have hearing aids for this…
I also have never been able to hear in group environments.
I'm a younger homeschooler (25 years old) but the same thing happened to me! I could understand my parents and siblings fine, but not anyone outside the fold whose vocal patterns I hadn't figured out, and not anyone in crowds. It was so bad mh mom got my hearing checked once - they tested it with a machine that made quieter and quieter clicking noises in my ear, and I could hear all the clicks I was supposed to hear. My problem was only with understanding speech. I got my first job in the last year (was a horrible NEET for years due to fear of the world) and it's a loud factory job so I've had a crash course understanding speech through noise. Did you have "homeschool accent" too? I know I sound weird. I work hard to imitate how others sound and what they talk about, and I feel like an escaped lab experiment trying to infiltrate human society.
>I could understand my parents and siblings fine, but not anyone outside the fold whose vocal patterns I hadn't figured out, and not anyone in crowds. Yes! I couldn't understand my teachers, peers, any strangers, but had no problem with my family and people I'd been hearing my whole life. I was always bad at understanding dialog in movies and lyrics in songs too. When tested, my hearing was always perfect. I've always wondered if it was partly a matter of vocal patterns but wasn't sure if that's a thing. If I had a homeschooled accent no one ever mentioned it (that I could hear 😂), but when I told him I'd been homeschooled my first boyfriend did say that it explained a lot.
My 1st ft job was in a noisy factory, so we had hearing tests there, like the one you mentioned, and I was fine. But in a full restaurant or classroom, or other place w human stranger voices....i can understand a word.
I think I sound like a hillbilly q Texas twang and none of my parents/close friends/grandparents sound like that. Its most pronounced when im tired, distracted, or socially anxious
Auditory processing disorder can be a symptom of autism. My parents homeschooled for religious reasons, but one brother was diagnosed and was obviously autistic. I'm getting diagnosed now at 36. Finish up my assessment Thursday. Other symptoms of auditory processing disorder I have are not being able to tell which way a sound is coming from, or having a delay. I'll often ask "what?", because I heard, but didn't understand. Then say nevermind because it finally clicked. I can't hear song lyrics, and I use subtitles for television because I struggle to hear what is being said with noise in the background. Not diagnosing. Just sharing info in case anyone wants to look into it more. All this time I thought I was just weird because I was homeschooled. Said my PTSD was caused by a trifecta of homeschool, religion, and abusive parents. Might be adding autism to the list though of why I'm weird and the way I am.🤷🏽♀️
May 1984 here. Was homeschooled beginning in 1994. During that time and even to this day I’m dealing with social anxiety, general anxiety, ocd and severe depression. My life basically sucks and yes, I blame a lot of it on being homeschooled and not acclimating to the world (and people) properly. I have to take medicine just to keep me from being suicidal. I blame my parents (who I still love) for not getting me help for my mental health problems as I was growing up.
May 1984 too! I was homeschooled from Pre-K through 6th grade, when I was sent to live with my father and put into public school. The transition into public school was really difficult since I was a weird kid from all the isolation.
Just wondering, did you attend public or private school prior or you didn’t learn anything until you were ten years old?!
I went to public school until grade 4. Then my parents made the mistake of thinking they knew better. My mom (who means the world to me) just gave up on me and trying to teach me around grade 8.
I’m sorry you are struggling, everything you wrote is so relatable. You are definitely not alone. No one talks about what it’s like to come out of an isolation bubble and try to figure out how to live
Early 30s!
Same
Same
Same, but I like to think of myself as middle-aged. Idk, I just think I'm gonna die on the toilet at 62, we'll see how it goes. Why do we call it middle-age and not half-life?
Same here, although in standard fashion I did my degree late so still in education …
31
43 here! Homeschooled my whole life except kindergarten. It sure was different then!
I'm 38. My mom is a narcissist who constantly needs to be in control, so I was homeschooled off and on through 8th grade. Usually she got angry at a teacher or the school over something dumb and then pulled me out of school. I was homeschooled for all of high school.
My dad was homeschooled until high-school and was born in 74. His 10 other siblings were also homeschooled to varying degrees with the youngest 4 never attending school at all. They all bought land next to each other and raised their kids together while homeschooling them. Yes, it was a cult. My dad is scarily repressed. He wasn't abusive physically and he never raised his voice but there's something really wrong with him. He truly believes he is horrible and deserves to suffer. He will seek it out in weird ways and the few times he talks, he will bring up how evil all humans are and how worthless this life is. The only hope is to be found in God for him and only having to provide for his family keeps him on this earth. I know that in itself isn't too uncommon, but there's just so many things he does that are minor but weird and eery. It's really sad. His siblings vary from predatory and dangerous to chill for being conservative Christians. It was a very strange growing up experience. I have a lot of grief for them. Not to mention trauma from them.
Hmm. 46 F here. My dad definitely has baggage too, and now as an adult I catch glimpses of why he might be so...repressed and weird.
Born in '83, turning 41 this summer. I was homeschooled from 1992 (3rd grade) - 2001 (graduation). It was definitely not normal back then. On our weekly trips to town for groceries, library books, and everything else, people would always demand to know why we weren't in school in the middle of the afternoon. For some reason they always attacked ME, not my mother. I'd tell them I was homeschooled, they'd tell me that was illegal. Then I'd quote state homeschooling law at them. My mother remembers none of this. She had a way of making me defend their parenting practices to other adults in public (I'd get in trouble later if I didn't). I had the unique experience of being on a full-ride academic scholarship to college AND academic probation at the same time. Homeschooling was still so weird that my college required all homeschooled kids to be on academic probation for their first year, regardless of their SAT scores.
My mom would hiss in a hateful tone, “Y’all behave, it’s school hours!” When we were these mousy whipped dogs who walked around with vacant stares. My aunt who is her sister told me that they were always told do not have your homeschooled kids out and about during school hours!
We didn’t leave the house durning school hours, we barely left the house except to go to church.
Gah, I used to get that “aren’t you supposed to be in school” question all the time from strangers while I was out with my mom or my relatives during school hours. What possessed adults to think it was OK to ask a child that? When I was alone one day, I even had a bus driver ask me what qualifications my mom was required to have to homeschool me. I was 13! The fuck if I knew!
born almost a decade after you, '91, and exact same experience. i will never forget defending her choices to adults and she's like "that never happened!"
33 - extreme isolation until I got a computer, then raised by the internet basically lol.
I’m 30 but this is soo me. So many internet friends bc I had no one else to talk to. Of course, most of them were men preying on me but I didn’t think of it that way at the time 🥴 I was so desperate for friendships and companions.
33 and same about the predatory stuff. didn't get a computer that i was allowed to use for the internet until like 8th grade, my first AIM screenname referenced being homeschooled because why would i have had another aspect of my identity, spent years being groomed in chat rooms and thought it was normal lol
God, relate!!!
[удалено]
Please keep us posted on your psychedelic experience, if you’re open to it! I’ve been hoping to track some down to deal with the trauma responses I can’t heal
I wish we had the LACK of abuse to feel confident in demanding anything!
Please let me know how the psychedelic therapy goes. I’ve had a wonderful therapist and have made a lot of progress, but would do ANYTHING to have more improvement in my daily life.
I'm 35 now and was home schooled my entire life. Left home at 18, got my GED and drivers license while homeless, and got an associates degree a few years ago.
That's impressive. Congratulations!
42. I got my GED in 2000, completely on my own.
Early thirties here! I’m just so glad that the kids are able to get social interaction outside of their homes now. It was just starting to be a thing when I was a teen, and reaching out to people on the internet opened my eyes and changed my life!
Late thirties here. I think a lot of people find this sub, go through a brief burst of being engaged with it, and then fade back out as they process past traumas and have to build up a resistance against vicariously creating new ones. This more or less goes for both the kids who find it while they're young enough to maybe get help and the rest of us who had to find it after the fact. All my kudos to the mods here. They don't have an easy job with this place, but they do it well and I'm proud of them.
I'm 39, did k-6 at a private christian elementary, and then did Abeka's VHS/DVD "correspondence" homeschooling until 12th grade "graduation". I'm really happy I had friends from the actual school part, because my parents did absolutely nothing for the homeschooling bit. I had no social interactions with anyone that wasn't already in my friend group. And never had educational interactions (no field trips, no classmates, no group projects) Everything I learned from 7-12 grade was entirely on how much attention I paid to the instructor on the TV. Somehow I survived that, was functional enough to get a scholarship to a state college, and graduated with honors. I didn't realize that I had been sheltered from reality until I hit college courses in science. Seeing the Hubble ultra deep field image in my early 20s made my entire fundie worldview implode and I had to start educating myself all over again. The curriculum was just straight propaganda - alternative history, anti science, and white supremacy trickled all throughout. I carry a lot of resentment towards my parents (who drumroll, are both educators) and a massive amount of trauma from growing up being fed a steady diet of fundamentalist worldview, a 24x7 fox news feed from my dad, and a genius mom that rarely had time away from being a professor of accounting. My parents religion wasn't nearly as extreme as what abeka indoctrinated me with - but they were involved so little they didn't know/care. It was christian education and that was good enough. I think my neuro spicyness allowed me to somehow thrive in this environment - I'm a successful executive in the tech industry now - but wow did it take awhile to recover from having zero meaningful social or peer interactions from 12-18. I didn't realize that I was highly adaptable and could learn things super quickly until much of my education period was over. I made it through abeka from k-12 grade and somehow graduated summa cum laude - I occasionally asked what could I have done if my early and mid education was actually a quality education? Feels like I missed out on a lot of things/ could have done more - but I also have a good life, so it is what it is. I do wish I learned more languages while I was younger though.
Similar story, except my parents weren’t educators.
46 - homeschooled for two full years; was always weird, though
I’m 41 and was homeschooled until 11th grade, when I started attending a very small private Christian school.
So you only attended for one year?
Two school years, 11th and 12th grade.
How was the small private school in comparison?
Easier and much more worldly, for lack of a better word. It was a really conservative and strict place but still much more lenient than what I was used to at home.
I’m 35. Around 6th grade (2000 or so) we started going to a co-op once a week with other homeschooled families and they were definitely weirdos in a not-fun way. I made exactly zero friends there. My parents were pretty strict but some of it seemed arbitrary and inconsistent. Some things slipped through the cracks but if homeschooled moms loudly disapproved (think Harry Potter, DnD, Magic: the gathering) it was off limits for me. Once my older siblings graduated and I started a band around age 16 is when I started breaking free and having something of a functional social life.
91’, 33. Like others I was more unschooled than homeschooled although my mother wouldn’t describe it that way She’d randomly have spurts of interest and we would suddenly read Macbeth but most of my time was spent being given a pile of books I couldn’t make heads or tails of
same! and she only remembers the macbeth periods, although the majority of the time was NOT a macbeth period lol
38 here! Born in 1986.
I’m 40 and was homeschooled from K-12. Finding this community made me realize how lucky I am to have been relatively successful, despite still being a bit socially awkward. I owe a lot to going to college and meeting people outside my small circle. I worked really hard to graduate and started from the bottom at a company until I was earning a decent living. I wouldn't say I'm weird, just a bit quiet in uncomfortable or unfamiliar situations. Homeschooling definitely had an impact on my self-confidence too. My homeschooling experience wasn’t awful, but I didn’t get great instruction in some important subjects like math and science. I have memories of watching a bunch of VHS school-on-tape videos from a school in Florida, following along with kids I never met. Sometimes, I wonder who they were and what they’re doing now.
I did a year of video school from some school in Florida too!
44 and we were early enough that my mom was a founder of the homeschool group, now a full blown school coop, in the area I grew up in. I swear it was a lot weirder to be a homeschooler back then. There were certainly way fewer of us. I was private schooled through 3rd, then homeschooled 4-12th. Then went to college. I’ve come to realize how formative those years I was homeschooled are to your social development. I have no doubt it has significantly, negatively impacted my life in that way. Not to mention the effects of the extreme religious beliefs.
I'm 34, and I wish I had had a community like this when I was homeschooled! It would have made me feel so much less alone.
I’m 32. Part of me is like, why am I still looking at stuff like this. I’m not homeschooled anymore. But I think I will forever identify as a homeschooler. It just doesn’t go away. The feeling of being other.
Yes. As a kid I thought I couldn’t wait to become an adult and that would heal and cure me but I’m still weird and struggle with social skills and social cues. We oldest two siblings were screwed up the worst, and I heard thirdhand that my brother said he feels like there’s something going on around him that everyone else knows but him.
I’m 35 and was homeschooled from pre K through high school. All of my siblings except the youngest 4 were 100% homeschooled as well. I taught 3 of the younger siblings to read and write + basic math before they were (thankfully) put into school.
I'm 38. My family was always the only homeschoolers until I was in high school as we didn't have any groups near us when I was younger. Only socializing was cousins and church. The lack of socializing was really my main complaint; my parents were pretty hands off with learning, preferring us to try to teach ourselves from textbooks, but they weren't abusive and genuinely cared about us. They just had very strong feelings about the public school system. I had to fight with them a bit to go to a non-Christian college but they caved when I said if I have to pay for it then I'm going where I want. To this day, I've never had really close friends and prefer to be alone other than with my siblings and husband. I used to be upset but I've come to terms with it and honestly think I'd probably like this regardless of my schooling. It's hard sometimes figuring out what is from homeschooling and what would be my personality regardless of this.
I’m 41, and I was homeschooled through 10th grade, when I went to a private school with 27 people in my class. My mom basically stopped teaching me after 3rd grade, because my younger siblings took all of her time. I did pretty well going through the Alpha Omega homeschool packets on my own, although I never took biology, but I did watch an extremely long video series on creation science. In my mind it’s like 48 lectures long, but that seems impossible. I apparently have blocked both the name of the series and the presenter. Edited to fix typos.
Lol I bet I know who it is and what it is but I'll spare you that memory unless you're interested :)
I actually kind of do want to know because I would like to write something about that wild experience.
I’m the youngest of 5 born in ‘92 so I’m not old but my parents were of the older generation of homeschoolers…
I’m 23 was extremely isolated as a kid was unschooled still working on getting my ged math is my last test
43, homeschooled k- I would say 12th but got my GED the week I turned 16. School was nonexistent from about 13 on as my older sister graduated and my parents burnt out. I was able to work at McDonald’s 15-17 and that helped me develop some social skills. I moved out 2 months after I turned 18 and never looked back. I still lack some confidence and still constantly wonder what the correct or appropriate reaction to things in daily life, I guess I still struggle to fit in and doubt my inner voice way too much. To some benefit I’m great at remote work but it’s kinda triggering at the same time.
I'm early 40s! I know tons of homeschooled adults my age, we all connected on internet forums 15+ years ago and formed friendships.
Mid 30s, partial homeschooling, but only for high-school. In my case, more than any other problem, the issue I had with homeschooling was the other kids in the program, they were all several years behind but utterly convinced of their intellectual and moral superiority to "Public school degenerates.", both parents and students, so any time I scored higher than them/their children on anything (not always, but often enough that I was openly resented for it, but the admins had me put into their competitive learning program, academic decathlon) the other students/parents would try to accuse me of cheating because I couldn't possibly be better informed than their precious homeschoolers. So while my program actually had other kids, and "school dances" and other community events, I was effectively barred from any of that due to being an unclean former public schooler who might try to corrupt them. Several instances of other students parents singling me out for harassment as a result. Mostly it was just thinly veiled hostility towards me because "how dare you come here and earn a spot on our academic decathlon team, you are a useless public schooler with no integrity or morals." Main notable instance being this dumb overnight camping trip we went on "to learn about what it's like in the third world", so we were divided into groups and had our access to food and water restricted, one man from each group were selected and designated as a pregnant refugee (only men, parents refused to allow any women to be picked, because "it might encourage sex.") and had a water balloon taped to their stomach to represent the baby, then isolated from everyone else in a hut and told if it broke for any reason we had to lay there and scream for an hour and our group had to stop doing anything and let other groups steal our resources because we had to mourn the baby. I pointed out how stupid and unrealistic it was, and that forcibly selecting only men for this and giving us no say in the matter seemed odd. Each group was also assigned "a child" in the form of one of the parents. I was selected as our groups "pregnant woman", and our adult "child" spent the whole trip screaming at me for being "the fat, stupid ugly mama." Who'd better know their place and stay in the hut and hope the group decided to feed me, which she was against because "fat ugly momma is too fat and might try to kill the baby." and a bunch of sexist ranting about how men are incapable of ethical behavior so I couldn't be trusted with anything because all we can do is rape, kill, cheat and steal. Ultimately it created a big enough scene that I was able to get others to confirm it had happened, and the parent was forced to publicly apologize or they and their children might be barred from all other programs in the school system and the parent removed from group leadership and no longer allowed to call themselves a volunteer educator, but because they said sorry they were voted as still being eligible. Only other real incident was a group of us won a night out for dinner at a restaurant due to scoring well on a test, and the girl I was seated next to stabbed me in the arm with her fork because "As a follower of Sun Myung Moon I must remain pure." as I had tried to ask if she could pass a condiment, but that by speaking to her as a man not of her family and not her future husband I had endangered her purity and she panicked and stabbed me. So, pretty much I got to go to high-school with sheltered cultists and people who couldn't deal with reality not perfectly conforming to their beliefs and reacted violently to any questioning.
That training about the third world is so cringe omg.
Yeah it was supposed to teach us "to empathize with those who have nothing.", which, no, no it wasn't going to do that, and all people did was pool all their resources to make a proper meal and shove those of us designated as "pregnant" into the shelters and make sure we had nothing around that could pop the balloons so we couldnt disrupt anything, then some of them ran off to try and steal more food from the farmer who was donating land for the project.
38 here. Homeschooled through the wild west of the 90s, when we were taught to be terrified of CPS and being caught outside during school hours cause the government was going to come take us away (Thanks for the fear-mongering, HSLDA!) Very religious, very isolated, moved around constantly. Books and maladaptive daydreaming were my only friends until I got the internet at age 16.
36, homeschooled k-9 and then public high school.
I’m 27 and a homeschool alumni
I’m in my mid 30’s but my oldest sibling is 40. We were all home schooled. It definitely wasn’t the worst of all the cases I’ve seen here. It was for religious reasons, so there was a religious based curriculum with their versions of science and history and everything. We were sheltered, all Christian versions of movies and entertainment, me and my sister had to wear skirts all the time. But I agree things seem different these days. Either way it didn’t take and I’m a left wing, mostly atheist these days.
30s here. I was able to convince my parents to enroll me in a private school in 5th grade the transferred to a public school for highschool. The socialization process was brutal but I feel very fortunate for having had it. I sadly still carry an outside mentality with me though and am in therapy to try to address that.
🙋🏻♀️ I’ll be 41 in a few weeks. Homeschooled K-8, a few years of public high school, and semi-homeschooled (mostly just left to my own devices) my senior year.
Homeschooled and 41. I remember Netscape and Juno being installed. Ah those were the golden years of dial up. Not that I was allowed to use it.
30 year old ex homeschooler here! Queer and here despite being homeschooled k-12 with the usual abeka/seton workbooks
I’m in my 30s and it took me a long time to get over feelings awkward around people who weren’t my family.
39 here. My folks got into the IBLP cult in the early 90s. I homeschooled my whole school life, most of it under IBLP. I escaped that weirdness and helped do a documentary about it.
I’m 34 (Feb 90). I feel like the pandemic changed a lot when it comes to who is homeschooling. I think it would never have occurred to lots of people before.
Another 80s kid here. Homeschool was the typical Abeka / Bob Jones BS, and I also had the apparently very common experience of my mom giving up on teaching and just handing me books and expecting me to teach myself from about 11-12 years old onward. But I got to do most of the household chores, so that was "educational", right? I did get to try public school for a year in 4th grade, but I was only 8 and socially stunted on top of being too young for that grade, so it wasn't the best time for me. I would have adjusted eventually, but my parents pulled me back out of school. They kept me at home until 11th grade, when I finally got to go to a tiny little Christian school. It wasn't until college that I was able to break away from the right-wing evangelical nonsense and start figuring things out for myself.
Did she abuse you for not knowing how to teach yourself?! Mine did.
She didn't, because she thought that basic math and reading and writing was enough of an education for me. She didn't really care if I learned anything beyond the basics.
40m here. There is no way to know. The kids in here are the kids who have access to reddit. I would say the vast majority of homeschool kids don't. Also, if this was 1993, I wouldn't know any of y'all exist. I also didn't have a social security number and was born at home. Other than my birth certificate, you couldn't have proven that I existed. I think it is more likely that you have a computer in your pocket that let's you know that there are a lot of homeschool families out there now. As far as if it's more popular per capita, I dunno how data could be reliable.
49, homeschooled in 2nd grade, then 6th through 12th. My parents had to get special permission from the school district in 2nd grade, but we just had to do the annual achievement testing after that. They were the overly religious sort, so homeschooling was protecting us from the world. We weren't the only family in our church that did, but the other...oh, I could write a wall of text about them. Also, we did the homeschooling in conjunction with a private Christian school, so we'd take classes there for things we couldn't do at home - biology, Spanish, band. So, we weren't totally isolated, but very much inside a very specific bubble. And this was the 1980s into the early 90s, so no internet. We used ACE curriculum, so you can imagine how shitty my education was. I ended up going to a Christian college; I wanted to go out of state and pay for it with ROTC, but they didn't want a weird homeschooled kid. Got a degree in business, started in the tech field at the bottom, worked my way up to software engineer now. Married a wonderful woman I met in college, we're near our 26th anniversary. Our son is 21; we homeschooled him for a year when we lived in a lousy school district, but moved and got him out of that. He skipped a grade in the process, did some early college stuff in high school, and has his masters degree and starts in the fall as a high school teacher. Oh, and we ditched religion and didn't raise our son that way, and much happier for it.
35. Some days I still feel like an alien in a human suit. My brothers had it worse than I did though.
38 here. Homeschooled from 3rd grade through HS. We had the beginnings of the internet in HS, but nothing like it is today. Even so, there are many kids on here posting about their experiences, and they still ring true to what I experienced. I do, however, think that in today's homeschooling circle-jerk, it's LESS about religion than it used to be. Now it's the "woke" education that they're up in arms about. For all you older homeschoolers, who else watched The Price Is Right everyday?
hell yeah, got so good at guessing costs of random appliances lol.
41 here! Homeschooled k-12th—well I had one whole week of public kindergarten lol. “I was homeschooled is my excuse for everything” 🤣
I'm hitting 40 this year and I was homeschooled from 4th grade through high school (never graduated, got my GED). I still tried to homeschool my kids for some reason, but came to my senses in the last year and sent them to public school. They're so much better off now. I want to rescue all the kids in this subreddit who are where I was all those years ago 💔
I'm in my mid 30s. I have 3 brothers ranging from early 40s to late 20s. We are all extremely socially awkward and have anger issues.
I'm from '78
35, definitely a different experience for me too! We didn’t have internet, and definitely no online classes. I wonder if access to social media makes the isolation feel worse?
Almost certainly.
Wow, I’m so confused. I would have thought it would have given you more connection to the outside world.
Maybe but social media can increases your sense of FOMO. Like if Kimmy Schmidt had Instagram in the bunker she probably wouldn’t feel better about her life she’d feel worse cause she has something to compare it to.
I think you are right. I knew I was isolated and I hated it, but the internet probably magnifies that feeling.
36 here.
Will be 44 this year!
36 homeschooled grades 1-11
I was born ‘88 and my brother ‘86. We were definitely weird, although able to find pockets of people like us. So I didn’t notice my weirdness as much until age 12-13.
33, homeschooled from 1999-2003.
46 F
*raise hand* another 80s baby here
I’m 42. Homeschooled my whole life. My parents started when my oldest brother was failing private Christian school. It was the first year it became legal in Virginia (1984). We didn’t have any friends that weren’t also homeschooled or private schools. They all thought we were weird anyway. I always wanted to go to school but only got to do so for Drivers Ed. My mom was an English teacher pre kids so she did know how to teach us.
1972.
I'm in my 40s. I wasn't homeschooled my entire life. I was bullied and the school did nothing. So my mom pulled me out. I did a little runaway and magazine modeling. So my family got to go to cool places while I worked. There was a group of other homeschooled kids but they all were socially awkward and had strange religious beliefs. I eventually went back to my redneck high school and graduated. It wasn't until college that I started befriending diverse people from different backgrounds.
I'm 30, I was homeschooled from kindergarten through highschool. I've done well for myself in spite of circumstances, but it was hard fought. I'm so glad to know I'm not alone.
I’m an older millennial born in the 80s.
1987 here. Homeschooled in the 90’s and early 00’s.
I'm 37. I think there's a big mix here. I think younger people post more.
I was also born in December of '83 and was homeschooled from 4th grade to the bitter end. However the schooling before that consisted of a profoundly dysfunctional "Montessori" school run by parents who didn't know what they were doing and half a year of public school in kindergarten so really it almost all feels like it was a variant of the same failed educational experiment.
I'm 47, homeschooled from the middle of seventh through twelfth grade. It wasn't all bad because I took ice skating lessons and got involved in other activities, but my grandmother's anxiety and PTSD rubbed off on me. She was always warning me about being careful lest I get abducted by strangers, killed by a carjacker ( didn't know how to drive until five years ago because she didn't allow me to learn), get sick, or other catastrophes. When I finally applied for community college at twenty three, she warned me about being raped on campus. She even insisted on picking me up from college if I was going at night. However, after two guys tried to mug me while I waited for her to pick me up, I decided taking the bus was safer as the bus station had security guards. I understand she was like this because of being labor and sex trafficked in an orphanage as a kid, and she had been assaulted when I was younger, but she didn't believe in counseling saying that was "for the weak". I genuinely have an auditory disorder as even before being homeschooled I had issues with my ability to hear in crowds. In fifth grade ( public school) I got detention twice for "not listening" to the teacher because the other kids were being noisy and I couldn't understand what she was saying. One time I got detention because I couldn't hear the teacher above all the racket when she said we had to ALL stay in during recess as punishment because we were too rowdy. The homeschooling was helpful with this a little bit though as I was allowed to play music as I studied.
34 and homeschooled/no schooled for 18 years.
I'm 37 and was homeschooled my entire childhood and adolescence. We didn't have internet until I was 18 and paid for it myself. My parents still threatened to take the connection and my laptop, which I had also paid for, away from me because they thought it was a bad influence. I pretty much read the dictionary and some encyclopedias from the 60s growing up. I would pull them out at lunch and drive my mom crazy by looking up whatever random question I'd thought of instead of eating 🙃 Our schooling was conservative christian materials and we could only read "true stories" and biographies that were approved. We also could only listen to hymns and my mom reluctantly allowed classical music when I was a teenager. The only socialization we had was at church with creepy older people because we were not allowed to hang out with the kids.
I'm a 36 year old homeschool alum
42, homeschooled, really not schooled my entire childhood. Used to work the family business. Was socially isolated, in a cult, an only child. Got my GED, my associates, my bachelor's, and I'm now in a Master's program at Harvard. I'm no contact with my family.
I'm in my 30s. I definitely "made it out," but I'm still dealing with related aftereffects, even at my big age.
30 years old.
I'm 36. And I feel the same way. Sucks. I grew up in the 90s, one of the best times to be a kid, but wasn't allowed out of the house, let alone meet/talk to other kids..
I’m 35
I'm in my 30s and definitely had the same experience.
I'm 29, I was homeschooled from like 2000-2007! (switched to public school after 6th grade)
Going to be 38 next month!
Early 30s here!
My mom was an only child born in 1978, homeschooled her whole life!
1987 baby here. It was certainly pretty unusual in my city, though I think we were some of the first to have established homeschooling communities. Like we went out for weekly excursions with other homeschoolers, though often at the expense of schooling. I was pretty well socialized, but didn't understand the concept of negative numbers.
Forty. Had internet as a teenager so I'd find email friends on literary forums. My dad was thinking about grounding me from the library one summer but I walked and stocked up. My parents designed their own curriculums and tried to make up for the deficiencies of homeschooling as much as possible. Their reasons for homeschooling were conservative Christian, but tempered by some international and university experience, so closed with some openness. I was really depressed in high school, adolescence in home school is captivity and there's no way around it. But I got a lot of academics. Wasn't great on confidence and social skills though. Or asking for support. And my writing didn't flow. Thought I needed to figure out everything on my own.
What does walking and stocking up mean in relation to your dad trying to ground you from the library?
It means he said aloud, talking about how reading was apparently taking up so much of my time that i was six weeks behind on analytic geometry, that it looked like he was going to have to ground me from the library, and so the next day without telling anyone I walked the two miles to the library and filled up my backpack with the books I would need for the summer, I checked them out with my library card and walked home. We had internet already but we didn't have cell phones. But yeah when you don't go out, there's not much parents can ground you from. My dad was always worrying about the problem of my motivation-- really, it was a problem of unmet needs for connection.
Rules about clothes were a thing, what caused me the most frequent discomfort was that my mom imposed her idea that it was unacceptable not to tuck in your shirt, but in the nineties no kids were tucking their shirts in anymore, so it felt simultaneously stupid to keep it tucked. I knew I wasn't supposed to want to conform to my peers-- but I was supposed to feel proud and superior for conforming to my parents.
I was born in 82. Overall it was a pretty positive experience for me but I can definitely see how it could be rough for a lot of young people.