11. Please, stop asking my competency and demand to see my credentials. We didn't need to complete a course in catering to successfully cook dinner for my family; we don't need a degree in teaching to educate my children. If spending about twelve years in the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we call public school left us with so little information in our memory banks that we can't teach the basics of an elementary education to our nearest and dearest, maybe there's a reason we are so unwilling to send my child to school.
12. If my kid's only six and you ask me with a straight face how I can possibly teach him what he'd learn in school, please understand that you're calling me an idiot. Don't be shocked if I decide to respond in kind.
13. Stop assuming that because the word "home" is right there in "homeschool," we never leave the house. We are just the ones who go to the amusement parks, museums, and zoos in the middle of the week and in the off-season and laugh at you because you have to go on weekends and holidays when it's crowded and icky.
14. Stop assuming that since the word "school" is right there in homeschool, we must sit around at a desk for six or eight hours every day, just like your kid does. Even though we're into the "school" side of education, and many of us prefer a more organic approach, we can burn through a lot of material a lot more efficiently, because we don't have to gear our lessons to the lowest common denominator.
15. Stop asking, "But what about the Prom?" Even though the idea that my kid might not be able to indulge in a night of over-hyped, over-priced revelry was enough to break my heart, plenty of kids who do go to school don't get to go to the Prom.
16. Don't ask our kids if they wouldn't rather go to school unless you don't mind if we ask your kid if he wouldn't rather stay home and get some sleep at times.
17. Stop saying, "Oh, I could never homeschool!" Although you think it's some kind of compliment, it sounds more like you're horrified.
18. If you can remember anything from chemistry or calculus class, you're allowed to ask how we'll teach these subjects to our kids. But if you can't, thank you for the reassurance that we couldn't possibly do a worse job than your teachers did, and might even do a better one.
19. Stop asking about how hard it must be to be a child's teacher as well as a parent. There is no much difference between bossing a kid around academically and bossing him around the way I do about everything else.
20. Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he's homeschooled. It's unfair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood.
21. Quit assuming that my kid must be some kind of prodigy because she's homeschooled.
22. Quit assuming that I must be some kind of prodigy because I homeschool my kids.
23. Quit assuming that I must be some kind of saint because I homeschool my kids.
24. Stop talking about all the great childhood memories my kids won't get because they don't go to school, unless you want me to start asking about all the not-so-great childhood memories you have because you went to school.
25. Here's a thought: If you can't say something nice about homeschooling, shut up!
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