As a homeschooling parent and blogger, I’m used to some pretty outlandish comments about homeschooling. However, a recent one about how lazy and selfish homeschooling parents are really made me shake my head. Lazy and selfish? Seriously?
After giving it some thought, I came up with a few examples of such laziness and selfishness to go along with the ones (numbers 4 and 6) that the helpful commenter suggested.
It should go without saying that this is another dose of my sarcastic sense of humor. Unfortunately, I often find that it does not go without saying, so consider it said.
Also, please note that ordinary public and private school parents should not take offense. This post isn’t “us vs. them” and I’m not directing it toward you. I know you work your behinds off to feed, clothe, and care for your kids too.
On, the other hand, if you honestly think that homeschooling parents are lazy and selfish, I guess you can take offense, and we’ll call it even.
1. Homeschooling parents often sacrifice financially.
The majority of homeschooling families are single-income. I don’t know about all the other families, but if my family weren’t homeschooling, I’d most likely be working a full-time job.
I’d hazard to guess that the same applies to the majority of single-income homeschooling families. If so, it’s safe to say that may of them are foregoing vacations, home improvements (or a nicer home), newer cars, and the latest gadgets in order to homeschool.
Yep. Sounds selfish to me.
2. Single homeschooling parents and dual-income homeschooling families juggle their schedules to homeschool.
Single parents and dual-income families coordinate their schedules with their spouse or childcare provider. They give up downtime or hobbies in the evenings or on weekends to successfully homeschool their children.
They’re obviously lazy.
3. Homeschooling parents invest their time educating their children.
I love homeschooling, teaching, and learning alongside my kids, but there are certainly days when I’d rather be doing other things. I am usually just as disappointed as the kids for school breaks to end.
If you start in kindergarten, homeschooling is, at a minimum (depending on how many kids you have), a 13-year daily investment. That’s obviously the route of selfish and lazy individuals.
4. Homeschooling parents just don’t want to have to get up to get their kids on the bus in the mornings.
Yes, that is absolutely why we do this – so we can sleep a couple of extra hours.
5. Homeschooling parents spend time self-educating to teach their children more effectively.
One of my most selfish, lazy thoughts was, “I’d love to spend a few years of my adult life muddling through algebra again. Hey, I know – I’ll homeschool!”
6. Homeschooling parents don’t send their kids to school so that they don’t have to answer uncomfortable questions about drugs, alcohol, and sex.
Absolutely. My kids live in a bubble, and they never hear about or bring up those topics. Maybe some homeschooling parents can shelter their children from those things, but most of the homeschooled kids I know still have contact with other kids. They hear about all those topics and ask questions.
If they didn’t, all we’d need to do is turn on the TV. A few prime time commercials should bring up plenty of uncomfortable sex and alcohol topics.
Granted my kids were all probably older than many of their public schooled peers when they first encountered those topics, but honestly? I’m okay with that. I don’t think that makes me lazy. Instead, it makes me thankful that I could delay exposure to topics that they weren’t developmentally ready to understand.
7. Homeschooling parents willingly endure the stress of accepting sole responsibility for their children’s educations.
It doesn’t happen every night, but I’ve had my fair share of sleepless nights wondering if I’m teaching my kids all they need to know. There have been times when I’ve thought that maybe I should have sent them to public or private school so that if they really weren’t prepared academically, we could at least blame someone else.
The fact that I, along with the other homeschooling parents I know, are willing to shoulder that responsibility clearly speaks to our lazy and selfish nature.
8. Homeschooling parents often endure the ridicule of family, friends, and strangers.
When my oldest was in school, no one ever stopped me in the grocery store to tell me how crazy they thought it was that I was sending my child to school. I was never lambasted online or in person with someone’s opinion of how terrible a choice I was making and how I was ruining my kids’ lives.
I must have selfishly thought I’d enjoy all the attention.
9. Homeschooling parents are also part-time chauffeurs.
I know that all parents feel this way, but from my perspective as a homeschool mom, we don’t even have a bus to take our kids on cool field trips – it’s just us and our mini-vans. There’s no chance that our children will get to do some of their clubs, sports, and other extracurricular activities while they’re at school; we know we’re going to get to drive them.
Of course, all that time in the car together often proves fun. A car ride is one of the best ways to get a teen to talk to you. So, maybe that makes me selfish, but surely not lazy. When I’m running my kids all over creation, I tend to feel more frazzled than lazy.
10. Homeschooling is a legal excuse from jury duty in some states.
I don’t have any problem performing my civic duty, and I actually find jury duty fascinating. However, my name seems to come up more than most people’s. I’ve served two or three times and been excused twice.
My first excuse was because I was the primary care provider for a child under the age of 2, and later I was excused due to my role of primary teaching parent in a homeschool.
Am I lazy and selfish enough to homeschool just to get out of jury duty? Hmmm…
Are you a lazy, selfish homeschool parent? In what way?
Great post! I love your sarcasm, probably because it’s so similar to mine, snicker.
#5….so very true.
It’s not the main reason we are homeschooling but the bus’ arrival time of 6:20 makes homeschooling all the more appealing.
I love your blog!
You always crack me up. I can’t believe people say the things they do. We homeschool so we don’t have to put our kids on the bus in the morning? Really? Good grief.
In regards to #4, I used to get up and take those kids out to the bus. I would then go back to the couch in order to perfect the mid morning nap. It was awesome!
I do not miss that nap, and I would never want my kids at school again.
My daughter never took the bus. We only lived a couple of miles from the school, so I drove her. There were plenty of days the involved a nap when her younger brother took his. :)
I made sure I never bumped into my husband’s ex wife, so I just let them ride the bus. She once accused me of stalking her because I was (gasp) dropping off the kids at the same time she was dropping off my step-daughter!
Considering that I have to force my kids to stay in bed until 6:00, I don’t think sleeping in will ever be on my list of reasons!
My sympathies. ;)
I have this problem too!
Lazy Homeschool Parents Unite! We need some kind of secret handshake. Or maybe matching tattoos.
I’m surprised – you’re in the South and a lot of people homeschool in the South. I always run into people who say, “I wish I could homeschool” or “I wish I’d homeschooled my kids” or “Good for you!” (we lived in north TX b4, now in SE OK).
Anyway…lazy and selfish…I don’t force my child to sit down for six hours a day like he’s in a real classroom where half the time is spent on discipline and lunch and bathroom breaks (I am a former schoolteacher; trust me). We’re done within 3 hrs. in the morning, and then we get the rest of the day free.
Yep, I’m pretty darn lazy and selfish.
My craziest comments come from online. And, yeah, you sound downright lazy. ;)
Yeah we’re all so super lazy! I love this post from you! Your sarcasm speaks to me! Gee, I didn’t feel lazy staying up way past my bedtime last night to help my 14 year old figure out some Algebra (did I mention I HATE Algebra) and then getting up with him this morning at six am because he couldn’t sleep! I couldn’t even go back to bed because both of my younger girls woke up at seven! Sounds super lazy of me lol
Again, I love your sarcasm. It cracks me up. I think #8 is probably my least favorite thing about homeschooling. Like yes, I homeschool and no, I don’t need your opinion on how I should do it. In all honesty, a lot of people do think it’s neat, so it’s pretty positive most of the time, but yet still my biggest dread.
haha, #4 is a part of it, for sure. My kids don’t get up any earlier than 7 – and why would I want to force them up earlier? Elementary school starts at 7:25 so I can’t imagine how early the bus is. And actually, I don’t even know if we’re far enough away from the school to have a bus. But a Kindergartener cannot walk that far alone, and my 3.5 year old would never keep up to get there in time. So – yes. I’m lazy ;)
I agree with other comments – my nearly-6-year-old does NOT need to be in a classroom for 8 hours. We are done in an hour with “official” curriculum, but we do plenty of homeschooling throughout the day. It is HARD to be home with small children, day after day.
Our homeschooling involves a child with a learning disability. The specialist who diagnosed her dyslexia told us that our school district was not equipped with services to help her and she was better off at home. So for all of us homeschooling with special needs . . .working like crazy with our greatly loved yet different kiddos . . . lazy? Not. a. chance. =)
Lazy homeschooler is an oxymoron.
Well I know it was sheer lazy, selfishness that led me to do it. I can’t tell you just how incredibly RELAXING it is to be a single mom working full-time while homeschooling. Seriously. Nothing was more fun than getting up at 4am to drop a toddler off at day careso I could go to work for 8 hours, then return home to make sure lessons had been completed (or get them to do them!). All that before the cooking, cleaning, errands, etc.
Yep. Lazy is my middle name.
Clearly. ;)
Oh gosh, this is my first time reading here, and you had me in stiches. Thank you so much for this post.
Let’s see…lazy enough to teach the same Pre-K-12 curriculum three different times.
Lazy enough to make, acquire and invent teaching materials for three different learning styles,
And definitely lazy enough to teach a lefty to cut with scissors when my left hand really can’t do much of anything useful on any given regular day. (I am a righty.)
And I am most definitely selfish enough to pay for text books for three kids while paying taxes so other children can have text books too.
I too know many public and private school teachers and families who are out of this world wonderful. But those comments you got….your post just summed it up for me.
Can’t wait to read more. I’ll be sticking around.
Thanks, Abbie! I’m glad you enjoyed it. I thought of the tax thing after I’d published the post. Yep, we’re quite selfish folks. ;)
Oh, I’m definitely a lazy, selfish homeschooling mom! I don’t want to put in countless hours counteracting the unchrist-like behaviors and attitudes my children would learn in public school, nor do I want to give the joy of watching them become the wonderful human beings they are to strangers or eight hours a day!
I’m a private school mama, who lives vicariously through the homeschool blogs. I am lazy and selfish, knowing how much work it does take! Thankfully we have a parent-run school and can be in the classroom and school. Love your sense of humour, Kris!
(Yes, we also pay the taxes and a crazy amount of tuition!)
Thanks for your comment. It’s nice to know I can have some fun without offending the public and private school mamas. We’re all in the business of raising our kids the best we can.
I may be the exception though, since we keep homeschooling as a very real option. Also, my husband was homeschooled and, I joke to him he turned out pretty “normal”, not weird and unsocialized! Lol ;) I think him being homeschooled is what has shaped him into the amazing man he is!
People are going to put you down for everything. I know it can hurt, but we need to realize their comments are more likely a reflection of themselves, and have nothing to do with us.
#truth
Personally, I’m so lazy, I just love having 3 kids home to make messes all day so I can clean them up. I mean, I actually cook (well, at least heat up) 3 meals a day for 4-5 people and we all eat at the same table with actual dishes, just so the floor and table can get really messy. And the 4 year old always has access to the glue and paper and scissors, in my living room, and, okay, wherever else he carries them. It’s so much fun to clean up (or make them clean up, which is harder) after every single art project, science project, and handwriting paper my kids ever do. I’m so lazy and selfish!
Oh! And having 2 boys use the toilet all day every day. There’s that to clean up too.
Lol!!!! I’m in the same “pee-pee” boat
#4 is a valid reason for me. I wrote about why I homeschool here: http://www.sarahbadatrichardson.com/why-i-homeschool/
One reason I listed is that I may lose my temper if a school official were to make some outrageous comment or if I had to follow a rule I find illogical. I abhor non-sense. So in my case you could say selfish, lazy & potentially violent! :-)
Your “school property” comment reminded me of a friend of mine. When she toured the school while considering sending her oldest (now an adult) to kindergarten, she found that the kindergarten classes spent the last hour or so of every day watching PBS Kids. She told the principal that she’d just pick her child up at the beginning of that hour since a) the child could watch TV at home and b) they would likely do something more productive than watching TV at home. She was told the same basic thing about her child being school property during school hours. Um, nope! They’ve homeschooled ever since.
I am absolutely selfish. I don’t want to share my kids with teachers who have questionable morals and peers with faltering values. I value my time with these precious children way to much to be generous with their beautiful souls. Yup I am definitely selfish.
Ok. I may have snorted while reading this one:).
I too am a “lazy and selfish” homeschooler.
And yes, I am studying Algebra, MLA formatting, and Biology so I can teach my own high schoolers.
All while eating bon-bons of course…
You can’t forget the bon-bons! :)
My child was introduced to porn in 5th grade at public school. This was one reason we chose to homeschool.
I just ran across your blog tonight, or actually this morning….it’s 12:06, while searching for a fun cell project. Yours takes the “cake!” I couldn’t stop reading your posts because you made me laugh out loud more times than I’ve laughed all week! Yes…lazy and selfish…that’s me! Up at midnight planning fun ways to learn. Someone who I am close to actually told me recently that I have to stop making school so fun or my son would never want to go back to regular school. Heaven forbid that we teach our kids that learning is fun! Thanks for reminding me tonight that I love homeschooling my 10 year old.
You’re welcome! Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoy the cell cake, both for its educational appeal and its taste appeal. :)
I’m lazy. I don’t want to have to bake two dozen cupcakes to take for a second grade class party. Instead I plan, shop for and host a homeschool party for our county for kids age preschool to seventh grade. The last one (I did not host it) about 150 kids showed up.
I’m lazy. I don’t want to have to spend an hour each night deciphering notes sent home from a teacher and reviewing spelling words and math worksheets. Instead I am the teacher, keeping track of curriculum plus a stack of notebooks, workbooks and library books from at least three libraries while trying to impart knowledge and wisdom to two precious souls.
I’m lazy. I don’t want to have to keep up with the info of 23 other second grade moms and have to deal with two class leader moms giving orders. Instead I am responsible for about 50 moms in our group and am answerable to a board.
I’m lazy. I don’t want to have to sit through the school pick up line five days a week. Instead I drive all over creation taking my kids to co-op, field trips, meet ups, gym classes and service opportunities.
I actually searched, “do lazy mothers homeschool” and found your post. I actually am lazy. I can’t stand looking for shoes at 6 a.m. to get little kids out the door! I love when my kids get tired of cold cereal or we are out of oatmeal and they make pancakes, or eggs and bacon. (Sometimes I can hoodwink them into making supper too).I teach them to read young so I don’t have to sit for hours on end reading to them. My husband and I vacation a lot with and without the kids. I will miss these carefree years. Our oldest daughter is in college pulling a’s. The youngest is 3, reads, and bikes through the house. I don’t feel like teaching him math yet, but when he wants to start he will soar if he wants to. We have 12 very independent kids. And one very lazy, very obnoxious mom.
I am lazy too….We don’t get dressed for the day on some of the more serious homeschool work days. If we are in the midst of a project, well, that takes precedence over getting dressed to go someplace we won’t actually go that day…doesn’t it? Although, when my kids asked where we were going as I was getting dressed the other day (for no good reason, apparently) I had to admit that I might be taking the indulgence of pjs a bit too far. Our lovely contact teacher that comes every few weeks doesn’t bat an eye when she finds one or three of us in loungewear…..Hmmmm….a thought. Lazy loungewear for homeschooling families!
Lol!
I need a T-shirt or a sticker for my water bottle. I enjoyed being lazy so much I now teach 3-7th grades at a private school while my son finishes college and my other muddles through 10th grade.
Yep. Nailed it. I can’t believe how lazy I’ve gotten lately. I mean, as a single parent, homeschooling 3 kids, 2 with a disability, and working 20 hours a week as an autism therapist. I have so much free time on my hands, it’s insane! Bring on the naps and daytime soaps!
This is probably terrible of me, but sometimes when I’m asked “why do you homeschool?”, I say something about not wanting to get up early. I just like my sleep, I say. I’ve faced more than a few odd looks. Apparently, they don’t know I’m kidding. Most of the time I don’t explain myself further. It’s so bad, but also entertaining to me :)
I think we have all had that happen. Some days we just don’t have the energy to give a real thoughtful answer to intrusive or curious people.
We were sending our kid to a charter school that required us to get up and drive her to school in the morning, and then pick her up right smack in the middle of her younger brother’s nap time. Then our DOT shut down the direct route to her school, making the 20 minute drive into a 45 minute drive through congested detours. I would be lying if I said that 45 minute drive home after school, while listening to her daily meltdown (she is autistic and ADHD) and her brother screaming at the same time (because he was woken up) wasn’t in the top ten reasons as to why we pulled her out!
So, the trade off has been learning how to teach an autistic and ADHD child with a sibling going through typical 3 year old behaviors. Oh yeah, and eating at least once a day in all that. But, holy crap I am so lazy I don’t want to drive!!
I’m selfish because my kids are all so awesome that I don’t want to share them with anyone else! They’re all mine, and you can’t have the privilege of knowing them!
(And they have the nerve to go around meeting people and making friends! I’m appalled!)
I want to stay connected to my kids as long as possible. Tried daycare with my 3yr old and felt a terrible loss of connection with her and her speech delay and confidence regressed. My husband is leaving me and I’m desperately trying to figure out basic survival with 3 kids and homeschooling. If I was selfish, I would take my big, school-loving brain and throw the kids in the system so I can go get a big title to feel better about myself (I am not enough is a hard voice to fight after someone leaves you)
But no, that connection with my kids and their growth is more important…along with seeing that the their beautiful mother loves herself and doesn’t need a title to feel ok.
There are no paychecks, raises, or outward societal approval for the homeschooling moms.
Selfish? SO silly
Enjoyed your article. That’s hilarious someone would complain HS moms are lazy. I laughed out loud at the comments people wrote.
I will say I am very independent–don’t want to have to make my child learn on another teacher’s time table instead of her own. I do think it would be harder to send her to school, then have to re-teach, grade, and try to tutor her to someone else’s objectives at night/weekends.
I admit I AM that lazy person who likes to sleep in. But having watched my sister get her kids off to school at 6:30, then go back to bed, I agree that we are still working harder even if we get up a few hours later.
In my area, I get a lot of positive reactions to home-schooling, too, but I think I always brace for the negative or confused one. For some reason, it was much harder when I didn’t have her in pre-K 4, but was home-schooling her. So much easier now that she’s second grade. I guess because it’s starting to show that she’s a well-behaved, delightful kid. I have an “only,” so there is some push-back due to people thinking she needs to be in school to have friends. Thankfully, she is naturally friendly in general and bonds easily with girls her age, so she’s a great case study in how school isn’t needed for developing social skills.