In the world of homeschooling, being secular is too often synonymous with being alone. I’ve talked about this before, I know.
Isolation is everywhere for the rigorous secular homeschooler. Because we aren’t using religious-based curricula, we’re isolated from the large local communities of Christian homeschoolers. We’re oddities on the Well Trained Minds forums. If we aren’t unschooling, we’re even isolated from a good portion of the secular community, who think we’re anal retentive and don’t let our kids have any fun. We’re oddities at the secular co-ops and on the Mothering.com forums.
I envy Christian homeschoolers. Yes, I poke fun at some Christian curricula, but I really do envy them. They have community, not just for their educational choices, but for their whole lives. They have a place to belong. Being part of a community and staying close to your family is praiseworthy. As long as you ascribe to the same viewpoints as your religion, isolation isn’t really a problem. Some religions definitely err way too far in the other direction and become wholly intrusive into people’s lives in an oppressive way, but feeling alone, having no one like you, those aren’t problems for a Christian homeschooler teaching Christian curricula within a large Christian community. They have curriculum support from large Christian curricula publishers. They have support from their churches for protecting their children from exposure to wordly, immoral, or questionably secular things. They have support from peers, who are also homeschooling. They may even have been homeschooled themselves, depending on their church. They have support from homeschooling forums, where they comprise a significant majority. They aren’t an aberration. They aren’t alone.
The secular world, however, seems to place great value on the ability to be alone. Grow up fast. Move away. Be independent. Fish don’t need bicycles! Multigenerational living is scoffable — the quintessential “thirty year old man living in his mom’s basement” stereotype. We’re encouraged to segregate our child by age early on, as the emphasis on same-age peers is huge. Children themselves are pushed to be independent so quickly — give up the family bed, go off to preschool, spend the night away from home, and of course, mom must return to work as soon as all this happens. Culturally, we seem to value isolation…and then medicate the side effects of it.
I admit that I’m lonely. I have a few homeschooling friends, whose support I value immensely, but I sometimes wrestle with this feeling of being a pariah, both in the greater world of homeschooling and in the rest of my life. I’m way, way too liberal, “hippie,” and secular for Christians (or any religion, really) and Christian homeschooling. I’m probably significantly more moderate and mainstream than some of my secular friends, though — not alternative lifestyle enough, not “crunchy” enough, too minivan-driving suburban cop’s wife. I’m stuck in the middle with Patchfire, and we cry so many dramatic tears together.
Where’s the middle ground? Where are my people? I’m too much of a heathen for most of the homeschoolers and not enough of a free spirit for the rest of them. Where is my tribe?
Secular Thursday posted late this week due to computer crash last night.
