Kids need to go to school and be with their generation. It's very hard to fit in with people your own age, after you reach adulthood, if you were a homeschooler.
Homeschooled adults are different, they are weird, sometimes in a good way, but in many instances they have a hard time being accepted as an ordinary member of society. Or accepted as a workmate on the job, because there's just something not quite right.
That's how it's been for me my entire life. My father was never a JW, but a criminal on the run, with two kids to help him seem like a nice single dad. I didn't know that about him until i was almost 40. Anyway, he took us out of school. He bought lots of all kinds of books and we had to read on our own. He said it was because "taxes are immoral and the public schools supported by taxation are immoral."
Well by the time I was out on my own I had only one skill, and that was I could type. I had taught myself at age 11. A hamburger franchisee hired me to run his little office and from there, learned to do office work and support myself that way. But everyone I met remarked that I seemed so different, and what schools had I gone to, and where did I grow up, etc. They asked questions to try and figure out what was different about me.
As much as I tried to be like everyone else, I never could. I tried to fit in with the JWs, but things went wrong with that quite frequently.
Now the only friends I have are my family and acquaintances on the internet.
Homeschool was no school at all. I see my granddaughter absolutely blooming in her high school. She was the sketch artist at mock trial this past weekend and her sketches are being submitted in a competition. If she places, she will win some level of scholarship. She's in jazz band, orchestra, photog class, several clubs, gets mostly A's, even in algebra and chemistry.
She knows how to control her temper and emotions and has managed to avoid trouble with anyone at school. Her teachers just rave about her and she has made friends with some fantastic young people.
I'm so happy for her, that she has had the opportunity to get a normal American education. And very sad for me, that I didn't. I have no idea how to make friends. Every time I think it's going well, suddenly they avoid me and I never see them again. I'm soon 64 years old and just as weird as I ever was.
Homeschool might be good for some but my overall opinion of it is negative. Not only from my own experience but the JWs I've been around who were doing it were not successful. Hauling their kids around in the back seat trying to study while their mother pioneered. UGH! Those kids had no friends and now as grownups they can't get or keep jobs. Now they're cleaning pools. Now they're exterminators. They live in their parents' basements. Not good.
