I am a Stereotype

And my particular flavor is clueless. . .

My husband does not like home school stereotypes. I don’t blame him. We were both home schooled before Covid made it acceptable. We grew up (independently) with people only a few years older than us who remember hiding in corn fields when truancy officers came by the house, in a community where people had gone to jail for homeschooling their own children. I had friends whose grandparents had called CPS on their families for homeschooling¹. When the general attitude in the culture is criticism, censure and disdain, you kind of form a bit of a protective stance over the issue at hand.

That said, I also knew home schooled kids who knew how to press into that stereotype for comedic effect (I’m looking at you, Craig Bell²). As much as I hesitated to make any joke at the expense of homeschooling, or to stereotype and generalize, I did enjoy the freedom that came from laughing at the fact that while many home schoolers had broad vocabularies, we often mispronounced words because we’d never heard them, only read them. Or how we stuck out (and still stick out) like sore thumbs for not catching pop references or being able to relate to our peers' school experiences. Like I have a general idea of what a jock is, but I’ve never interacted with one to my knowledge. Same for goths and emos and cheerleaders and nerds. They are abstract concepts to me. But then I was also particularly sheltered and uniquely clueless due to a rather extensive ideological trip my parents took us on.

Photo by Dana DeVolk on Unsplash

My home education came with a heavy side of fear mongering and the irony of the whole thing is that I fit the homeschooling stereotype that all homeschoolers rage against: abounding in theories and sharply deficit in experience, let alone relatable experience - all wide eyed curiosity and confusion. References fly past me so fast I can’t tell you what color they are. I constantly google *everything* because none of it makes sense. When I’m in person and with people, I’m always doing my best to project calm and knowledgeable while damning the whole world to hell because it looks super weird to pull my phone out, ask people to slow down, and look things up. And it looks twice as clueless to ask people to define every other word they speak. My oldest kids knew beige from brown, and greige and tan by the age of three and my oldest son could use *affront* correctly in a sentence by the age of six, but I stand at the world of Substack head cocked in uncertainty, trying to find my footing in a world that I do not understand. You people say left and right as if they mean something more nuanced than wrong and right. You say liberalism, and postliberalism and postmodernism, and ‘90s as if there is any kind of weight to these words. I frantically grab at balloons as they float beyond reach.

1. The case closed because there was no actual abuse going on, but until you’ve had a social worker knock on your door and feared losing your children, you cannot imagine what that does to your sense of safety and home.

2. If you’re out there - you were an amazing friend. Seriously, the high point of a really miserable adolescence. I hope life is treating you well.