My last post is now on The Innovative Educator. Lisa Nielsen is becoming one of my favorite people in the world. And I’m meeting her in person tomorrow. Which is decidedly social.
I said in the last post that I feel like a social failure sometimes, because I am bored by groups of people, and I am content to be alone.
A reader (TheBanjer, from Romania) commented: Yeah, I guess that’s the main difference between homeschoolers and.. um, non-homeschoolers. For us, former high school kids, being alone feels a bit wrong sometimes, like we’ve failed or something, even if we know – rationally – that it is, in fact, not a big deal..
And in response, I want to add that I also feel like I’ve failed when I’m alone. But I feel like I’ve failed not because I’m alone, but because I want to be alone. As though my brain is wired incorrectly.
Everyone in the world has one question for homeschoolers. And that question is, “What about socialization?”
As a homeschooler, I had one main answer. Which was, “Hell yes! I do it ALL the time!”
My mom wanted me to do it all the time. She suggested that I invite friends over. She brought me to groups and signed me up for groups and made me go back to groups. She even formed groups for me to participate in. My mom is a very social person. She loves hanging out with other people. She has been leading groups for most of her life, and throwing parties, and inviting people over for dinner. She is a great coordinator of people.
I am not. I’m more like my dad in that way.
But because I was homeschooled, it wasn’t enough for be to be more like my dad. It was important that I prove that I wasn’t a failure. That I was normal. That homeschooling had given me all the right opportunities.
When I went to college, I felt like I had to report back with a bunch of friends right away. I didn’t want to be friends with any of the girls who lived on my freshman floor. When they hung out in my room, I secretly hoped they’d leave. I felt no remorse about not getting along with them. But I wished that I could take five of them home with me, to prove to my mom in one giggling, girly fell swoop that I was a social success, and then go back and dump them at a frat house while I went off to read by myself.
It isn’t that I don’t ever like to be around other people. I’ve always had a boyfriend (which is another issue entirely), a handful of close friends, and a larger, vaguer circle of people who seem undeterred by my rejections and text me anyway to see if I want to hang out.
But for most of my life, I haven’t felt like trying very hard to make sure I have the proper number of friends. And I understand that it’s the missing desire that makes me odd.
I still feel that urge to prove to the schooled world that homeschoolers are just like everyone else. We have all the same dreams and goals and successes. We can do everything you can. We want to do all the same things that you want to do.
Except that I don’t. So I feel guilty, and I get a little more social with time. Sometimes I catch myself thinking, “I really want to hang out with some people tonight.” Which makes me wonder what I’ve become. I’m twenty-four. I’ve been to college and grad school and I live in Manhattan now. I’m influenced by my environment. My homeschooled self adapts, and sometimes gives way. Who knows. Maybe one day I’ll throw a party.
Ugh. Maybe not.
(who could resist? source)
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Wild fun list: Run down the street. You get where you’re going faster, and people look at you and wonder about you and it’s very freeing.
[…] New post on Un-schooled, about socialization and how bad I am at […]
I guess being both an introvert-type and unschooled only compounds the problem. I’m only an introvert and, yeah, I pretty much don’t make friends in the cattle-call-let-me-prove-I’m-a-success kind of way. So this resonates with me even though I wasn’t unschooled. I hadn’t realized that the pressure to be extroverted was as great if not greater than it was in public HS. I’ve been reading Introvert’s Corner (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-introverts-corner) and, well, your post reminded me of it.
I’m the same! I need a lot of alone time. Maybe because I’m used to it – though I wasn’t home-schooled, I was always a bit of an outsider, hanging out with the small group of other nerds, during high school. I developed a complete circle of friends (as in, a bunch of friends that are all friends with each other vs. a bunch of singleton friends that don’t know each other) only when I went to college. And I love those people, and I love spending time with them! But I find that I’m also quite happy on my own, just knowing they are there and we could meet whenever we wanted. I guess people’s demands for socialization are just different depending on personality, and it has only marginally to do with home-schooling.
Just marked your topic. Nice information.
Lovely post. My husband, myself, and our daughter are all pretty anti social. She often comments that she doesn’t have the energy or desire to keep up with a great deal of relationships. She is just turning 12 by the way. She’s perfectly ok with one good friend. She likes to be alone as do her daddy and I. It isn’t the “norm” but it’s the norm for our house so I suppose it’s maybe easier. As a homeschooling mom though, I do find myself constantly asking her if she’s ok, lonely, wants to join this or that. All the while secretly hoping the answer is no because the idea isn’t attractive to me. I’d get her involved if she was desirious of it, but she isn’t so it works out well for us all. I think it’s much healthier to be comfortable in your alone-ness. It is the insecure folks who can’t stand to be alone with themselves. I found you through http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/ and look forward to reading more.
Great comment! I’m really, really hoping my kids turn out quiet and nerdy and never want to play sports. I don’t know what I’ll do otherwise. Maybe send them over to my brothers.
Thanks for reading!
Great post Kate. Knowing how to be alone is an art in itself. Check out this video about how to be alone
http://radiofreeschool.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-to-be-alone.html
Ms. Kate, I love this post. You’re honest and have made me look the socialization issue from a different perspective. Homeschoolers shouldn’t feel pressured to socialize all the time when they don’t feel the need to. I didn’t realize that homeschooling parents might fear the “weird and socially awkward”label a little too much that they might try to schedule too much socialization time for the children. It’s actually like surrendering to peer pressure (or pressure from non-homeschooling parents). Better to teach children to be brave enough to be themselves.
I think it’s just different people. I went to school and I’m incredibly anti-social. I actually kind of tend to blame school for that, because people were jerks to me in school. But really, I think that’s just who I am.
I’m pretty sure this has just about nothing to do with the fact that you were homeschooled, because I went to a very typical white-bread all-american Adirondack public high school for my entire life (I, though, am not white bread–vegetarian, Hindu, Indian). It was pretty close to a perfect “typical elementary/middle/high school” situation but I found that a lot of bright/introspective kids were totally fine with being alone and got sick of groups. In elementary school I was barely ever friends with more then 4 people in my class in any year, and then I had a few friends from dance, and a few more. I’m an only child so I’m completely fine with being alone. In high school I started to have best friends for the first time, and now in college when I went to frats in the first 2 months (because every freshmen goes to frats in the first two months) I had to force myself to go out for Halloween even though I really, really, did not feel like social interaction (I also don’t drink, so they’re pretty boring unless I’m in the mood to dance). I have felt at least 3 times this first semester that I was being “forced to party” and I would much rather sit in my room and read Huffington Post articles and watch NBC comedies on Hulu.
After talking with some of my friends who seem to NEED other people around them AT ALL TIMES I think it is definitely purely a question of personality and not schooling (or siblings, for that matter, I got that all the time–OMG YOU MUST BE SO LONELY)