End of Day Review
1. Having a baby born in October is a great way to increase the number of homeschooling conversations you have. (Co-worker: “She was born in October? That’s too bad; she’ll have to wait a whole year to start school.” Me, not remembering that this is not the time or the place to wax crunchy: “Mmm? Oh, we’ll be homeschooling, so it won’t matter.”)
2. Criticisms of homeschoolers can stand without proof, but it was totally unreasonable of me to accuse public school students of showing ill effects from spending all day with their agemates. It’s not like there’s any alternative to spending all day with kids your own age, so it must be ok.
3. Homeschooling is the weirdest of the Weird Crunchy Things That Only Nutcases Do. Weirder than cloth diapering, home birthing, breastfeeding, or milling your own wheat. My co-workers know I do all these things and while it makes me interesting, they don’t freak out or anything. But homeschooling? Totally different conversation. Which brings me to point #3…
4. I have the courage of a peanut when I’m confronted with opposition to homeschooling. I think I actually said, “Well, we aren’t really sure yet,” at one point in hopes of cutting the unpleasant barrage of socialization lectures short. Please don’t tell them I bought 5th and 6th grade math books already, ok?
5. Conversations about homeschooling inevitably lead to conversations about octuplets. Maybe I’ll remember that next time and bring it up myself to speed things along a little. (“Hey! You know what’s even weirder than a homeschooler?”)
Family of N 
LOL. Poor La.
I can’t believe you said you weren’t sure. JunkMale says that I’m not allowed to ever say something like that, so I’d better think of an alternative response….
Of course, the vast majority of my social life revolves around church – where we’ll be at least the seventh family (out of about 30) to attempt homeschooling. Three or four of the families have put the kids in school for one reason or another, but it’s still very well-accepted.
You could point out some homeschooled success stories. According to this site the list includes Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, C. S. Lewis, and many others. If they follow college football, they’d have to be impressed that Tim Tebow (U. of Florida) was homeschooled. Just tell them to check back in about 18 years to see how it’s going.
Harmony, I can’t believe I said that, either. I was immediately uncomfortable when the subject came up, because as soon as the word “homeschooling” came out of my mouth, my coworker asked, “So you’re going to be a stay-at-home mom?” I really don’t want to burn any bridges at work by hinting that they should find someone to replace me in 5 years. For all I know, we’ll need me to keep my job and let the Professor teach Savannah. Or something else. Maybe in this economy we won’t even be able to find a plan that allows us to homeschool. Whatever the case, I don’t feel like it’s wise or appropriate to spend a lot of time discussing topics that lead folks to question whether I should be the first to go in a layoff situation.
I also was beginning to realize that a conversation persuading them of homeschooling’s virtues would have taken longer than reasonable office chat should take. Plus I had already missed my appointment to pump milk for Savannah and was running out of time before the next girl would need the room. So my hurry and stress from all of that make it a real Pass the Bean Dip moment, and yet there was no bean dip to be found. 😛
At church it hasn’t been an issue, because our minister homeschools, and the minister of a smaller nearby congregation that we support homeschools, and one of our children’s ministry coordinators homeschools, and one of our music ministers homeschools. These families in particular are pretty visible and well-respected, so announcements about homeschooling tend to be met with friendly responses.