When I think about it, I know almost no one of my generation who doesn't have a story about a school trauma with a teacher or other students that affected their self-image for at least a period of their youth, if not beyond. I've come to the conclusion that this is mostly because schools, especially middle schools and high schools, become their own mini-societies, however unnatural a society made of up people of all one age and maturity level is in comparison to the so-called "real world". Thus, the culture of the peer group and the school becomes the "real world" almost completely to a middle schooler or a high schooler. Just at the age when they are supposed to separating to a degree from their families and realizing their own individuality, they are thrust into a daily world where some of the most shallow "values" are used to judge them and, inevitably, many come to judge themselves negatively accordingly.

Parents who homeschool and don't offer up their children to the prevailing culture of pre-adolescence and adolescence are often though to be over-protective and trying to shelter their children from "reality". However, I contend that since adolescent school culture only lasts for a few years and then thrusts young people who have been almost wholly pre-occupied by ideas and issues which will have virtually no future value in helping them lead productive adult lives, that homeschooling is perhaps not as odd as it seems to some.

I am putting the question of academic achievement entirely aside, and thinking only about the personal and social skills a young person needs to create a worthwhile adulthood. If homeschooling parents, while providing a quality education at home, arrange and allow for opportunities for their child to meet and interact with other children and adults of different ages, backgrounds, and interests, that child would, to my mind, have a much greater advantage in his adulthood than someone who has spent almost all day, every day, until age 18 with others with not much more, and maybe far less, wisdom.

Of course, there will always be parents whose children are much better off in school, in almost any school, than being home with their parents, if the parents have alcohol, drug, mental, or emotional problems. But, for many others, it might be worth giving some thought to the advantages of giving their child the time, the space, and the autonomy to develop into their own unique self, without the warping pressure of modern adolescent culture.