The Bitter Homeschooler's Wist List

I love this list! The link is in the title if you want to go to the source. I also included the link for issue 1 as it was posted.

I can't decide between #2, 11 and 12 for my favorite, though they are all good.

The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List

by Deborah Markus, from Secular Homeschooling, Issue #1, Fall 2007

1 Please stop asking us if it's legal. If it is — and it is — it's insulting to imply that we're criminals. And if we were criminals, would we admit it?

2 Learn what the words "socialize" and "socialization" mean, and use the one you really mean instead of mixing them up the way you do now. Socializing means hanging out with other people for fun. Socialization means having acquired the skills necessary to do so successfully and pleasantly. If you're talking to me and my kids, that means that we do in fact go outside now and then to visit the other human beings on the planet, and you can safely assume that we've got a decent grasp of both concepts.

3 Quit interrupting my kid at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir practice, baseball game, art class, field trip, park day, music class, 4H club, or soccer lesson to ask her if as a homeschooler she ever gets to socialize.

4 Don't assume that every homeschooler you meet is homeschooling for the same reasons and in the same way as that one homeschooler you know.

5 If that homeschooler you know is actually someone you saw on TV, either on the news or on a "reality" show, the above goes double.

6 Please stop telling us horror stories about the homeschoolers you know, know of, or think you might know who ruined their lives by homeschooling. You're probably the same little bluebird of happiness whose hobby is running up to pregnant women and inducing premature labor by telling them every ghastly birth story you've ever heard. We all hate you, so please go away.

7 We don't look horrified and start quizzing your kids when we hear they're in public school. Please stop drilling our children like potential oil fields to see if we're doing what you consider an adequate job of homeschooling.

8 Stop assuming all homeschoolers are religious.

9 Stop assuming that if we're religious, we must be homeschooling for religious reasons.

10 We didn't go through all the reading, learning, thinking, weighing of options, experimenting, and worrying that goes into homeschooling just to annoy you. Really. This was a deeply personal decision, tailored to the specifics of our family. Stop taking the bare fact of our being homeschoolers as either an affront or a judgment about your own educational decisions.

11 Please stop questioning my competency and demanding to see my credentials. I didn't have to complete a course in catering to successfully cook dinner for my family; I don't need a degree in teaching to educate my children. If spending at least twelve years in the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we call public school left me with so little information in my memory banks that I can't teach the basics of an elementary education to my nearest and dearest, maybe there's a reason I'm so reluctant to send my child to school.

12 If my kid's only six and you ask me with a straight face how I can possibly teach him what he'd learn in school, please understand that you're calling me an idiot. Don't act shocked if I decide to respond in kind.

13 Stop assuming that because the word "home" is right there in "homeschool," we never leave the house. We're the ones who go to the amusement parks, museums, and zoos in the middle of the week and in the off-season and laugh at you because you have to go on weekends and holidays when it's crowded and icky.

14 Stop assuming that because the word "school" is right there in homeschool, we must sit around at a desk for six or eight hours every day, just like your kid does. Even if we're into the "school" side of education — and many of us prefer a more organic approach — we can burn through a lot of material a lot more efficiently, because we don't have to gear our lessons to the lowest common denominator.

15 Stop asking, "But what about the Prom?" Even if the idea that my kid might not be able to indulge in a night of over-hyped, over-priced revelry was enough to break my heart, plenty of kids who do go to school don't get to go to the Prom. For all you know, I'm one of them. I might still be bitter about it. So go be shallow somewhere else.

16 Don't ask my kid if she wouldn't rather go to school unless you don't mind if I ask your kid if he wouldn't rather stay home and get some sleep now and then.

17 Stop saying, "Oh, I could never homeschool!" Even if you think it's some kind of compliment, it sounds more like you're horrified. One of these days, I won't bother disagreeing with you any more.

18 If you can remember anything from chemistry or calculus class, you're allowed to ask how we'll teach these subjects to our kids. If you can't, thank you for the reassurance that we couldn't possibly do a worse job than your teachers did, and might even do a better one.

19 Stop asking about how hard it must be to be my child's teacher as well as her parent. I don't see much difference between bossing my kid around academically and bossing him around the way I do about everything else.

20 Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he's homeschooled. It's not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood.

21 Quit assuming that my kid must be some kind of prodigy because she's homeschooled.

22 Quit assuming that I must be some kind of prodigy because I homeschool my kids.

23 Quit assuming that I must be some kind of saint because I homeschool my kids.

24 Stop talking about all the great childhood memories my kids won't get because they don't go to school, unless you want me to start asking about all the not-so-great childhood memories you have because you went to school.

25 Here's a thought: If you can't say something nice about homeschooling, shut up!

New Surgeon, New Outlook

I am so very glad that a fellow homeschooling mom told me about the Thyroid Clinic at a local teaching hospital. I had resigned myself to needing surgery because this tumor is not going to go away on its own, and whether it is cancer or not at some point it will be big enough to cause problems since there isn't a whole lot of space in the neck.

This surgeon had a very different approach than the first surgeon. He started by coming into the room and sitting down and being relaxed about the whole thing as he talked with us. He said there are 2 ways we can go at this point. One is to remove the tumor and see if it is cancer, the other is to wait and see if it grows enough to be a problem. His feeling is that the tumor probably grew a lot during my pregnancy with Corbin, and it may shrink a little once he stops nursing. He said some people hear cancer and want it removed immediately, and others want to take a wait and see approach. He said either option is fine. Thyroid cancer is one of the easiest to treat with such a high cure rate that waiting really is not a problem.

If I do opt for surgery he would only remove the half with the tumor, which would give me a 60-70% chance of not needing thyroid medicine. He said it it common for the thyroid to not work as well as we age, and with my family history I may end up needing thyroid meds anyway whether the tumor is removed or not. My ND pointed out at my appt with her that chances are with the tumor as large as it is, the left side probably isn't functioning properly for me now anyway and with it gone I may be fine. (It also helped to find a couple friends who have been on thyroid medication for years and who are both doing well. It gives me hope that I won't become like my mother - though that genetic link is still there...)

The surgeon is very willing to work with me on making the surgery as non-disruptive as we can. I will not have to stay in the hospital overnight unless there is a problem and while it is best to avoid nursing for 24 hours, Corbin's night time nursing may be ok after pumping + dumping for the day - we can find an anesthesia that will be out of my system by then and/or be one that is ok for babies who go in for surgery.

If the tumor is cancer (20-30% chance right now and they will not be able to tell until it is removed), then chances are just the one surgery will take care of it. In the surgeon's opinion radioactive iodine is overused and a lot of people are so concerned about squashing any possibility of cancer that they take things farther than is necessary. If I want to go with just removing the one side and stop treatment after that, it should not be a problem.

The one caveat to this whole wait and see thing is the opinion of the pathologists upon viewing my biopsy slides. If they say it should come out, then we go with what they say. If they are not concerned, then I go in for an ultrasound in May to see if the tumor has changed - assuming I don't have any symptoms before then.

I figure May is a good time to go in. My fertility tends to come back about 12 months after baby is born, so May is perfect timing to see if hormonal changes make a difference with this tumor. Also, Corbin will be eating solid food by then and can more easily skip nursing if I have surgery.

If I get pregnant again, there is a good chance it would make the tumor grow, so I may opt for getting it out this summer anyway since fall would be about when I can expect to be expecting again - assuming my pattern of the last 14 years continues.

One surgeon down one to go. Unfortunately I have to wait until the 30th for my other appt. So far I am not sold. I must be losing my edge too because I only asked one question with the "that's a good question" answer.

Why is it so hard for doctors to realize that people don't like being talked down to? Or maybe people like surgeons or doctors to talk down to them and I am just odd. I suppose he wasn't too bad. He literally talked down to Jeff and I with his arms crossed over his chest for a while even. Eventually he sat down and answered a couple more questions, but that was when I asked specifics about how the surgery would go and he had to be lower to show how they would cut.

I am not an idiot. I know that if I have cancer this is one of the better ones to get. However, just because "a lot" of people are on thyroid medication does not mean my concerns are unjustified. After I talk to the next surgeon I will have a better idea about some of the things that he said that were off to me too. My research indicated different percentages and to say things like I won't have take medication with a subtotal thyroidectomy seems almost like lying or being ill-informed. There is a chance that I won't have to, but it isn't even 50% from what I have read. I guess since this surgeon's opinion is to do a total thyroidectomy whether benign or malignant with radio-active iodine treatment if it is malignant, it doesn't matter if the remaining thyroid will work or not. Since the next surgeon specializes in thyroid and parathyroid issues and works at a teaching hospital I should get a good feel for whether I am off-base or the surgeon from today was.

I also didn't particularly appreciate being told that he sees far worse cases of cancer on a regular basis in a way that implied I was being unreasonable with not wanting to do things his way. Also humorous was "I'm sure we can manage to get the dosage correct" and then having to admit that he would have nothing to do with managing the medication. He was quick to brush off my questions about what anesthesia they will use (other than a 'general anesthesia') because medications are not his specialty, but he's sure "we" can manage to get the dosage correct. Yeah right. My mother who has hypothyroid has always had issues no matter what they do with her medication, but I suppose she is a 'special' case and chances are I would be fine despite the whole genetic link and my 'luck' being terrible.

As much as I am complaining, he wasn't too terrible. Possibly not up-to-date on thyroid issues, but since he is a general and oncologic surgeon I wouldn't expect him to be a thyroid specialist. I am not ruling him out for sure as my surgeon, I just need more information. He is open to emails, so I can get my questions answered and maybe his email-manner is better than his bedside-manner.

One positive thing I learned is the dye test is not a good idea for me with a nursing baby - nor is the radioactive iodine, but that battle doesn't need to be fought yet. I hadn't thought about how long the dye would be in my system and he let me know that those tests are so inconclusive they rarely bother with them for this issue anymore anyway.

Now I have to figure out if I keep my appt with my ND to talk about what I have learned so far and discuss options next week or if I should push it back until after I talk with the other surgeon.

I am also hoping to hear back from the acupuncture student. She was going to be working with an Endocrinologist today and said she would ask him about what I've got going on. Though I am more interested in what her acupuncture supervisor has to say.

I was recently diagnosed with a follicular neoplasm, which may or may not be malignant. At this point the next "step" is surgery. However I can't help but think of this as mutilating my body with a 70% chance of causing a life-long disease (hypothyroidism) for a 15% chance of removing a malignant growth. I am really struggling with the idea of being a slave to pharmaceuticals for the rest of my life on the off chance that I actually do have cancer. It makes me think of other medical practices we now call barbaric, but that at the time were considered normal. I know, I've heard "doctors have gone to school and do this kind of thing regularly and therefore must know what they are doing"... I just can't get on that bandwagon. It's not that I think doctors are unintelligent or willfully doing wrong (quite the opposite actually), it is that the whole medical system seems...off to me.

I am meeting with one surgeon tomorrow and I hope to get to meet with another by next week so that I can get their perspective. I am doing my best to be open to the best option out there with medicine as it is now. I will go through the motions for now and ask questions that will undoubtedly make the surgeons and doctors look at me funny (anytime I am in a situation where I have to deal with 'professionals' I always get at least one answer of "that is a really good question, I will have to get back to you") and we'll see how it goes. At least Jeff will be there to keep me grounded. I do tend to make drs uncomfortable when they find out that I am not the kind of person to do whatever they say without question.

I intend to continue working with the acupuncture student who originally diagnosed a problem (she is a Nurse Practitioner getting her LAc) as well as my family ND who knows me very well and delivered my last 3 babies, so that should help. Though I have a feeling both of them are more inclined towards Western medicine than I am.


Between having a new baby in April, my brother's sudden death this summer and now this I am feeling overwhelmed. God, I could really use a year or so of boredom in my life. I would even take no major crisis, or even just the usual stuff I've already been dealing with. I kinda wish this were like a movie where I could have my epiphany moment and then live happily ever after. I don't want or need more excitement, though I know it is coming whether I like it or not.

Whew! Finally blogger decided to let me sign in. I guess they decided to stop fighting people who have yahoo email addresses.

Though now the kids are up and needing attention. Hopefully next time I sign in it will work quickly.

Can it be July 19th again, please? I promise to redo that day to make it better, more memorable. Or even the 18th or the few days before. I'll redo the kids throwing up even, just to get back that world. I like that one better.

What does an unschooling "school" day look like?

For my family that question has many answers. Yesterday my 4 and 2 year olds started the day with playing Reader Rabbit Kindergarten where they worked on letter sounds and basic words. Then my 7 year old got on the computer and played a game for her age where she was working on phonograms and sentence structure with my 9 year old watching over her shoulder. Later all the girls went outside to jump on the trampoline and play "house." In their imaginary world one is "Mom" and the others are "Sister" or they are friends or other characters just living through a normal day - when my boys do this kind of play there are always explosions, secret agents and shooting in one form or another, just one of those differences between boys and girls.
While the girls were off in their own world, my 11 year old played Oblivion (an open world medieval game similar to World of Warcraft, but played as a single player and not online). He has been struggling with the patience required in this game. In order to accomplish missions, he has to talk to people to find the clues he needs to advance in the story. Once Damien figures out what he needs to do, he wants to do it immediately not ask around for the clues needed to figure out how to break into the castle or defeat the monster. He gets a double dose of delayed gratification skills with this game because he has to first do his chores to be able to play, then take time to figure out what to do in the game - a skill he definitely needs work on too. Then came the sharing skills as my 9 year old got a turn to play Lego Batman. For Zachery playing the game helps his hand-eye coordination (something his optometrist recommends, though I can't handle the video games every day), puzzle solving skills, money skills (collecting and spending 'studs' on characters and equipment), cooperation skills as he asks siblings to step in for a short time to help so that he doesn't have to wait for the computer to help or switch characters and delayed gratification as he saves to buy certain items. Both of the games have these kinds of lessons as well as many more (in Oblivion the thing you choose to say or do to a character will determine how much or little they will help you - if you are mean, you get less help).
Then, since it was Daddy's night out with friends, the kids finished an animated Batman movie. It was based upon a comic series, so when Daddy got home we talked about the choices that were made by the writers as well as the characters. The fans didn't like a certain character, so the writers killed him off, which shocked the fans so then the writers made this story arc to try and satisfy the fans. From what I understand it worked. The characters were not 2-dimensional, they had a past and you could see where their future was headed. Also, Batman had to face the consequences of his choices and rise above the temptation to kill a really bad guy. He ended up looking back and recognizing that while he made mistakes, he could still appreciate the good times before things fell apart and hope for a future where a certain friend would make better choices. All great discussion starters.


Since I had work to do that I had procrastinated for months, I let the kids have free reign over the tv and computer once their chores were done. Typically I don't have the tv on during the day because it distracts and bothers me and I don't think it is healthy to be in front of all day. However, there are times when the tv/computer are useful.