But what about socialization?

When I tell people that I’m a homeschool mom their first words are “... but what about socialization?” and at the beginning of our journey it made me uncomfortable because I felt I had to justify my decision. Two years later and I’m ready for the question because I love telling the story of Kind Screamer’s 8th birthday party. And when I saw that a friend posted a meme (credit to The Homeschool Resource Map) related to socialization I thought it deserved its own blog post.

The meme makes me laugh out loud every time I read it because it’s TRUE.

When we decided to pursue home education, socialization was the last thing I thought about. And that’s because we didn’t really have a “social” life when Kind Screamer was in school.

Let me backup a little.

Kind Screamer was around people. But he didn’t have meaningful relationships aside from our neighbor who was his classmate. And in all honesty I didn’t think about that because I was worried about how to fit more hours in the day so we could do every class or activity that promised to advance KS in an academic sort of way.

KS was enrolled in a small Montessori school and we were invited to a few birthday parties but we never had consistent playdates with his classmates. As a result, the birthday parties we did attend were always an introductory event. I would introduce myself to the parents as KS’s mom and we would run through the basics of our families, work lives and other key aspects that would make us stay or run away. I don’t know why but I usually ran away.

Everyone was pleasant and all of us wanted the “best” for our children and believed, to a certain extent, in the freedom that Montessori philosophy exerts to the children. Yet, we could not find a stronger bond that would make us take the next step of investing time outside of the school setup. But we didn’t really have to because the birthday parties never afforded us enough time to go beyond the introductory stage. There was always a rushed sensation of cramming-as-much-information-as-needed followed by a rushed goodbye and, before we knew it, it was time to leave. Wheewwww!! It was exhausting.

Fast forward to 2020 and socialization was still not on my radar. The world was shut down. I was worried about the curriculum, structure and whether home education was the right decision for our family—my heart knew it was. So I went into overdrive looking for homeschool groups that could help me fine tune my choices. And thanks to the advent of social media I joined every group that seemed relevant at the time.

I was lucky enough to find a group that had park dates scheduled every thursday. We attended our first park day in May of 2020. Park days saved me. It sounds like I’m talking a lot about me and the reality is that my kids were happy to be outside and had no trouble making friends. I was the one that needed to get over my insecurities and get out there. Yet, I wasn’t looking for one-time friends, I was looking for a community. I was looking for homeschool families that were similar to ours (bilingual/multicultural) or at least understood and appreciated our backgrounds and that sounded intimidating. But I followed Jim’s (our neighbor who homeschooled and graduated their three children) advice, he said:

“It takes time [to find your tribe] but keep trying…”

And boy he was right. At first, park days were the highlight of my week. I found veteran homeschoolers willing to share their experience, their knowledge on different curriculums and anything in between. I also found “pandemic” homeschoolers that made me realize that I wasn’t alone in this journey. And most importantly that we didn’t have to do it alone. Our tribe was slowly taking shape.

Park days morphed into recurrent play dates, museum days and impromptu park days and, best of all, monthly mom’s night out!! yayyyyy. I tell you that there are no better conversations than the ones between homeschool moms!!!

We kept trying and thanks to that we were able to plan KS's birthday party in less than three days. In the old school days I had to invite people a month in advance. This year, I texted our friends on Monday night for a Wednesday afternoon party. You are probably thinking of my horrible planning abilities and that I’m the worst mom ever but I was out of town working and KS's birthday is at the beginning of January and I hadn’t recovered from Christmas yet. But Sweet Papa was on top of it and within a few hours we had a venue and messages confirming everyone’s attendance (8 adults and 18 children). Our friends were happy to switch their day around so they could celebrate KS’s 8th birthday with us.

KS's birthday was marvelous and we had zero stress about throwing the perfect party. Why? Well, the venue did most of the work but it was truly a celebration with friends. These are the same friends that we go hiking with and the friends we love going to the beach and the park. All of us moms are friends and we love and are genuinely interested in each other's children. We share ideas, good days and bad times. The latter has made me realize how important it is to not get caught up in the picture perfect images that I and society want me to be part of.

I could go on about how home education has increased our “socialization” but I won’t bore you to death. Instead, I invite you to reflect on the type of friends you want to surround your family with and what “socialization” actually means to you and your family. Keep trying because your tribe is out there–waiting for you.

Have an amazing and twisty journey with the people that matter the most to you :-)