Who I Am: Homeschooled, Part Three

So when did it all start to go wrong? At what point did the last tattered remnants of normalcy unravel in my family, revealing the rot and decay that festered beneath? As I reflect on my childhood, I think the potential for and the early growth of the spiritual and emotional canker that plagued us was established long before my family joined the fundamentalist Baptist community, but becoming fundy and moving into the homeschooling universe certainly accelerated the decay.

Who I Am: Homeschooled, Part Two

In my previous post, I described the frustration I feel when people within the homeschooling community insist that all homeschooling parents are well-intentioned and would never willfully harm their children through their religious beliefs and homeschooling practices. And I'm concerned about the long-ranging effects of these denials--I'm strong enough now and have gained the perspective necessary to withstand the assault on my reality, but I worry about others: for those who are yet unable to escape the system or those who are newly-liberated from it and still struggling to make sense of their feelings of betrayal and hurt, the denials from the homeschooling community can feel a little like gas-lighting by proxy, if that makes sense.

This is why I must tell my story. There are myriad tales of homeschooling horror on the web, and I will add mine to that dismal collection in hopes of validating what many others out there must feel when they reflect on their homeschool experience and wonder if they have a right to their anger and confusion.

In this post I will sketch out the background of my family's move to homeschooling and how our involvement in the system evolved over the years. In later posts, I'll examine how this process affected my family and contributed to the eventual disintegration of my relationship with them.