OK, confession time: I was home-schooled for my entire life (until I started dual-enrolling at college last year). On the spectrum of home-schoolers, I believe that I ranked higher on the normal-social-life scale because I attended a lot of hybrid schools and outside activities as a high schooler.
However, there are still a few unavoidable quirks and circumstances that I grew up with because of homeschooling. I have compiled a list of these unique experiences, based on my own life and the lives of some of the other homeschoolers that I’ve met in various circles over the years. I’ll admit, some of these are slightly over exaggerated. But if you were home-schooled too, then you’ll understand the essence behind these circumstances in a way that no one else really can.
1. You have the whole “I was home-schooled, but I’m not one of those I swear” speech scripted out as a response to anyone who asks where you went to high school.
2. You still work very hard to stay on top of trends that sometimes make no sense to you, just so you won’t become one of those.
3. Blimey Cow was your jam on YouTube, back in the day.
4. So was Tim Hawkins.
5. Time management in college is actually pretty easy for you nowadays.
This is because back in high school, you did online classes on a regular basis and arranged your schedule around classes that only met once or twice a week.
6. You’ve been to every museum in your city, at least, five times because you used to go on “field trips” with your family.
7. You first learned how to handle diversity by having friendly discussions with people from other church denominations.
8. You know an unnecessary amount of information about obscure historical facts, like the fact that the ancient Phoenicians made purple dye for clothing by boiling snails.
(I just now found that in the recesses of my mind from my early home-school days).
9. You understand the difference between a co-op and a hybrid school.
10. The extent of your partying experience in high school was playing Apples to Apples with your co-op buddies until 10 p.m., while listening to Coldplay, Dubstep music and TobyMac.
11. The same 10 people in your friend circle got into relationships over and over again in high school (usually with each other).
There weren’t any other good options besides these few people, so you didn’t really bother.
12. If you did happen to get into a relationship, it was superbly awkward because you only saw each other at co-op every two weeks.
Plus, neither of you had cell phones, so you had to use email to communicate.
13. A Beka Books were the bane of your existence at some point in time.
14. The first PG-13 rated movie that you ever saw was the first "Lord of the Rings."
15. The first R-rated movie that you ever saw was "The Passion of the Christ."
16. You have at least three siblings.
17. Your family owns a conversion van.
18. You learned how to drive in said van.
19. At some point in time, you learned how to play piano from a teacher who also home-schooled her children.
20. You were friends with several people who were a lot older or a lot younger than you, but you all got along fabulously.
21. By 10th grade, you basically learned how to teach everything to yourself.
YouTube tutorials for math were your best friend.
22. You and your friends didn’t know where babies come from until about sixth or seventh grade.
But it was OK, because you were all oblivious together.
23. It was fun to go out in public with other home-schooled friends on a school day during school hours because everyone would get so confused.
24. Your mom had to have the legal “Intent to Home-School” documentation with her whenever you and your siblings accompanied her on errands on weekday mornings.
This was just in case someone official asked why you were out in public on a school day, or in case a store offered a teacher's discount.
25. You’ve eaten enough whole wheat, homemade bread to last a lifetime.
26. As you started to go to outside programs and co-ops more frequently, you began to realize that you were part of a strange alternate culture.
You also learned that everyone somehow knew everyone in the home-school world and that the same people and their siblings would unintentionally follow you from program to program, for better or for worse.
