Non-exclusive homeschooling

My friend S and I were talking about how we like homeschooling groups that are inclusive. She and I are of completely different religious and political perspectives; in fact, we are as different as night and day in many aspects. But the one thing that we agree on is that we want our kids around all kinds of different people, and we don’t limit ourselves to “just homeschoolers.”

You’ll find some homeschoolers that do. I think these people are rare, but you’ll find even more people who prefer to do things with homeschoolers even when they don’t limit themselves to just our community. There are even homeschooling classifieds where you can find a plumber, pet walker or piano teacher who is homeschool friendly or Christian (to some people, these things seem to mean the same thing…). These ads have been helpful to us—I’ve gotten a lot of freebies through them—but they do illustrate how exclusive our community can be.

We partake in after-school sports, Scouts and clubs on purpose. Yes, we can do the homeschool classes much more cheaply—and sometimes that’s a bit help—but we’ll just end up seeing the same kids we see everywhere else, and how is that different from a classroom setting? Wood Sprite makes friends wherever she goes, and I’ll not take that away from her (I sound like an extra from Game of Thrones—can you tell what I’ve been reading?) just so we can stay in an exclusive homeschooling community. I want her to learn from being immersed in the entire community.

What do you do? Do you stick with just homeschooling activities or do you go beyond that? Why?

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