If I had been in a normal high school I would have noticed that other people lived differently. I also would have been around mandatory reporters who would have noticed my Dad’s obvious psychosis and the emotional, spiritual and psychological abuse I lived with. But instead, I didn’t even have a close friend to confide things to. And if anybody ever saw something concerning, nobody ever said a word.
I have never had so many emotions as those that flowed through me when I heard that Josh Duggar had finally been brought to justice. I actually got on the phone with my best friend to rant and celebrate, because I had a situation very similar to the one the Duggars had.
On the one hand, I loved being homeschooled. Being homeschooled saved me from what my experience of school had been up to that point. But looking back, it didn’t help in the long run.
I was born to two very Christian people. When I was born, my father was a Lutheran minister and my mother was a nurse. I was long awaited and I cannot doubt that I was dearly loved. When I was a toddler, my dad left his ministerial job and we left the Lutheran church because he had become convinced that ministers should not accept a salary and had made friends with a local Mennonite pastor. Before long we were wearing long skirts all the time and my mom and I stopped cutting our hair, and she began to wear a head covering.
When the time came for me to enter school, I was put into a private Christian school. It was a good school, but by the time I was in the 3rd grade or so my reading level was far above the normal, so I was regularly bored in class. I also was missing out on all the cultural aspects of being a child since we didn’t have cable anymore, and I wasn’t allowed to read the same book as everyone else, This which meant I was increasingly socially inept.
By 4th grade my parents no longer liked the ‘increasingly worldly’ culture of the school, so I was moved to the church school run by the Mennonite church. That year was a disaster. Even though I had begun to wear the proper long, loose dresses and a head covering, I was still on the outside…before I had been too sheltered, now I was too worldly and not related. I was openly bullied by the girls in my class for a whole year while the teacher watched impassively.
So when my parents suggested we homeschool, I was understandably relieved. Finally I could go at my own speed and not have to worry about other people.
The first years were everything homeschooling should be: fun, challenging, personalized. I had a few friends I’d kept through school and I made some more at the local homeschool group. We didn’t get together often, but when we did it was a blast. But as I went into high school, it got much worse, very quickly. I slammed into Pre-Algebra like a brick wall and couldn’t get past it. I spent 3 years trying to learn Pre-Algebra and Algebra, including about 4 or 5 curriculums. It just didn’t click. Finally, Dad just told us to stop bothering, so technically I had enough Math credits to graduate, but I never actually learned the normal math everyone learns in high school.
Meanwhile, though, I was happily doing high level sciences that didn’t require Math. I did lots of dissections and killed Human Anatomy. I loved Literature and History. When I got tired of Western history, Mom found me an African History book to use in 10th grade, and it was wonderful.
But on a social front, I had no friends at all. Sure, there were people I talked to at the homeschool group, but the couple of times I tried to have a deep conversation, it was met with subject changes or being ghosted. Most of my friends were from big families, and they didn’t really need me anyway. I was just an only child: socially awkward, nerdy even for a homeschooler, and still out of touch with anything really age appropriate. My Dad totally flipped out the few times he realized I had a crush on a boy, telling me that everyone would think I was a slut. Meanwhile, he actively sabotaged few friendships by telling me that my friends were too worldly, too boy crazy, or had the ‘Jezebel’ spirit… because at some point when I was a teenager Dad started reading lots of conspiracy theorists and hardcore Pentecostals. He decided that the whole world was controlled by the Illuminati and that he was a prophet who could sense demons on people and predict what they would do. He occasionally attempted exorcisms on me or my mom when he thought we were being influenced… which mostly just meant we were in a bad mood.
By 11th grade I was done with school and asked to combine the last two years of school, which they, of course, agreed to. It was just as much of a disaster as you might expect, in which I did no official Math or Science and did basically the equivalent of a year’s worth of literature, foreign language, and history. We moved a couple of months in and all schooling basically stopped, until I officially graduated.
Meanwhile, my Dad had become endlessly paranoid and controlling. I had basically no friends, neither did my mom, and home became a nightmare.
If I had been in a normal high school I would have noticed that other people lived differently. I also would have been around mandatory reporters who would have noticed my Dad’s obvious psychosis and the emotional, spiritual and psychological abuse I lived with. But instead, I didn’t even have a close friend to confide things to. And if anybody ever saw something concerning, nobody ever said a word.
Finally, as a young adult I left home and spent almost a year in a cloistered monastery. I thought I was discerning a vocation, but actually I was being directed by something or Someone to the first safe place I had ever lived in. Here, I finally began to tell the sisters what I had experienced, and I got in contact with my grandparents. The nuns gently pushed me towards therapy and eventually taught me what love and stable relationships were. I reconnected with my grandparents, who I had been kept from since I was a small child, and who have become some of my greatest supporters. Eventually, I left the monastery, knowing that I wasn’t called there, but that I owe them the world.
I moved in with mom’s parents about 6 months ago and am finally becoming myself. I cut my hair, started wearing jeans, learned to drive, to make friends. There is a boy in my life who I like very much and in fact likes me back, and we both dream of the day that we’re both in a place, emotionally and practically to be in a proper relationship. Until then, we’re just inseparable friends. Now I’m trying to navigate what to do when your transcript is basically worthless and you are staring at a GED. I don’t know what I want to do with myself long term, but I am confident I can do what needs to be done.
This is why we need increased regulations in homeschooling, increased awareness of what child abuse and mental illness look like, and the destruction of loopholes that makes situations like mine and the Duggars go on so long. All it would have taken would have been one person to see what was happening, just enough to be concerned and report it to the authorities.
I remind myself often: I am a survivor. I am brave. I can do this. And maybe I’m just writing this because I am proud of myself.
Abbey Lancaster was homeschooled in Virginia and Ohio from 2011-2017. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Community Voices page.
Posted: 5 July, 2022 by Kieryn Darkwater
Amid calls to homeschool after school shootings, homeschool alumni group urges caution
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
After every mass shooting in a school, homeschool advocates position homeschooling as the answer to protect children from violence. Most recently, the Robb Elementary School mass shooting—which claimed the lives of 19 children and two adults—has provoked renewed interest in homeschooling from concerned parents and the general public. The Coalition for Responsible Home Education (CRHE), the nation’s only nonpartisan advocacy organization founded and run by homeschool alumni to advocate for homeschooled children, believes this is not a viable solution, and urges the public instead to make public schools and homeschools alike safe for the children who depend on them.
Homeschooling is not the solution to protecting children from gun violence. The past decade alone has seen a rise in mass shootings at movie theaters, grocery stores, churches, concerts, and other locations frequented by children. Removing children from school does not guarantee they will not encounter gun violence elsewhere; in fact, homeschooled children like Isaac Miller, Mallory Evans, and Olivia Huggler have been killed by mass shooters in their own homes. Instead, the removal of children from schools only guarantees they will lose access to the services and community schools provide.
Homeschooling does not necessarily protect children from any form of violence. CRHE maintains Homeschooling’s Invisible Children, a database tracking hundreds of cases of child abuse and neglect in homeschooling environments. According to our data, at least 156 homeschooled children have been murdered in homeschooling environments over the past two decades, a rate higher than that of their public-school peers. “Because of the largely deregulated state of homeschooling in the U.S., homeschooled children have no guaranteed access to mandatory reporters, health and wellness services, and other measures that can identify and address problems at home,” said CRHE interim executive director Kieryn Darkwater. “This situation leaves millions of homeschooled children uniquely vulnerable to abuse and neglect with minimal opportunities for intervention.”
Furthermore, homeschooling itself can often be a contributing factor when young people commit violence. Some homeschooled children commit violence against caregivers to escape extreme abuse or a life-threatening situation. These children may feel that they have no one to turn to for help, and that violence is their only option when their lives are at stake.
Other homeschooled children and alumni who commit acts of violence seem to be fueled by the same trends as in society at large—toxic masculinity, white supremacy, alienation—which are then magnified by the homeschool environment. Homeschool alumni have been explicitly trained by their parents to become extremist terrorists or have been radicalized by their homeschool curriculum with tacit approval from their parents. Sometimes homeschooling is used as a “solution” for children who demonstrate violent tendencies, which may then worsen the problem. And for other homeschooled children, the isolation of the homeschool environment may contribute to a sense of disconnection where violence seems like an appealing alternative. The 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School and 2018 Nashville Waffle House shootings, for example, were committed by men who had been homeschooled.
“Our database of homeschooled children and alumni who have committed acts of violence reveals common patterns,” said CRHE research director Dr. Chelsea McCracken. “Not only is homeschooling an ineffective escape from societal problems that affect us all, in some cases it may intensify those problems. As a result, we find that homeschooling works best when it is chosen not out of fear, but as a positive, child-centered approach to education that prepares children for an open future.” In this vein, CRHE’s Bill of Rights for Homeschooled Children, an aspirational vision for the homeschooling movement released in 2021, details an experience that centers the rights and needs of children.
Schools serve an indispensable function in society, offering vital services to millions of children who would not otherwise have access to them. Schools offer comprehensive education, disability and wellness services, sports and recreational opportunities, college and career preparedness, and the chance to form meaningful relationships with peers and mentors. For many children, public schools are the best educational choice available. Instead of abandoning schools in the name of protecting children, we urge parents and policymakers to renew their commitment to making public schools safe. Studies have shown that measures addressing gun violence, poverty, and inequity promote a safer and better society for all children, regardless of how they are educated. Individual educational choices are not a solution to a collective societal problem.
“All children deserve a high-quality education in a safe, supportive environment. Whether a child goes to public school or is homeschooled, there’s a lot that must be done to make sure that child is safe and has everything they need to thrive,” said Darkwater. “As CRHE continues to advocate for the rights and safety of homeschooled children, we fully support the educators and advocates working to improve public schools to best serve children’s needs there.”
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Posted: 21 June, 2022 by Kieryn Darkwater
When Parents Have All The Rights, Children Have None. A Statement from the Interim Executive Director.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
There’s a “parental rights revolution” afoot in America today. Republicans across the U.S. are introducing “Parents’ Bill of Rights” legislation which would enable parents to exercise veto power over every assignment in their children’s curricula and to prevent their children from getting medical assistance without their knowledge. Conservative groups urge their members to “fight for parents’ rights.”
As leader of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, an organization that advocates for homeschooled children and is run by homeschool alumni, I’ve seen all of this before. In the homeschooling movement, which has long been the home base of the most vocal parental rights activists, these ideas have resulted in the complete erosion of child welfare protections and, in some cases, in the deaths of children. Now parental rights extremism is coming for our public school system, and Americans should be very afraid.
For decades, the term “parental rights” was synonymous with the political activities of Michael P. Farris, the founder and current board chair of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). Farris created the advocacy organization ParentalRights.org to promote a constitutional amendment asserting that “The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their children is a fundamental right,” restricted only when “a parental action or decision…would end life.” ParentalRights.org played a key organizing role in the passage of the Florida Parents’ Bill of Rights, which inspired the new federal bill.
Farris was most recently in the news because of a New York Times report alleging that he played a key role in attempts to overthrow the 2020 U.S. presidential election. But since the 1990s, his primary influence on American politics has been to promote the absolute supremacy of parental rights, to the exclusion of the rights and protections of children. Some of this work has spilled over into mainstream politics. For instance, Farris’s opposition to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by every other country in the world, is largely responsible for preventing its ratification in the United States.
But homeschooled children have borne the brunt of Farris’s efforts. Under Farris’s leadership, HSLDA has led efforts to strip away basic legal protections for homeschooled children in every state. Today, it is legal in 48 states for a person convicted of crimes against children to homeschool their own children without any restrictions – even a requirement that their children have contact with mandatory reporters of child abuse. In most states, it is legal to deny one’s child any education at all; in eleven, parents do not even need to notify the local school district of their intent to homeschool their children. When homeschooling parents are arrested for abuse, HSLDA rushes to defend them in court. In 2005, an HSLDA attorney working for Farris said of a father who imprisoned his children in cages, “I think he is a hero.”
The results have been both predictable and tragic. In the absence of necessary legal protections, at least 156 children have been murdered in homeschool settings over the past twenty years, a rate higher than the national average among school-age children. Thanks to a lack of oversight, the thirteen children of homeschooling parents David and Louise Turpin endured horrific abuse for over two decades, including being chained to their beds for months at a time, before one escaped and called for help. After teachers at 14-year-old Teddy Foltz-Tedesco’s school noticed he was being abused and called child protective services, his mother and stepfather withdrew him from school and began homeschooling him to escape scrutiny. His stepfather later murdered him. Raylee Browning, an 8-year-old homeschooled girl in West Virginia, died of sepsis after drinking from a toilet because her father refused her access to water. After registering their son as homeschooled under Kansas law, the parents of 7-year-old Adrian Jones tortured him to death, then fed his body to pigs. Leelah Alcorn’s parents withdrew her from public school to homeschool her as punishment for being trans, cutting her off from all support at school. The isolation and abuse that followed caused her death.
Most parents advocating for parents’ rights today would rightly be appalled by these stories. Yet in the aftermath of these cases, it was outraged parental rights activists who blocked legislative reforms that would have prevented such tragedies from occurring. “At what point should a parent have their rights and freedoms taken away by the government for the betterment of the child?,” asked a West Virginia parent during a successful campaign last year against Raylee’s Law. Another called the law “an infringement on parental rights.” “They think you’re trying to violate their rights, but we’re just trying to protect these kids,” Teddy’s father lamented last year, after a bill based on his son’s case failed repeatedly in the legislature. “It was crazy.”
The Parental Rights Movement, partially led by Michael Farris as head of the Alliance Defending Freedom, is set on ensuring that all children in the US regardless of educational method have no recourse or escape from abuse at the hands of their caretakers. The attacks on LGBTQIA+ students and teachers are spearheaded by the same people whose mission is to destroy public education at any cost. They are doing it under the guise of “good parenting,” and using the same debunked homophobic rhetoric from the “gay panic” of the 1980s that saved no one but killed many.
No parent or guardian has the right to destroy the life and future livelihood of their children. That includes removing them from supportive communities and resources, depriving them of education by banning books and harassing teachers out of the profession, and removing every legal safeguard in favor of allowing complete control over children with little-to-no consequences for inflicting harm.
Parental rights extremism is dangerous because parents, as a group, are not infallible paragons of virtue; they are people, like everyone else. Most are kind and loving toward their children; some are monstrously cruel. The goal of our laws should be to protect children’s wellbeing by balancing parents’ right to care for and guide their children with children’s right to remain free of abuse and neglect. Legislation that awards parents absolute control over their children – such as the Parents’ Bill of Rights – gives that power to all parents, including the monsters. America’s children deserve better than that. Children’s rights are human rights, and it’s our job to make sure they have them.
Posted: 13 June, 2022 by Kieryn Darkwater
CRHE Joins Anti-Child Marriage Coalition
In October of 2021 The Coalition of Responsible Home Education proudly joined 56 other children’s rights and child protection organizations as a member of the National Coalition to End Child Marriage in the United States. In joining the coalition, we pledged our support to the mission to end marriage below the age of 18 within the United States and to repeal loopholes and exceptions that may promote child marriage.
CRHE’s monitoring and analysis of homeschool abuse cases reveal how child marriage can intersect with abuse in homeschool settings.
CRHE lists over a dozen cases of forced child marriage in our Homeschooling’s Invisible Children database. These cases show how permissive homeschool laws often shield adults who are forcing children into early marriages.
Prominent child marriage advocates have also spoken at homeschooling conventions and even convened pro-child marriage conferences.
CRHE’s Bill of Rights for Homeschooled Children affirms for homeschooled children “the right to be treated and allowed to act in developmentally appropriate ways; the right to be a child.” Joining the National Coalition to End Child Marriage is another expression of our support for that principle: every homeschooled child has the right to be a child.
Last Updated: 13 June, 2022 by Chelsea McCracken
SCOTUS Abortion Decision Shows Disregard for Children’s Human Rights
For Immediate Release: Group run by homeschool alumni voices support for abortion rights
05/31/2022—Earlier this month, Politico reported on a leaked document indicating that the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) intends to strike down Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision protecting pregnant people’s right to abortion.
The Coalition for Responsible Home Education (CRHE), the nation’s only nonpartisan advocacy organization founded and run by homeschool alumni to advocate for homeschooled children, affirms our support for bodily autonomy and medical privacy, and condemns SCOTUS’s efforts to deny these rights to millions of Americans.
Striking down Roe v. Wade will have numerous devastating impacts on children and families. Without access to abortion, minors who become pregnant—including homeschooled victims of sexual abuse—will be forced into premature parenthood. No matter how traumatic their situation may be, these minors will have no choice but to endure the significant physical and mental toll of pregnancy and have their futures irrevocably altered.
Restricting abortion will also place countless children at an elevated risk for abuse and neglect. All children deserve to be wanted, and forcing people to give birth will force children into households where they will not receive the love and care they need. Unwanted pregnancy is a known risk factor for child maltreatment, which coincides with homeschooling to an alarming degree.
Furthermore, adoption is not a suitable alternative for abortion. Adoption requires people to remain pregnant against their wishes and be subjected to the physical and mental trauma of an unwanted pregnancy. Adoption is also traumatic for the child who loses access to their birth family and is at risk for alienation and maltreatment in their adoptive family. Homeschooling parents have been known to “collect” or engage in labor trafficking of adopted children.
Deeply concerning in the leaked document is SCOTUS’s concept of a “domestic supply of infants.” Such a concept hinges on systemically removing Black, Brown, immigrant, and other marginalized children from their own communities and forcibly rehoming them with caregivers whom the state deems fit—overwhelmingly white, Christian, heterosexual parents. Some homeschooling parents deliberately adopt marginalized children to deny them access to their culture, identity, and history and to indoctrinate them into a form of Christian extremism. Children are treated as pawns in a culture war and as property to be bought and sold. The despicable ideology behind “a domestic supply of infants” positions parenthood as ownership and dehumanizes children entirely.
The extremist fundamentalist and evangelical Christian organizations behind the destruction of abortion rights are also behind the denial of children’s rights in the U.S. One such example is the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), an organization classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and its president and CEO Michael Farris. As founder and board chair of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), Farris led efforts to ensure that the U.S. is the only nation that refuses to ratify the U.N.’s Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Homeschooled children have been particularly devastated by these organizations’ concerted efforts to deprive children of their human rights. Empowered by HSLDA’s successful efforts to deregulate homeschooling, many homeschooling parents exploit homeschooling’s minimal oversight to deny their children health care, medical privacy, and bodily autonomy. Without guaranteed access to a public school’s health care infrastructure, mandatory reporters, or support structures outside the home, homeschooled children are entirely at their parents’ mercy for physical and mental health care. CRHE maintains a database tracking hundreds of cases of abuse and neglect in homeschooling environments. The stories of homeschooled children like Christopher Forder, Sanaa Cunningham, and J., who each suffered abuse and medical neglect in an isolated home, illustrate the dangers of a system that denies children medical care and bodily autonomy. The dismal state of homeschooled children’s rights offers a sobering preview of these organizations’ ideal vision for a disempowered population of children and adults alike.
CRHE believes that all people, including children, have the right to bodily autonomy, medical privacy, and self-determination. Our Bill of Rights for Homeschooled Children, an aspirational vision for the homeschooling movement released in 2021, affirms these rights and others. Children are not the property of their parents. People are not the property of the state.
A mercenary desire for a “domestic supply of infants” does not outweigh the need for millions of people to maintain the right to make decisions about their bodies and lives. It is imperative that the right to abortion is enshrined into federal law and expanded nationwide. We call on homeschool alumni, homeschooling parents, legislators, children’s rights advocates, and all those who value human rights to take a stand for abortion rights and reproductive justice.
Posted: 20 April, 2022 by Jonah Stewart
Abbey L.: “If anybody ever saw something concerning, nobody ever said a word.”
If I had been in a normal high school I would have noticed that other people lived differently. I also would have been around mandatory reporters who would have noticed my Dad’s obvious psychosis and the emotional, spiritual and psychological abuse I lived with. But instead, I didn’t even have a close friend to confide things to. And if anybody ever saw something concerning, nobody ever said a word.
I have never had so many emotions as those that flowed through me when I heard that Josh Duggar had finally been brought to justice. I actually got on the phone with my best friend to rant and celebrate, because I had a situation very similar to the one the Duggars had.
On the one hand, I loved being homeschooled. Being homeschooled saved me from what my experience of school had been up to that point. But looking back, it didn’t help in the long run.
I was born to two very Christian people. When I was born, my father was a Lutheran minister and my mother was a nurse. I was long awaited and I cannot doubt that I was dearly loved. When I was a toddler, my dad left his ministerial job and we left the Lutheran church because he had become convinced that ministers should not accept a salary and had made friends with a local Mennonite pastor. Before long we were wearing long skirts all the time and my mom and I stopped cutting our hair, and she began to wear a head covering.
When the time came for me to enter school, I was put into a private Christian school. It was a good school, but by the time I was in the 3rd grade or so my reading level was far above the normal, so I was regularly bored in class. I also was missing out on all the cultural aspects of being a child since we didn’t have cable anymore, and I wasn’t allowed to read the same book as everyone else, This which meant I was increasingly socially inept.
By 4th grade my parents no longer liked the ‘increasingly worldly’ culture of the school, so I was moved to the church school run by the Mennonite church. That year was a disaster. Even though I had begun to wear the proper long, loose dresses and a head covering, I was still on the outside…before I had been too sheltered, now I was too worldly and not related. I was openly bullied by the girls in my class for a whole year while the teacher watched impassively.
So when my parents suggested we homeschool, I was understandably relieved. Finally I could go at my own speed and not have to worry about other people.
The first years were everything homeschooling should be: fun, challenging, personalized. I had a few friends I’d kept through school and I made some more at the local homeschool group. We didn’t get together often, but when we did it was a blast. But as I went into high school, it got much worse, very quickly. I slammed into Pre-Algebra like a brick wall and couldn’t get past it. I spent 3 years trying to learn Pre-Algebra and Algebra, including about 4 or 5 curriculums. It just didn’t click. Finally, Dad just told us to stop bothering, so technically I had enough Math credits to graduate, but I never actually learned the normal math everyone learns in high school.
Meanwhile, though, I was happily doing high level sciences that didn’t require Math. I did lots of dissections and killed Human Anatomy. I loved Literature and History. When I got tired of Western history, Mom found me an African History book to use in 10th grade, and it was wonderful.
But on a social front, I had no friends at all. Sure, there were people I talked to at the homeschool group, but the couple of times I tried to have a deep conversation, it was met with subject changes or being ghosted. Most of my friends were from big families, and they didn’t really need me anyway. I was just an only child: socially awkward, nerdy even for a homeschooler, and still out of touch with anything really age appropriate. My Dad totally flipped out the few times he realized I had a crush on a boy, telling me that everyone would think I was a slut. Meanwhile, he actively sabotaged few friendships by telling me that my friends were too worldly, too boy crazy, or had the ‘Jezebel’ spirit… because at some point when I was a teenager Dad started reading lots of conspiracy theorists and hardcore Pentecostals. He decided that the whole world was controlled by the Illuminati and that he was a prophet who could sense demons on people and predict what they would do. He occasionally attempted exorcisms on me or my mom when he thought we were being influenced… which mostly just meant we were in a bad mood.
By 11th grade I was done with school and asked to combine the last two years of school, which they, of course, agreed to. It was just as much of a disaster as you might expect, in which I did no official Math or Science and did basically the equivalent of a year’s worth of literature, foreign language, and history. We moved a couple of months in and all schooling basically stopped, until I officially graduated.
Meanwhile, my Dad had become endlessly paranoid and controlling. I had basically no friends, neither did my mom, and home became a nightmare.
If I had been in a normal high school I would have noticed that other people lived differently. I also would have been around mandatory reporters who would have noticed my Dad’s obvious psychosis and the emotional, spiritual and psychological abuse I lived with. But instead, I didn’t even have a close friend to confide things to. And if anybody ever saw something concerning, nobody ever said a word.
Finally, as a young adult I left home and spent almost a year in a cloistered monastery. I thought I was discerning a vocation, but actually I was being directed by something or Someone to the first safe place I had ever lived in. Here, I finally began to tell the sisters what I had experienced, and I got in contact with my grandparents. The nuns gently pushed me towards therapy and eventually taught me what love and stable relationships were. I reconnected with my grandparents, who I had been kept from since I was a small child, and who have become some of my greatest supporters. Eventually, I left the monastery, knowing that I wasn’t called there, but that I owe them the world.
I moved in with mom’s parents about 6 months ago and am finally becoming myself. I cut my hair, started wearing jeans, learned to drive, to make friends. There is a boy in my life who I like very much and in fact likes me back, and we both dream of the day that we’re both in a place, emotionally and practically to be in a proper relationship. Until then, we’re just inseparable friends. Now I’m trying to navigate what to do when your transcript is basically worthless and you are staring at a GED. I don’t know what I want to do with myself long term, but I am confident I can do what needs to be done.
This is why we need increased regulations in homeschooling, increased awareness of what child abuse and mental illness look like, and the destruction of loopholes that makes situations like mine and the Duggars go on so long. All it would have taken would have been one person to see what was happening, just enough to be concerned and report it to the authorities.
I remind myself often: I am a survivor. I am brave. I can do this. And maybe I’m just writing this because I am proud of myself.
Abbey Lancaster was homeschooled in Virginia and Ohio from 2011-2017. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Community Voices page.
Last Updated: 2 November, 2023 by Jonah Stewart
Song HyoA: “They mold me into an identity that is perfect for them, but not for me”
“It takes time, dedication, experience, expertise, money, resources, and structure to homeschool your children, not just spending dollars on a curriculum that will not help them get into university. You give your children a future that changes their lives.”
Homeschooling has been quite popular in Malaysia during the COVID pandemic as many children stayed at home, but in reality, it was a tough decision to homeschool or send your children to homeschool centers. It takes time, dedication, experience, expertise, money, resources, and structure to homeschool your children–not just spending dollars on a curriculum that will not help them get into university. You give your children a future that changes their lives. If homeschooling does not suit the interests of your children, then just don’t. It might be worse than your typical American or Korean drama.
Due to my ADHD and mild autism, my mom sent me to a homeschool co-op for children with mental disabilities. For the first three grades, I made lifelong friends, did very well in academics, and had a perfect life. But when I reached fourth grade, I was shocked when my friends and I got mistreated for the first time. We were spanked when we made a mistake, got our mouth taped to shut our voices. If we fall and get injured, they will mock us for being weak. I ran away from home a few times because I wanted to be saved, as well as to copy Bible verses and go to church once a week.
I started my period in 5th grade and was so ashamed that I took two weeks home because I was afraid it would enrage my teachers. I lost my first friend because she was so distressed that she acted abnormally. The only kind act that my friend did for me was showing a dead lizard to scare and distract my teacher. I remembered that I was hit by a wooden spoon on my head thrown by another teacher, but did not seek medical attention. My parents frequently visited my psychologist, but the visits have been less frequent as I grew older.
I transferred in 6th grade to another homeschool center but I am still stuck in this world. I was falsely accused of stealing some workbooks from the seniors. My schoolmates were so rich that they could get away from the trouble they caused. I am always in trouble when I defend myself. I was denied an opportunity to play any sport and competitions I wanted. Even though I worked too hard on my modules, the only memorable moments when attending this center were coding classes, STEM-themed field trips, and joining strength training workouts. My social life was turbulent in my secondary school years. I found myself being a marionette with the fake friends who did not respect me, that one of them splashed water on my old laptop and never paid for my new laptop. There was one time I was framed for exploring how vulnerable the homeschooling software is by hacking to access the internet. I suffered from body dysmorphia that I tried to starve to lose weight if dieting and exercising does not help. The only extracurricular activity I did was Taaekwondo to protect myself if I am bullied and to gain confidence.
Grade 9 and 10 are the darkest years I have experienced. I have witnessed my seniors struggling while preparing for IGCSEs. I was the only girl in my class to take science subjects and add math, but I still have most of the subject teachers and the principal’s pet dog on my side to cheer me on despite hearing lot of sexist, racist, and elitist jokes and insults from my homeroom teacher for the first year of preparing for IGCSEs. I discovered writing to cope with the pain and to express my feelings. When I felt not secure enough to write about my school due to bullying, I seek help from my English tution to relieve the pain without toxic judgment.
Then COVID-19 came and affected our schedule. It gets me away from demanding activities that the school forced me to attend as they are virtual, but breaks me as the online hangout was too long for me to endure. After the isolation, my mental health started to deteriorate instantly despite doing well on my past year papers. I neglected my physical health when I studied past midnight. I was worried that I would never get out if I did not have top grades. When I reached the exam venue, I avoided my classmates like plague and studied and hung out with candidates who attended different schools and centers and homeschoolers to heal from the mistreatment in my school.
Then I graduated from homeschool. I only learned the manners of a perfect rich girl, perfect grammar and vocabulary and the Bible despite being the second best in my homeschooling center and having the perfect grades needed to attend college via a scholarship. Despite attending a university workshop and competition, I was pushed to college unprepared like being swept by a hurricane and landing in a foreign place. I have a mindset of college where I made up all the wasted time and to get out of the sight of previous school. I pushed myself to excel in my studies as well as my extracurriculars when I studied A-Levels to the point that I have mental breakdowns especially if I lose in competitions. I was lucky that I got counseling and one of my math teachers who has experience teaching homeschoolers encouraged me. I still continue to read voraciously in the library, have close friends, and get A’s and B’s in my AS Levels. I am not ashamed to take anything beyond the college campus. This year, I managed to save one of the endangered clubs by becoming its vice president.
I was homeschooled in a Christian fundamentalist-based homeschooling environment. From the fourth year to IGCSE, my homeschool years have been turbulent. I attempted suicide and was self-harmed a few times. I remembered feeling depressed and hopeless because of the persistent toxic positivity and perfection. What is even worse is that I studied in small private homeschooling centers, where bullying occurred frequently, rumors will spread like wildfire, and my mental wellbeing was neglected. I was ashamed of menstruation and my sexuality. I was so tired of the double standards in both of my Christian schools, being myself is so hard that I wanted plastic surgery. They may not truly value hard work and personality; they mold me into an identity that is perfect for them, but not for me, and shelters me from the outside world. But these painful setbacks made me stronger, smarter, and kinder. I still love my parents though they fight or feel guilty, but it was not their fault and they worked hard to give me a good life and education. I am working on my A2 levels while helping other homeschoolers to be known and heal together mentally.
Song Hyoa was homeschooled in Kota Kemuning, Malaysia from 2011 to 2020. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Community Voices page.
Last Updated: 12 October, 2021 by Jeremy Young
Statement on Homeschooling Leadership and Attacks on American Democracy
Approved by the CRHE Board of Directors, October 12, 2021
Last week, the New York Times reported that Michael P. Farris, founder and current board chair of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), played a key role in attempts to overthrow the 2020 presidential election. According to the Times, Farris helped recruit Texas attorney general Ken Paxton to file a constitutionally and ethically dubious complaint against Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Wisconsin, and wrote an initial draft of the complaint Paxton eventually filed. The Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit shortly after receiving it.
The Coalition for Responsible Home Education, the nation’s only nonpartisan advocacy organization founded and run by homeschool alumni to advocate for homeschooled children, affirms our support for free and democratic elections and condemns these reported efforts by HSLDA’s founder to undermine American democratic processes. Farris’s attempts to overthrow the election are merely the latest entry in a long record of allowing and encouraging harm to others, including homeschooled children, in pursuit of his extremist political goals. His history of extremism has left a regrettable mark on the culture of the modern homeschooling movement.
Under Farris’s leadership, HSLDA has led efforts to strip away basic legal protections for homeschooled children in every state. Farris’s speeches, fiction, and rhetoric have encouraged a subculture of fear and hostility toward child protection efforts that undermines attempts to ensure the safety of homeschooled children who are abused and neglected. The anti-child sentiments that Farris nurtured in HSLDA were reflected in 2005, when an HSLDA attorney said of a father who imprisoned his children in cages, “I think he is a hero.” In the absence of necessary legal protections, at least 156 children have been murdered in homeschool settings over the past twenty years, a rate higher than the national average among school-age children.
Farris has long promoted extremist views that stand outside the values of mainstream Americans. His opposition to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by every other country in the world, is largely responsible for preventing its ratification in the United States. Alliance Defending Freedom, where Farris is currently president and CEO, is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its record of anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry. Overall, Farris has tried to lead the homeschooling movement toward a position that views children as property to be indoctrinated into service as soldiers for his culture war.
CRHE believes that homeschooling can be a valuable and enriching experience when done responsibly, and we have an affirmative vision for the homeschooling movement, laid out in our Bill of Rights for Homeschooled Children. We call on homeschool alumni, homeschooling parents, legislators, and all those who love and care for homeschooled children to reject the antidemocratic extremism espoused by Michael Farris and to join us in promoting a vision of homeschooling that is child-centered, fact-based, inclusive, and empowering for all homeschooled children.
Last Updated: 26 September, 2021 by Jeremy Young
U.S. Census Report Showing Massive Increase in Homeschooling is Premature
For Immediate Release: Group run by homeschool alumni urges caution in predicting changes in homeschooling
09/27/2021—The Coalition for Responsible Home Education (CRHE) urges caution in predicting changes in homeschooling based on data from recent U.S. Census reports. “As an organization founded and run by homeschool alumni since 2013, CRHE has diligently monitored data on homeschooling trends in the U.S.,” says Dr. Jeremy C. Young, CRHE’s acting executive director. “We want Americans to know the context behind the data so that they can understand how homeschooling numbers are actually changing.”
As the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic caused rapid changes in education in spring 2020, the U.S. Census responded by instituting the Household Pulse Survey, an online survey sent to a random selection of addresses continuously since April 2020. According to a March 2021 Census report, the percentage of US households with school-age children who reported homeschooling nearly doubled between April and September 2020, reaching a high of 11%. “CRHE commends the Census for responding so rapidly to collect such important data,” said Young. “Increased data collection on homeschooling benefits everyone. However, there is considerable reason to be skeptical about the magnitude of the homeschooling increase predicted by these studies.”
There is no one single definition of homeschooling, as CRHE argued in our peer-reviewed study “Who counts as homeschooled? The case of Alaska’s correspondence schools” published in 2020 in the journal Other Education. The dizzying array of educational options available to parents — including online and virtual public or private school programs, public and private school correspondence programs, part-time school enrollment, and states where homeschools are legally considered private schools — leads to a high degree of error in self-reported statistics on homeschooling.
Studies such as the National Household Education Survey, conducted every four years by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), ask parents to verify in multiple ways that a child is homeschooled, leading to a reliable national estimate of homeschooled students. But “if you just ask parents point-blank whether their children are homeschooled, as the Census did, you’ll get widely varying results depending on how you phrase the question,” said Dr. Chelsea McCracken, CRHE’s research director. “There’s a good chance the Census numbers include parents who intend to enroll their children in remote learning and other school-based programs, as well as parents who say they intend to homeschool just because they’re frustrated with all the options.”
So what are the real numbers? According to NCES, the percentage of students who are homeschooled rose from 1.7% in 1999 to 3.4% in 2011-2012 and then declined slightly through 2019. Enrollment data from South Dakota and California suggest that homeschooling increased by around 20-30% during the pandemic, far less than the Census data indicates.
“While it’s reasonable to expect a modest increase in homeschooling due to safety concerns about school attendance during the pandemic, we should be careful in jumping to conclusions about how the education system will change as a result,” said McCracken. “Though some parents have, as a result of the pandemic, realized that home-based learning works well for their families, other parents are desperate to send their children back to school. Twenty years of data shows that homeschooling only appeals to a small percentage of the population, and the experiences of homeschool alumni indicate that homeschooling works best only under certain conditions.”
Homeschooled children lack guaranteed access to programs intended to promote child welfare, including food and nutrition programs, age-appropriate sex education, monitoring for child abuse and neglect, and professional college and career counseling. Additionally, current homeschooling laws have few measures in place to ensure that homeschooled children receive the care and education they deserve. Earlier this year, CRHE published a Bill of Rights for Homeschooled Children, a vision for homeschooling that details how children’s academic, physical, mental, and social wellbeing can best be supported by their parents and communities. The Bill of Rights is the most recent addition to CRHE’s comprehensive collection of guides and resources for home educators.
“At CRHE, we advocate for homeschooled children’s right to a quality education in a safe, loving home,” said Young. “As awareness of and interest in homeschooling continues to change, the need for responsible oversight to protect these children’s rights is more urgent than ever. While homeschooling can be an excellent educational option, we need more protections to ensure the best possible outcomes for homeschooled children.”
The Coalition for Responsible Home Education empowers homeschooled children by educating the public and advocating for child-centered, evidence-based policy and practices for families and professionals.
Contact: media@responsiblehomeschooling.org
Posted: 25 May, 2021 by Chelsea McCracken
Amber Moore: “Nobody could help me except myself”
“The cognitive dissonance grew so intolerable that it took me down a road that led me to throw away many of the beliefs I grew up having.”
I am 25 years old and I am the middle child of five. We were all homeschooled from a very early age up to adulthood. My family moved to Connecticut when I was young. My father made sure we went to a state with little homeschooling legislation. When my mother got arrested for assaulting our neighbor, they decided that the best course of action was to move to another state with little legislation – Texas. Then more recently when they ran out of money, they sold the house and moved to another “great” state for homeschooling – Missouri. There, my oldest sister still lives with and financially supports my able-bodied parents and two younger siblings. She is in her 30s and has never dated.
The second oldest, like me, has moved out and done well starting her own life, but still wrestles with the trauma of our upbringing. She still has nightmares and has to fight the urge toward self harm when she remembers the things that happened. My parents would sit her in a chair for hours and scream at her in an attempt to “exorcise her demons”. She has ADHD and bipolar disorder and thus didn’t always behave or respond to orders the way my parents wanted her to. She was reprimanded for going on her own to get that diagnosis because my mother believes psychiatry is all lies, and that she just needs to pray harder to solve her problems.
My younger brother I believe has undiagnosed autism. Growing up, they always said he’s just “slow” as it took him a long time to learn to read. My grandfather has tried to help him with things on a few occasions, to have him visit and learn a trade such as carpentry. My mother got into hysterics at this idea. She thought he was trying to steal my brother away. She always talked about her father like he is this great villain, but looking back, I honestly can’t see a thing that he did wrong. He just disagreed with the way we were raised, and he asked too many questions.
My younger brother and sister still live at home with my parents, and I occasionally talk to them. I want to be a good influence for my siblings, but I know they are still under my parents’ thumb and have little autonomy. I wonder how they will fare when they have to get a job and go into society. I have looked into Child Protective Services and they said that unless physical abuse is apparent, the state won’t do anything. I looked into what legislation exists to address the educational neglect but there are no regulations for that. There are no standardized tests, no level of education expected of children of any age. My siblings are severely behind in reading, math, and basic social skills. They are now grown up into adulthood and are going to have to make up for all the lost time on their own.
I had a panic moment when I turned 18. I was still living at home and I felt like I didn’t learn anything, and I needed to figure out what I was going to do with my life. My father told us not to go to college unless we knew exactly what we were going to do since it’s a waste of money. So, I started working and waited 2 years to take my GED since I didn’t feel like I had learned enough. We did not have any transcripts or diplomas, so the only evidence that I learned anything, aside from a few “books read” lists, was that GED. I was getting tired of living in the house and giving my whole foodservice paycheck to my parents, who refused to get a job, so I started getting a little sassy. It was around this point that in a fit of rage, my mother called me a b****, struck me with a glass bottle, then broke the bottle and threatened to stab me with it. All the while my father was quivering in the corner. My older sister jumped in and disarmed my mother. I left the house, slept in my car in a Walmart parking lot, and didn’t even think to call the police. Shortly after, I was so desperate to move out that I found someone looking for roommates on Craigslist. Since then, I have gotten a good apartment, job, and boyfriend and am about to finish my degree. But I still feel weird around people since I was kept inside the house most of my life. I wonder often if I am doing/saying things wrong, and I’ve definitely missed out on a lot of culture. It has been fun to find new friends and catch up on those things.
When asked, my parents would say the main reason they decided to homeschool is because public schools do not provide an adequate education, but the real reason is that they didn’t teach the kinds of things my parents wanted us to learn. The homeschooling was religiously motivated. My parents have an interesting view of the world. You could say we were Evangelical Christians, but really, I think that my parents have created their own denomination since they disagreed with nearly everyone else and amalgamated a combination of beliefs that no other church could match. We had tried going to churches but always left a few months in as everyone was either “too worldly” or “too religious”. My father told us that we weren’t isolated, we were “protected”.
Some of the main tenets of my families’ beliefs:
That last bit was the one that made me question things the most since I have always been a lover of science. The cognitive dissonance grew so intolerable that it took me down a road that led me to throw away many of the beliefs I grew up having. This was very uncomfortable for me as I felt I had no grounding. No friends, no family, no place to go. I felt so alone, so helpless. Nobody could help me except myself. So, I waited, and I did help myself. But now my siblings are still in that house and I feel there is nothing I can do.
I support oversight of homeschooling because my own experiences taught me that when someone is homeschooled, there is nobody who can save children from the whims and beliefs of their parents. Because of the current laws, a parent can say they are homeschooling and be free to brainwash, neglect or abuse their children, under absolutely no scrutiny from the government. I’ve seen family members wish they could help and have absolutely no influence. I myself wish I could help my siblings but I know that whatever I tell them will be twisted by my mother, who is skilled at making other people out to be the villain. All the while she has gotten away with being abusive with no repercussions. Me and my siblings have had our youth, money, and futures taken away from us by our selfish parents. This could have been avoided if homeschooling oversight could provide a little more accountability for our parents.
Amber Moore was homeschooled in Connecticut and Texas beginning in the early 2000s. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Community Voices page.
Last Updated: 2 November, 2023 by Chelsea McCracken
Mary T.: “Homeschooling tends to attract parents who value control”
“I was terrified to make my own decisions, unsure of my ability to survive outside of my parents’ controlling framework.”
I was my family’s “first.” The first to learn to read at home. The first to complete K-12 without ever attending school. The first to fully benefit from this great experiment full of boundless potential and equally boundless expectations.
I was five when my parents pulled my older brother and sister out of school and started homeschooling. My mom, terrified, turned to God and Sing Spell Read & Write to teach me to read. I’m not sure about God’s involvement in my mastery of vowel sounds and that first deciphering of “Sam pet the cat,” but to my mom’s great relief I duly began reading within the 30 days allotted by the program.
My ability to read exactly on schedule became part of family lore. It boosted my mother’s confidence and confirmed what became two foundational beliefs of our homeschooling journey:
“Anyone,” in our case, was mom. A voice major turned liberal arts major who didn’t finish the last few credits of her college degree, she struggled with feelings of inadequacy as she eventually guided all four of her children through high-school graduation.
Thanks to her tireless efforts, willingness to outsource and a comfortable budget, my siblings and I had access to great books, private tutors, co-ops and homeschool classes. I was lonely, but I wasn’t totally isolated, either. I grew up around, if on the periphery of, a large and thriving homeschool community. For the most part, these parents wanted to give their kids a quality education.
In the culture wars of the late 80’s and early 90’s, my fundamentalist family and many of those around us viewed public schools as bastions of socialism, atheism and sex. North Carolina public schools also consistently ranked among the worst in the nation academically. And who could send four kids (like my family, although many around us had six or more) to a private, classical Christian academy that cost anywhere from $15,000 to $40,000 per year?
Educationally, my homeschooling was a positive experience. I attended a small Christian college, graduated with honors, flirted with law school, and found my way to financial independence and a stable career.
I know I’m one of the lucky ones. I grew up around kids whose moms were “chill.” I remember being jealous that they didn’t have to be showered, dressed, and at their desks by 8 a.m. sharp. That they maybe fit in a few hours of school each day. But I worried about the kids whose parents made even the structure of a daily shower optional. I remember seeing those kids of chill moms graduate or simply stop schooling at 18. Those who didn’t marry immediately seemed lost – unprepared for an adulthood that didn’t include babies or Christian ministry.
I support homeschool oversight because I believe that every child has the right to access an education that prepares them for financial security, social development and personal fulfilment on their own terms.
I also support homeschool oversight for different reasons.
In my observation, homeschooling tends to attract parents who value control. When your family is as dysfunctional as mine, home is not always a happy place. In fact, it’s usually a scary, unsafe place. And when home is all you have, you don’t know any different.
I first realized that my dad was abusive when I was almost out of high school. My parents were giving me Biblical counseling resources, so that I could counsel myself and my friends with Biblical Truth at college. Ironically, it was in these books that I stumbled across the term emotional abuse. A lightbulb went off.
I started going to bed with my iPhone, hiding under the covers, and googling emotional abuse. Check. Then spiritual abuse. Check. Then physical abuse. Do near-daily spankings with a wooden spoon or rubber belt until early teens count as physical abuse? What about when you’re hit until you cry real tears (because eventually you learn to fake cry so it’ll stop sooner)? Check and check.
By the time I left home for college at 18, I couldn’t wait to escape. I was also nervous. When I said goodbye to my parents outside my dorm, I threw up. I was terrified to make my own decisions, unsure of my ability to survive outside of my parents’ controlling framework.
When I came home from my first semester of college, my family wouldn’t stop talking about this “new Mary.” In just four short months, I’d found safe spaces and friends who patiently allowed me to come out of my shell of loneliness and fear. I’d blossomed.
It took me over five years after leaving for college to finally break free from my parents’ orbit of abuse and control. I realized that, if I wanted to continue earning their approval, I would forever need to give up a sizable measure of control over my own life.
I’d been trained to need their approval like I needed air. I still don’t know where I found the strength to assert my independence. Even then, I still wanted them in my life. But just like when they drove away from my college dorm, forcing me to do college on my own, they made the decision easy for me. They disowned me. I’ve grown to view that decision as the most truly loving act I ever experienced from them. In their last, most ferocious attempt to assert control, they unwittingly, finally set me free.
I support oversight for homeschool families because no family is perfect. Most families are less dysfunctional than mine, but most kids also have access to a world outside of the home. Every child deserves to know that there is a world outside that cares. With more oversight, maybe someone would have seen my loneliness, my desire to play sports and to socialize. Maybe I could have had access to career counseling, which certainly would have helped me feel less lost when choosing a major for college. And maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t have had to wait 18 years to start living in freedom.
Mary T. was homeschooled in North Carolina from the mid-1990s to the late 2000s. For additional thoughts and experiences from other homeschool alumni, see our Community Voices page.