Kris over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers wrote a post “10 Clues You Might be a Homeschool Dad” from the point of view of a working dad homeschooler. I decided that I could write one from the point of view of a teacher, homeschooling dad.
1. If you have every had someone assume you are a woman until they meet you in real life
Yes this has happened. My name happens to be Chris, combine that with me being the stay at home parent and a homeschooler, it is a easy assumption to make. Our first support teacher came to visit after only communicating with me via email. She arrived early and my son let her in as I was still in the shower. I was a bit flustered coming upstairs and failed to introduce myself. She spent 10 minutes making small talk before realizing that my wife wasn’t home and that I was Chris.
2. If when you go to a meet-up people go “It is so nice that you took some time off to give your wife a break” and you debate whether to correct them or not.
This one only happened once. Now there is almost always at least one person there that knows me from another event.
3. If you have had to promise to not teach your child anything in chemistry that would get you or son arrested.
Lets just say I had an interesting childhood and some of my experiments got out of hand. The world is a different place now so I won’t be sharing those stories with my son or recreating any of them.
4. If you have torn up curriculum in front of a child after the mutual decision that it was terrible.
It was a very therapeutic way to to relieve the frustrations that book had caused me and my daughter and it made her happy to know her opinion mattered.
5. If you have never had anyone argue with you about your decision to homeschool.
I’ll talk to anyone about homeschooling and it is frequently one of the first things I bring up in conversation.
6. If you have a Principal of the school that really wants to be the teacher.
My wife would certainly be a homeschooling mom if I was the working parent. She has arrange to take Thursday mornings off so she can do homeschooling stuff with the kids.
7. If you have ever started a discussion on school while engaging in ‘extra curricular activities’
Guilty…
awesome
This is fabulous! I especially love the chemistry one!
Oh–and the two homeschooling Dads I know are named Brooke and Chris, so yeah.
Funny! I would love to hear all about the experiments you did as kid, but I will just have to imagine them, I guess! LOL!
I love your list, even though I was extremely slow about making it over to comment. {blushing} #4 sounds like an extremely satisfying thing to do. And, #7? I would have totally thought only a homeschool mom would be guilty of that. Your confession made me feel better. 🙂
Chris you are doing a fabulous job as Dad and Teacher. I know from my husband’s ramblings when he was home with the kids that it’s rather lonely being a male stay at home parent – even more so than being a female one. My husband was a psuedo-stay at home dad (he ran a Real Estate and Mortgage Broker business from our home) while there with the kids. The ladies at his Real Estate office thought it was a hoot when he’d show up with our baby on his back to turn in his paperwork. They even gave him a ‘Mother’s Day’ card on Mother’s day. He still says he enjoyed being the stay at home parent when our younger two kids were small and now that we homeschool he takes on 1/2 of the load and it’s funny how the ladies at the homeschool co-op appear shocked when he comes to the event and ask him where ‘mom’ is. He usually says’ it’s Dad’s day. I even got him a Homeschool Dad t-shirt to wear with the kids when they go out on field trips.
It’s interesting that my husband has never had any anti HS venom aimed at him, as you say, people just don’t do it to men! I’ve had plenty. As a former scientist and HS mum…I can do some pretty cool tricks too! Good on’ya as they say back in Australia.