OK, this article from CBS has me scared silly, well because I scare very easily about this kind of thing. Something that will motivate social workers to start investigating home schooling families simply because they home school. Somehow we are more suspicious. Somehow we are more neglectful, which is something I do not understand because it is easier to send a child off to school for a minimum of six hours a day and have no concept of what they are doing during the day (not that people who send their children to more traditional schools are neglectful, I just do not see the logic simply on the basis of "where" they school).
With that said, recently my parents went on a retreat where they met the Parish Life Director of the Novus Ordo parish that my new home is a part of geographically. She said there are a few home schoolers in the area, and that they are cultish in nature and home school to cover for their family problems. In all honesty, I think there is some truth to this. When I lived in New Jersey, it seemed less so, so I am not sure what the difference is here except the horrible formation on a diocesan level. Anywho, the conversation with this lady has prompted a bit of family pressure to put the children in school, even though my father, as the Director of Assessment knows first hand how decrepit morally and academically the public schools are and as a Deacon knows how heretical the Catholic schools are. I guess not seeming "weird" or "cultish" is more important.
Now CBS is doing the "expose" on the hidden life of home schoolers, adding more fuel to the fire. I am hoping it is just a passing frenzy and that it will not incite a new type of witch hunt because witch hunts seem the norm for anything not PC lately.