Have you ever done or said something awkward or cringey and then proceeded to overthink about it for the next three to five business days until you say or do something else awkward or cringey and then you start thinking about THAT instead? Nope? Just me?
On any given day I feel like that Homer Simpson meme where he disappears into the bushes, especially after a conversation with people I have just met.
Does that stop me from talking and continuing to repeat the same awkward cycle again and again? Of course not! I’m one of those introverts that feels the need to fill the silence with conversation, so I cosplay as an extrovert and have conversations with others so I seem somewhat normal. Then I walk away feeling like:
I’m sure that most of the awkwardness in my interactions are just my own insecurities, and people don’t view me as awkward as I feel, but you can’t always tell what other people think about you. Although sometimes you CAN tell what they think about you, and you can see them silently judging you.
This is especially true when people find out my husband and I homeschool our children. It’s like they take one look at me and think to themselves “so THAT’s what’s wrong with her, she’s one of those moms that homeschools their kids”. And I don’t really mind if people have those thoughts about me because I firmly stand on our choice to homeschool, but it does make me feel like it adds another layer to my perceived awkwardness.
Let’s be real, homeschoolers and homeschooling families get a bad rap. People automatically assume that we couldn’t cut it in “real” school, so we have to stay at home and “pretend to do school”. The stereotypes about homeschoolers live on, even with so many people homeschooling today. And while most homeschoolers today don’t even fit the homeschooling stereotypes, as a former homeschooler, and now a homeschooling mom, these perceptions are usually at the forefront of my mind.
While I do struggle with being perceived as the weird homeschool mom, a bigger part of me says “who cares”? If someone is going to judge my family for not being as “cool” or worthy of their friendship because we homeschool, then that is their loss, not ours.
And the end of the day, we already have our tribe of weird and awkward, but also insanely awesome people in our lives, and it doesn’t really matter what random people think of me and my family, especially if were not planning on keeping those people in our lives.
I know I can be a little weird and maybe slightly (or not so slightly) awkward, and so are my kids at times, but I am happy with the people that we are! Maybe I AM one of “those weird and awkward homeschool moms” after all, but I guess you will have to hang around for a while and find out, huh?
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