@katieoh I feel this! Also homeschool my kids, and not because we are right wing Christian fundamentalists or into conspiracy stuff or whatever. The kids I’m homeschooling have no issues that are causing us to homeschool. (Our oldest has severe mental health issues, but he’s within the public school system, which will soon be paying for a therapeutic private school for him.) There’s just enough that I’m seeing from public school (in general and specifically to the school in our rural, generally conservative, overwhelmingly white area) that made me decide to Nope out on it. Plus with all the limitations with COVID shutdowns (things in our state shut down early and stayed shut for a looooong time), I want to be able to give my kids lots of experiences that they missed out on for years. I just want them to enjoy being little kids!
We have a great homeschool community around here- in a weird twist, the vast majority of homeschool moms I know are former teachers who after teaching in public school wanted something different for their kids.
Plus, the “weird isolated homeschool kid” stereotype is a relic from the days when homeschoolers were basically either religious fundamentalists or hippies. It was before the Internet, which has helped create community for homeschoolers, and before there was more types of curriculum for every subject matter than you could keep track of. So when anyone starts on that track, I ask them if they live in 1982, because nowadays the only homeschoolers who are isolated are not so much homeschoolers as they are abused children. The vast majority of homeschoolers are hanging with friends, going to community events and using community resources (like the library and sports teams), are perfectly capable of interacting with people.