Homeschooling is a very broad topic as we have seen here already. At first, we homeschooled our daughter for some of the aforementioned conservative reasons. At the time we started, my wife was a high school grad with some college and I was recent graduate with a bachelor's degree. We did our research. We checked out close to a hundred different curricula and approaches. We spoke with homeschooling families and how they approached their situation. We decided to follow our hearts and principles and keep our daughter at home. Her academics were fine. She was never interested in sports. We were active enough in church that she was around a ton of kids frequently. As she got older, her character of being a "social" person was manifesting itself. She was not socially handicapped, but she just loved being in crowd and the noise that goes with it. We put her in "real" school in the eighth grade. Her academics never suffered. She was always her own person. She had trouble with some of the other girls (teenage girls are miserable beasts!). All in all, it was probably neutral for her and us.

Our son was a different story. We homeschooled him through the ninth grade. The schooling was again based on our dissatisfaction with the public system. Also, he had, and still has, a sleep deprivation condition since age 7 (he is almost 21 now). We put him in school for one year after I returned to New York. It almost killed him. Since he turned 16 during the school year, we opted to not have him attend school the next fall. New York has compulsory education through age 16. We gathered curricula for him and started on the homeschool path again. Oddly enough, the school system worked with us when we went to get him his GED testing. Due to weird rules (mostly relating to funding) they had (chose) to classify him as a dropout. That allowed him to enter the adult GED program and attend college.

As for "professional qualifications and/or certifications", we knew a family in the military that homeschooled their 6 or 7 children (cannot remember how many they had). The mother was a person for whom learning was a delayed process. They had a daughter that was very smart, two children who were "slow" (her words, not mine), and the others were average, run-of-the-mill learners. She managed to successfully teach the kids because she researched what was best for each kid. She and her husband were fully committed to homeschooling. It worked for them.

In our case and the one just mentioned, the key was we were able to match curriculum to the strengths and needs of our children. Personally, I could care less what the reason for homeschooling is; just be committed to doing it to bring out the best in your kids and give them the best opportunity to learn.

There are many who grind the "socialization" axe. We never really concerned ourselves with it. We were active enough in our church and other things that our kids learned how to behave and interact with a wide range of people. But, to each their own.

So, as you can see, it is a mixed bag no matter how you look at it. Also, you can tell I am an advocate of homeschooling; only if you are going to make any sacrifice to make sure you get the best materials and appropriate curriculum for your child. As far as the expense of specialty equipment; I figured it was worth it for the kids. The only thing that was "expensive" was a microscope. Even that, was not too bad.

As a final point. I was not well-off. My family was a single income military family. The other family was a single income family in the military, too. We were junior enlisted at the time. We hired no tutors. That family used a mix of "off-the-shelf" and individually designed programs. We designed our own curriculum. Many people use pre-designed and packaged curriculum. Most of them are very good. We just chose to design our own. Also, we dug into the books ourselves and helped the kids. Homeschooling is not as expensive as some may purport. Our average annual outlay for curriculum was far less than $500 per student. People spend that much and more on that year-round curse known as soccer. It comes down to a matter of priorities. As with many issues, there are always socio-economic issues.

In the end, it is a convoluted subject, at best.