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>> 69 3 Defending Good-Mother Identities The Homeschooling Stigma Non-homeschooling strangers, friends, and family members, whom I have called “outsiders,” frequently criticized homeschoolers for keeping their children out of conventional schools, often implying—and sometimes stating outright—that they were irresponsible mothers for doing so. The criticism was constant, and over time homeschoolers became adept at defending their parenting choices and fighting the stigma of homeschooling. Commonly understood, a stigma is a negative label applied to people who have broken a social norm, suggesting they are somehow inferior or immoral for deviating from society’s rules. Sociologists’ view of stigma, however, is slightly more nuanced because of our perspective that reality is socially constructed —that our beliefs about what is real drive our actions, and these actions have real consequences in our lives (as I discussed in the introduction ). When we examine stigma closely, we see that it is not caused by a person ’s rule-breaking behavior but rather by others’ perception of that person’s rule-breaking behavior. Howard Becker was one of the first sociologists to reveal that the crucial feature in being labeled deviant was not committing 70 > 71 appropriate maternal emotions helps us see not only the significant impact it had on homeschoolers’ identities but also the robust emotional expectations inherent in the emotional culture of intensive mothering. Justifying Maternal Emotional Intensity Many outsiders disapproved of homeschooling because they believed it would harm children in multiple ways. Critics often accused homeschoolers of irresponsible mothering and challenged them to account for their decision .7 Although some fathers also had to defend their decision to homeschool , mothers received the brunt of the criticism because they were with children more often and were primarily in charge of the homeschooling. In addition, when outsiders did criticize fathers, they rarely attacked their paternal responsibilities, whereas when they criticized mothers, they clearly questioned their maternal identities. Therefore, mothers quickly learned to defend themselves by invoking particular justifications to neutralize the stigma of irresponsible mothering. Although on the surface, outsiders wanted mothers to explain the deviant behavior of homeschooling, each accusation underneath targeted mothers’ deviant emotions—specifically their excess emotional intensity—which outsiders assumed underlay mothers’ motivation to homeschool. Mothers were cast as deviant not for homeschooling per se but for allegedly letting their maternal emotions spin out of control, which led to the irresponsible behavior of homeschooling. Homeschoolers defended themselves in four specific ways, each justification aimed at a particular charge of excessive maternal emotional intensity. Academically Arrogant Homeschoolers were commonly accused of feeling arrogant about the academic demands of homeschooling. They were cast as smug, irresponsible mothers who thought they could do a better job teaching their children than credentialed teachers in conventional schools. Outsiders often expressed this view to me when they discovered I was researching homeschoolers, but they also confronted homeschoolers directly. Linda Kelso, whose three homeschooled children were in college when I talked to her in 2002, said, “When I told my mother I was going to homeschool her grandchildren [laughs], she went ballistic. She was yelling at me about how I didn’t know the first thing about being a teacher and that I was going to destroy their lives.” Many mothers related stories like this, about how their own families reacted to 72 > 73 middle-class mother, had considered homeschooling her two children eight years earlier, she thought, “This homeschooling thing is not the right way to go. All these people [are] out there thinking that they know what they’re doing, and they don’t have a clue; they’re probably ruining their children.” To combat the perception that they were arrogant, homeschoolers invoked a justification: they admitted feeling a great deal of confidence that they could provide the best education for their children, but they denied that this confidence was excessive or problematic. Valerie said, “I felt confident in my conviction that this was for our family; on how to do it, I wasn’t that confident. I knew I could do it, I just wasn’t sure how.” Mothers anchored their confidence in their intimate knowledge of their children’s interests and motivational currencies; they argued that it truly did place them in the best position to advance their children’s education. Parents discussed this idea at one of the PATH meetings I attended, which I recorded in my fieldnotes: We talked about individuality in kids—how each is different, but schools don’t honor that. “Standardized curriculum is for standardized...

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