Voted No and Yes but really both are more mid-tier warnings.
I’m at an age where anyone who was home-schooled is hopefully developed well past “What 5th grade was like”. However, I’d want to know their current thoughts on home schooling and public schooling. If they’re just “I think home schooling can have some benefits” then cool. If they’re “public school is the brainwashing tool of the incompetent State run by overpaid lazy…” etc then we’re not going to make it as a couple. Granted, a public educated person can also have those thoughts but hearing that they were home schooled would likely spark the discussion.
The second one would be more about their upraising in general and thoughts about religion and family, etc than about where their school photos were taken. Maybe they’ve changed their life and are all good (by my estimation). Maybe they still retain sympathies to how they were raised. Maybe they’re carrying some deep trauma. I think that’s more likely to impact things than just “I was home schooled” which is why I voted Yes though neither is cause to immediately ask for the check and escape out the fire exit.
Sloppy posting on my part: I was thinking of the second question (home-schooled for religious reasons). Home schooling in general is too broad a category to support such a judgement.
I will acknowledge that there could be people who were home-schooled for religious reasons who were not experiencing a fucked-up childhood, but in my experience parents whose religion causes them to make such large changes to their lives, no matter what religion, are extreme in other ways. Broad brush strokes, I know; I’m certainly prepared to consider exceptions.
Home-schooled for ultra-conservative religious reasons is a red flag for me, because it means to me that it’s more likely than not that you were probably brought up in a household that taught you some seriously maladaptive relationship skills, and it’s not clear whether you’ve unlearned them. (Also I have/had amazing in-laws and… it’s a definite major plus to have good in-laws, which I would not have realized was the case before having them.)
Red flag doesn’t necessarily mean write off, mind you. I was brought up with an example of pretty bad relationship skills (not primarily because of religion, but more because my parents are fundamentally messed up in ways that do not play well together) and I did a lot of thinking and a lot of reading and I mostly turned out OK on this point, although sometimes I still take much longer to communicate than I really should because I have to steel myself for it. Anyway, I’m glad my now-husband didn’t write me off after seeing what my parents were like…
Also, I know a bunch of people at the local “homeschooling-charter” school, and most of them are religious but not what I’d call “ultra-religious” and don’t necessarily have their kids there for religious reasons (e.g., one of them was bullied at her public school). And some others at the same school aren’t religious at all. So it does depend a lot. The “because of being ultra-conservative” in the OP did register as red flag to me, though.
Red flag to me means more than caution. Caution is a yellow flag, and means you need more information. A red flag is more like a strike in baseball. One may be okay, but too many and you should leave. Hence the phrase “throwing up a ton of red flags” to mean you need to leave ASAP.
People are also home-schooled because they are ultra-liberal, have special needs, medical issues, different educational philosophies that don’t fit in rigid political ID, are gifted and the school district can’t accommodate those things and families can’t afford specialized private schools, etc.
I was home-schooled for almost 2 years because I was bullied constantly and had panic attacks. School wasn’t a safe space for me, but home was. As an adult I place a lot of importance on overcoming discomfort and facing fears, but I just couldn’t make it then. Both of my kids have been home-schooled for part of their school years, for similar and other reasons. Frankly, if I lived in certain states now I might insist on home-schooling them to protect them from some of the anti-education pro-ignorance movements.
So, yeah, my answer is “no” or needs a lot more information. As far as educational background goes, my biggest red flag in retrospect would be a college grad that (a non-wealthy) mommy/daddy paid for and has never had a “real job.”
So we can probably have a separate IMHO on what “red flag” means! I’m with the group that interprets it as “stay away” than “caution” and answered the poll accordingly but whatever.
Never dealbreaker status.
Agreed that there’d be more concern back in my early 20s than an imaginary suddenly single now in my early 60s. So much more other life under our belts. Did they have kids that they homeschooled and why? What do they think about various things now? What are their current lived values? Are they fun and interesting? Do they think I am?
If I was 20 it would be … a point of interest. It would be someone in either case whose life to date had been a different world experience than mine. That could be fascinating and exciting or result in so little common ground that we didn’t share any frames of reference. Or turn out to have more shared values and interests than I would have preconceived. So would have been BOTH an attractive feature and a caution sign. More the former. Not getting married, just a date and more or not depending on how it played out.