Everything I read about socialization for homeschoolers trivializes it. Surely, there is no problem! lalalalala! They all insist. So if you have problems with socialization, something’s wrong with you, blah, blah, blah, etc.

I even read one book that said socialization was a myth and a trap that we should avoid altogether. That was good news for me, since I had a hard time with it anyway. I bumbled along, dazed and confused for several years behind that one.

Then I met Miriam, who got it. She had four children at the time, and their children’s dear friends had recently moved away. Those friends were hard won, so the family made a point of visiting them. Miriam also made a point of making new friends for the family, by taking field trips together, camping together, spending long days at her house, and child swapping. I went along with most of it, sans camping, even though I didn’t quite understand it. Our kids weren’t a perfect match, either, but we spent enough time together to get comfortable with each other, and the children are like extended family.

I have been too nervous, suspicious and fearful to bond with the local homeschool community at large. But something has broken recently, and it is like a revelation.

Yesterday was a day. I got a phone call from one of the mothers in our math/social group asking if Joy could come over after the group met. That was fine, except it would have to be a short visit, because we had to run out of town for a couple basketball games.

We went to the group, which meets bi-weekly. We had missed last time because of the snow storm, so I was motivated to go this time, even though the baby had a fever. She stayed home with her grateful big sister (who is too old for the group, and would have had to go and work in the nursery). I played games with Esteban and another Kindergartner, Nathan, and his mother, Traci, that I recognized from the Christmas party. We chatted about board games and her husband’s love of math, among other things.

When the other Kindergarten/first grade mothers left with the group for their next activity, Traci and I stayed behind to play math games with our 2nd graders. Joy sat down at a table and it was immediately overfull with other little girls. There was not even enough room for all her friends to join us. Joy gets socialization. She, at 7 years old knows how to talk to children, how to play with other kids, how to collect friends. It comes very easily for her.

Later, at the basketball game, I had several nice conversations with familiar people. Even though we were about an hour from home, I chatted with a neighbor, another homeschooler that lives on our same street. He didn’t know we were neighbors, but his son did! I cheered alongside the woman that asked me to do the radio ad, talked about my letter to the newspaper that had recently been published with a woman from HPA, and sat with Martha, whom I’ve known for years from a girl’s group.

Joy marched around singing and giggling with Anne, Martha’s daughter. They were both babies when we’d met.

Both of my kids’ teams won, and we found ourselves shouting, cheering and congratulating each other. There were warm smiles all around, people saying, ‘see you next time,’ and variations on that theme.

I get it, but I still can’t explain it. How would you explain ‘socialization?’