It's very difficult to measure how many families homeschool, but the latest statistics from the National Home Education Research Institute estimate between 2 and 3 million children in the US right now self-identify as homeschoolers, or around 1 in 40.

The reasons that single parents homeschool are, in my own experience, very similar to the reasons that more traditional families homeschool - concerns about the quality of their child's education, a desire to pass along family values or faith-based values, concerns about the physical, mental and emotional safety of the public school environment, special needs learners that aren't getting adequate attention, etc.

However, there is an additional component that motivates single parents to homeschool, according to what I've heard from other one-parent homeschoolers in person and online - the desire to circumvent the separation and eventual alienation between parent and child that happens to so many single-parent families. Single parents who work outside the home often have very limited time with their children, often seeing them only in the evenings and on weekends (which are often spent doing chores and errands anyway).

Especially if one is newly divorced, or abandoned by a spouse, or even widowed, this puts the single parent at a serious disadvantage to provide emotional support and guidance to their children. A single parent who homeschools can be there for their children in a way that most single parents can't be. It's a way to keep our families more intact, minimize the damage of a broken home, and reclaim the position as a primary caregiver, guide and authority figure in our children's lives - all things that many single parents often have to count as losses.

By homeschooling my own son and working from home, I spend a tremendous amount of time with my son, more than even most married stay-at-home mothers do.

For us, and for most, the drawback has always been financial. I freelance write and design web sites from home, so my income has never been very steady and we live very humbly. We are very blessed that my son's father takes an active part in his life. Even though he lives out of state, he has always been consistent with child support and with providing for whatever my son needs.

However, many single parents are not so fortunate, and homeschooling can even become a point of contention in custody battles. It can be challenging to secure a steady income and find the time and resources to homeschool simultaneously. However, with God's help, all things are possible. People do it. Where there's a will, there is always a way.

Honestly, yes! Every few months I ask him what he thinks about "building school" and if he would ever go back. I would prefer to never send him to traditional school, but if he strongly wanted to, I would consider it. However, he has never shown even a remote interest in doing so, and we're on our sixth year of homeschooling. My son dimly remembers what school is like and only recalls it is very tedious. He prefers the more unstructured time he has to work on his many interests, which include pursuits in film making, creative writing and drawing, and computer art, with only a couple of hours of academia, which he mostly enjoys, each day. He says he has no interest in going back to school, citing the tedium as well as the lessened time with me as drawbacks. :)

There are very few. That's why I'm working as fast as I can to build this site up into a huge, active online community of resources - because there is a definite need there. There is a wonderfully supportive and active Yahoo! group which can be found at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/1Parent_hs/

Increasingly, there is a single parent thread or subsection in most homeschool or work-at-home forums. I think there is a growing awareness that this is an ever-expanding niche in the homeschooling community. I have gotten very positive support from the married homeschooling families in our local park groups and support groups. But for now, most support from other single parents can be found via the Internet, and single parents who join homeschooling groups can expect to be the only single parent there, or only one of a handful.

But I KNOW that's going to change over time as awareness grows.

It's up to you and how much you want to allow other people to be able to judge and question you. I personally no longer feel the need to explain myself to anyone. I used to have this long defensive schpiel I would give to people about socialization, with an ordered list of the positives of homeschooling and statistics about the negatives of public school and things like that.

I don't do that anymore. I feel that homeschooling is mainstream enough at this point that ignorance about the subject is, as the writer Nicholas Ling once said, a voluntary misfortune. If people want to educate themselves further about the subject, I am always happy to point people in the direction of books, resources and web sites; if they're genuinely curious and want to learn more about homeschooling as an option, I'm happy to be a resource. But I no longer feel the need to validate my choices to would-be critics who don't know anything about my lifestyle or my family, and if people feel compelled to ask thoughtless questions like "But can he EVEN READ?!?!" when he's reading right in front of them, I just really don't feel the need to justify myself. Your mileage may vary!