NYU Press Home Is Where the School Is: The Logic of Homeschooling and the Emotional Labor of Mothering

Mothers who homeschool their children constantly face judgmental questions about their choices, and yet the homeschooling movement continues to grow with an estimated 1.5 million American children now schooled at home. These children are largely taught by stay-at-home mothers who find that they must tightly manage their daily schedules to avoid burnout and maximize their relationships with their children, and that they must sustain a desire to sacrifice their independent selves for many years in order to savor the experience of motherhood. Home Is Where the School Is is the first comprehensive look into the lives of homeschooling mothers. Drawing on rich data collected through eight years of fieldwork and dozens of in-depth interviews, Jennifer Lois examines the intense effects of the emotional and temporal demands that homeschooling places on mothers’ lives, raising profound questions about the expectations of modern motherhood and the limits of parenting. Review [H]er book opens a wide window onto the lives of homeschooling mothers.---Rachel Tabachnick "Intensive Mothering" A welcome addition to a growing literature on emotion work, culture, and parenting across social class and in other child-care arrangements. Terrific for sociology, culture, or women's studies collections.-- "CHOICE" One of the most significant analyses of homeschooling and the role homeschooling mothers play in this practice to date...this book is excellent; it is necessary reading for scholars interested in understanding both homeschooling and the sociology of mothering. If there is a problem with the book, it is that it wasn't written sooner.--Gary Wyatt "American Journal of Sociology" Theoretically rich and empirically fascinating.-- "Sociology of Religion" Using in-depth longitudinal interviews, Lois sheds light on the emotional lives of homeschoolers and elucidates a number of core social psychological processes related to stigma, identity, social roles, and emotion management.-- "Sociology of Religion" About the Author Jennifer Lois is Associate Professor of Sociology at Western Washington University.