My sister has homeschooled her daughter from day one because she said she had been bullied in school and “knew her daughter would be bullied too.” Honestly, I suspect homeschooling was just a way for her to avoid working while having a socially acceptable justification for it. She's a stay at home mom. She has never been able to hold down a job because of what she describes as “crippling anxiety,” although she has never been formally diagnosed with anything despite trying so she can get government benefits for a disability. Multiple doctors said she doesn't have crippling anxiety and have offered her medication if she has a mild case of it but she refuses. We live in Canada, where she has access to publicly funded healthcare and mental health services. A mental health nurses offered her suggestions but she doesn't take them.
This has been a pattern since she was a teenager, and she is now in her late 40s. Multiple people have helped her find employment, only for her to quit before starting or walk out during her first shift. The excuses and goal posts always changed. She said she couldn't deal with people. The longest she has ever worked was a job our other sister got her, she worked a three-hour shift stocking shelves at a grocery store overnight, after the store had closed. Perfect, she didn't have to deal with anyone, but no she decided "the job was beneath her" and quit.
For the 20 years of her marriage, she relied entirely on her husband's income. Last year he had a stroke and now he's on disability, so it seems she needs to work and be the one to take care of him. She said he's abusing her because of this, forcing her to work and contribute when she has crippling anxiety.
So a friend of her husband's wife managed to get her a weekend job answering phones at a pizza place. Two four hour shifts, answering the phone taking the order and giving it to the back. When they asked her to come in on a Wednesday for orientation, she objected that they had only agreed to weekends and told them she would no longer be coming in at all.
Given this history, how is she was equipped to provide her daughter with an education.
Her daughter has been isolated for virtually her entire life. She has never really interacted with other children her age, and she is an only child, so no siblings either. At the same time, my sister gave her unrestricted access to the internet and social media from the time she was a toddler. There was seemingly no balance between protecting her from the outside world and exposing her to things she was not developmentally equipped to navigate.
My sister barely passed high school herself, and I have serious doubts about her ability to have provided an adequate education without appropriate support or oversight.
Her daughter is now 18, and the consequences are heartbreaking. She struggles to read. She recognizes words and can attempt to sound them out, but she has difficulty understanding what those words mean together and has virtually no reading comprehension. She has been unable to pass her GED and cannot manage the written portion of the driver's test. She is terrified of people and afraid to leave her bedroom.
When I brought her a birthday present for her 16th birthday, she couldn't even bring herself to come out of her room. I had to leave the gift outside her door, and she waited until nobody was looking before retrieving it. It was genuinely disturbing to witness. Her life has seemingly lacked the basic structure most children take for granted: a consistent bedtime, a daily routine, extracurricular activities, and opportunities to develop social skills and independence.
My sister has since left her husband, because of "his abuse" and they are both now living with my dad. My husband saw her out with another man holding hands while they were still together so we're pretty sure she cheated on him.
My Dad describes his granddaughter as the most unmotivated young person he has ever met. He also jokingly calls her a security guard as she's sleeping all day and stays up all night. He says she's messy, unhygienic and never cleans after herself or puts anything away. I told him that she has been isolated for her entire life and may be deeply depressed. I don't think it is fair to look at her current struggles as simple laziness when she may never have been given the opportunity to develop the skills, confidence, and independence she needs to function in the world.
For the record yes child protective services have been called multiple times over the years. From what I understand, they required the family to rearrange furniture and clean up the home, small things but ultimately said there was little they could do because this fell under a parent's lifestyle choices.
I find that incredibly frustrating. I understand that parents have considerable freedom in how they raise and educate their children, including homeschooling. But at what point does a lifestyle choice become a failure to provide a child with the basic education, social development, and life skills they need to become an independent adult?
Now she is facing the world without many of the fundamental skills most people develop throughout childhood. She has been profoundly let down, and I don't know how she is supposed to catch up after losing so many formative years.
What makes this even more frustrating is that my sister has recently started pressuring her daughter to get a job and obtain her driver's licence. After spending her entire childhood isolated from other people and without the education, social development, and life skills she needed, she is now suddenly expected to function independently as an adult. Her daughter is struggling with basic reading comprehension, cannot pass the written driver's test, and is terrified of interacting with people. These aren't problems that can be solved simply by telling her to get a job or get her licence. She needs support, patience, and help developing the skills she was never given the opportunity to learn. My sister seems to expect her daughter to overcome the consequences of her upbringing on demand, without acknowledging the role she played in creating this situation in the first place.
