Confused

When you make the decision to home educate it is one that I would expect as a family, you have given much thought to.  I am always interested to hear why families decide to home educate as the reasons are usually really varied.

I live in a village in a rural area.  The village itself has many facilities, most of which we make use of, it also has a good bus service which we use occasionally.  We have a car for the journeys that are impossible or more difficult by bus.  Part of our family discussion about home educating included how much travelling we would have to do.  To visit friends (I know most families in the village and am not aware of any others who are home educating), museums, go out for the day etc we realised that most if not all these trips would necessitate us leaving the village, in reality this has been the case.

I was surprised by a recent conversation with a friend which left me wondering why her family were home educating.  The family live fairly near us in another much smaller village, one with far less facilities than ours.  They are getting fed up with the lack of children for their own children to socialise with (we are one of the only families they see on a regular basis) and were starting the process of placing their school age child in a school (not the most local).  They are also getting fed up with the amount of travelling that they have to do to, to take their children to activities and to meet other children.  It seemed to me (and was confirmed on more discussion) that they wanted to home educate but did not want to have to travel much, if at all, for their children to socialise and do activities.  They also do not wish to move to a bigger town or city.   Hmmm..........having it both ways?