I didn't go to high school. What did I really miss?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a damn thing

+1
It sucked

High school sucked for me.

[Anonymous]

It sucks for most people but that's not the point. The point is youhave shared experiences and references with your cohort that OP doesn't. Her high school years likely blew too but she doesn't even have anyone to laugh with about the various absurd ways it sucked because unlike the rest of us with normal parents who let us go to school, she was isolated. High school with your mom is NOT high school.

[Anonymous]

OP: Get over the fact Mom homeschooled you. Feel she kept you away from "brown" people? There are plenty of "brown" neighborhoods & you could have married "brown" and had "brown"children. Felt she kept you away from drugs? You got time now. Go get'em. I'm sure you are the PERFECT mom and every decision you make your kids will love.

[Anonymous]

I liked high school for the most part, though it was stressful. Honestly, the most important part for me (not academically) was that I met my husband at high school.

[Anonymous]

Hi OP....I also was home-schooled and didn't attend high school, and I have dealt with issues with/about it. I felt for a long time that I missed out, especially when I was in college. But at nearly 40, so many other life experiences pile up that it's not important.

I do believe, though, that my relationship with my mother was severely damaged over being home-schooled. My mom and my personalities clashed and she was unequipped to really manage parenting a teenager and definitely unqualified to manage my education. I feel like the environment was more harmful to my long-term mental health than anything else.

Obviously, there's always the possibility that I would have gotten into trouble or been unhappy in other ways. But the structure of school and the ability to learn from adults that were not also telling me to clean my room would have been better in the long run.

[Anonymous]

Let this one go, OP. Some people have a great time in high school. Others have a terrible time. Most people have a middling time. It is formative for some people because those are formative YEARS, where teenagers are learning to navigate social situations, puberty and identity. You probably learned how to navigate social situations later, when your peers were more mature and sensible and were spared some teenage insanity. You "missed out" on some good things too.

I embraced my nerdiness in high school, determined I was smarter than anyone else ever, and was probably generally kind of an arrogant jerk to my peers. Many of whom were also jerks to me. I then learned I was kind of jerk and tried (poorly, I suspect) to do better. I took solace in my family. I made a true best friend, from whom I have since grown apart. I fell in and out of love. And I wrote bad poetry. I became a leader of a team and learned I have a talent for public speaking. I broke some rules, and got in some trouble but nothing bad and no one was hurt. I read a LOT of books, some of which changed me.

[Anonymous]

Bad cafeteria lunches

[Anonymous]

OP, I can't say I suffered greatly in HS, but I don't remember it fondly. I was strong-headed and clashed with teachers who didn't know better than to retaliate by lowering my grades. I think those years were more stressful for my mother, who was very concerned about my academics. I was part of a clique, but those friendships didn't last past HS. I made more lasting friendships in college and at work. Overall, the last two years of school were about grades and what to do after the graduation. Little else was on most people's radar. This may be because I went to fairly selective HS, we the kids were academically advanced with college futures ahead of us.

Yes, I share HS experience with most people. I don't see its intrinsic value though.

[Anonymous]

I graduated high school in the early 80s. I look back in high school differently then some of these posters as I was insecure as I did not grow up in the community, military brat, so I got in with him bad crowd, took drugs, smoked pot nearly every day, so on and so forth. I wish I was more academic and got better grades, but alas that was not my path. It does nothing to look back and regret what might have been. Look at who you are today. I have overcome my high school drug use and have a successful career, a nice house in a nice neighborhood, an awesome husband, and great kids. I understand how you are feeling, as I sometimes look back and wonder what might have been if I was a different person in high school, but then I look at what but I am today and I wouldn’t change for the world. I keep in touch with two people from HS on Facebook. We are not close, only know what’s going on in our lives via Facebook. They still live in that hometown and I moved out the summer after graduation. My closest friend is my roommate from college.

[Anonymous]

^^ this is the previous poster. What I should add is due to my lack of academics in high school, I initially did not go to college upon graduation. I worked full-time and went to school at night initially, and then just worked and saved and saved so that I could quit my job and finish my last two years as a full-time student, although I did continue working nights as I needed money beyond student loans to live on. I did not graduate until I was 30, and I graduated with honors.