The Second Generation: When Kids Who Were Homeschooled Grow Up to Homeschool Their Own

Homeschooling's modern revival in the U.S. dates back roughly to the 1970s and '80s, which means there's now a generation of parents making the choice to homeschool who were themselves homeschooled as kids. That shift is quietly changing the character of the homeschool community — and giving researchers a rare chance to study what happens to homeschooled children once they become adults.

What the Research on Homeschooled Adults Shows

The most rigorous recent look at this question comes from a nationally representative study by researchers Angela Watson and Albert Cheng, published through the think tank Cardus, examining American adults who were homeschooled as children. The study grouped respondents into short-term (1–2 years), medium-term (3–7 years), and long-term (8–13 years) homeschoolers and compared them across employment, mental health, civic engagement, faith, and family structure.

The headline finding, reflected in the study’s own title, is that there is no single profile of a "homeschooled adult." Outcomes varied considerably depending on how long someone was homeschooled and their family circumstances — much as outcomes vary among graduates of any other school type. The researchers were careful to note their design can’t establish that homeschooling itself caused any particular outcome, only that it describes how different groups of former homeschoolers are faring.

Separately, the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) — a research organization generally supportive of homeschooling — has published decades of studies on homeschooled adults' community involvement, civic participation, and views on homeschooling, generally finding favorable outcomes on those measures, though critics note much of this research relies on self-selected, volunteer samples that may not represent homeschoolers as a whole.

What's Different for the Second Generation

Parents who were homeschooled themselves bring something to the decision that first-generation homeschooling parents didn't have: lived experience of what worked and what didn't. Accounts from second-generation homeschool parents describe drawing on specific memories — a Latin or music program they valued as a kid, or a lack of community they want to make sure their own children don't experience.

That last point comes up often. Some second-generation parents raised in relatively isolated homeschool settings — particularly in rural areas with few other homeschooling families nearby — say the biggest change in their own approach is a deliberate effort to build in more community, helped considerably by resources that didn't exist for their parents: online homeschool communities, co-ops, and social media groups that make it far easier to find other families nearby.

Why It Matters Going Forward

As the pool of second-generation homeschool parents grows, it offers something the movement's first generation couldn't: an internal feedback loop. Parents adjusting their approach based on their own homeschool childhood — keeping what worked, changing what didn't — may end up shaping the next phase of homeschooling as much as any curriculum trend or state policy change.