Podcast hosts condemn homeschooling as 'weird,' draw swift pushback from education advocates

On a Tuesday episode of their podcast "I've Had It," hosts Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan responded to a caller's frustration about homeschooling parents by launching into a sustained critique of the practice itself. Sullivan began by expressing worry about families in religious communities who choose to educate their children at home, then escalated her position: homeschooling struck her as fundamentally wrong, regardless of a parent's qualifications or expertise. She described the arrangement as strange—the idea of keeping children home all day and night, she said, troubled her on a basic level. She went further, suggesting that people who want to spend that much time with their own children warrant suspicion, and that many parents turn to homeschooling simply because it's easier, a choice she framed as concerning.

Welch took the critique in a different direction, arguing that homeschooling parents impose their own worldview onto their children and prevent them from developing independent thought. She connected homeschooling to what she called "trickle-down stupidity" and linked it to broader cultural movements she opposed, describing it as part of America's "fundamental crazy Christian problem." She went so far as to characterize the practice as a form of child abuse—specifically, the abuse of pushing religious belief onto a child before they're old enough to consider alternatives or reject religion altogether. The hosts' comments reflected a view that homeschooling represents parental selfishness masquerading as love.

The pushback came swiftly. Corey DeAngelis, a senior fellow at the American Culture Project and education policy advocate, challenged the framing entirely. In a statement to Fox News Digital, he inverted the hosts' logic: it was not strange to want your children nearby, he argued. What was strange, he suggested, was the assumption that children should spend their formative years in institutions run by government employees, away from their families. He pointed to documented problems within public schools—abuse, bullying, violence, drug use, gang activity—and characterized these as the real socialization concern.

DeAngelis situated homeschooling within human history, noting that parents teaching their own children is how education functioned for millennia. The government school model, he countered, is the actual experiment—a relatively recent invention born from 19th-century Prussian military organization and 20th-century progressive social engineering. He argued that this experiment has failed millions of students. His response reframed the hosts' comments not as a critique of homeschooling but as a reflection of their contempt for parental authority and family autonomy. Choosing to raise and educate one's own children, he concluded, is neither radical nor politically motivated. It is, he said, the most natural arrangement in the world.

The exchange illustrates a deeper cultural divide over who should control a child's education and upbringing. The podcast hosts saw homeschooling as a vehicle for ideological capture and religious indoctrination, a way for parents to limit their children's exposure to competing ideas. DeAngelis and those who share his view see public schooling as the ideological imposition—one backed by government authority—and homeschooling as an expression of parental choice and responsibility. Both sides claim to be protecting children; they simply disagree fundamentally about what protection looks like and who should provide it. The debate shows no signs of resolution, as the two camps operate from incompatible premises about the purpose of education and the proper relationship between parents, children, and state institutions.