No Offense

Do you ever feel like saying "Does my decision to homeschool somehow offend you? That's okay because your ignorant assumptions offend me."
People are strange. Most if the time I stand there politely listening to the babbling of uninformed perceptions about homeschooling while I laugh on the inside. Once in a while, I really would like to argue the case. But it takes some time to educate people who already know all about homeschooling. And regardless of facts and statistics that are presented, they have this myopia. I'm sure any homeschooler knows what I'm talking about. We usually start with "What about socialization? - Doesn't he miss being around all of the kids?" After explaining the negative "socialization" he endured, the benefits of socializing with people other than those in his own age group, and the fact that he has more social opportunities due to homeschooling, a scowl dismisses that argument. Next comes, "Who teaches him? How do you know what to teach him? Isn't he behind?" So, we talk about how homeschooled students typically outperform publicly schooled children. When the "oh, so my child is the one who is likely behind?" look crosses their face we move onto, "What about sports? How long are you going to keep him out of school?....Etc., etc. etc." Finally, we close with the public school advocate shaking her head and saying "I could never do that." Sometimes I think "to my child" is implied.
Maybe someday I will go up to these people and ask them if they are concerned with whom their child is socializing in school, or question their child's academic performance. How do you think that will go over?

If I didn't have a child in public school I wouldn't assume I knew what it was all about. Why do critics of homeschooling assume they know so much when they obviously haven't researched at all?