Every time I read an article or 'blog critical of homeschooling I come across at least one quote that explicitly or implicitly voices the notion that it's somehow dangerous or undesirable for parents to be the primary influence in their children's lives.
Usually, the negative comments are tinged with paranoia that seems to border on fear. The detractors don't like the idea that children are being taught their family's particular religious values, be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or other.
The argument seems to go something like this: If parents are the main source of information and values training for their children, then their children will grow up emulating and living those values rather than the values they would have received by being in a public school environment. It's just not healthy, they charge, for children to spend so much time in the company of their families.
Personally, I worry too many parents -- homeschooling or not, regardless of their faith/no faith -- don't really understand the gravity of this perspective: There are those in society who genuinely believe parents should step aside and let the state raise our children. The state will, of course, wash them in the waters of moral relativism, secular humanism, and political correctness in an effort to create a generation whose members all know the same, think the same and act the same. That same generation will be raised to tolerate things that ought not be tolerated, in the name of compassion, decency, fairness, and the like.
A lot of homeschooling critics aren't really bothered about the quality of academics for kids taught at home. What gripes them, deep down, is that the state has no free and frequent access to our children's minds.
We must guard our children's minds as jealously as we guard their physical bodies! Failure to do so will render a good deal of what we want to accomplish as parents meaningless.
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