Great Article

I read this article on a homeschool forum. I enjoyed it very much. As a warning, it has fantastical elements to it, such as children walking calmly and orderly through the grocery store, wearing nice and even matching outfits. I would be interested in knowing what your children do through the grocery store in hopes that mine aren’t the only ones who run as fast as they can down the aisle, then drop to their knees and see how far they can slide. I would like to say now that they are older it is better, but it is just different. Now is it wrestling or spy games or seeing how fast we can walk. The benefit to them being older is that I don’t have to walk in the same aisle. ha. In their defense, I have very well behaved sons. If I tell them to stop, they will. But we would not look like this family in this article. When I read this, I couldn’t help but think of all the things my sons have tried and done in a store. Now I can laugh! What does your family look like when you grocery shop?

Here is the article- food for thought!

 

Home-schoolers threaten our cultural comfort 
Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:50 pm (PDT) 
*SONNY SCOTT*
 
6/8/2008 9:39:01 AM
 Daily Journal
 
You see them at the grocery, or in a discount store.
 
It’s a big family by today’s standards – “just like stair steps,”
as the old folks say. Freshly scrubbed boys with neatly trimmed hair
and girls with braids, in clean but unfashionable clothes follow mom
through the store as she fills her no-frills shopping list.
 
There’s no begging for gimcracks, no fretting, and no threats
from mom. The older watch the younger, freeing mom to go peacefully
about her task.
 
You are looking at some of the estimated 2 million children being
home schooled in the U.S., and the number is growing. Their
reputation for academic achievement has caused colleges to begin
aggressively recruiting them. Savings to the taxpayers in
instructional costs are conservatively estimated at $4 billion, and
some place the figure as high as $9 billion. When you consider that
these families pay taxes to support public schools, but demand
nothing from them, it seems quite a deal for the public.
 
Home schooling parents are usually better educated than the norm,
and are more likely to attend worship services. Their motives are
many and varied. Some fear contagion from the anti-clericalism,
coarse speech, suggestive behavior and hedonistic values that
characterize secular schools. Others are concerned for their
children’s safety. Some want their children to be challenged beyond
the minimal competencies of the public schools. Concern for a
theistic world view largely permeates the movement.
 
Indications are that home schooling is working well for the kids,
and the parents are pleased with their choice, but the practice is
coming under increasing suspicion, and even official attack, as in
California.
 
Why do we hate (or at least distrust) these people so much?
 
Methinks American middle-class people are uncomfortable around
the home schooled for the same reason the alcoholic is uneasy around
the teetotaler.
 
Their very existence represents a rejection of our values, and an
indictment of our lifestyles. Those families are willing to render
unto Caesar the things that Caesar’s be, but they draw the line at
their 
children. Those of us who have put our trust in the secular state
(and effectively surrendered our children to it) recognize this act
of defiance as a rejection of our values, and we reject them in
return.
 
Just as the jealous Chaldeans schemed to bring the wrath of the
king upon the Hebrew eunuchs, we are happy to sic the state’s
bureaucrats on these “trouble makers.” Their implicit rejection of
America’s most venerated idol, Materialism, (a.k.a. “Individualism”)
spurs us to heat the furnace and feed the lions.
 
Young families must make the decision: Will junior go to day care
and day school, or will mom stay home and raise him? The
rationalizations begin. “A family just can’t make it on one income.”
(Our parents did.) “It just costs so much to raise a child nowadays.”
(Yeah, if you buy brand-name clothing, pre-prepared food, join every
club and activity, and spend half the cost of a house on the
daughter’s wedding, it does.) And so, the decision is made. We give
up the bulk of our waking hours with our children, as well as the
formation of their minds, philosophies, and attitudes, to strangers.
We compensate by getting a boat to take them to the river, a van to
carry them to Little League, a 2,800-square-foot house, an ATV, a
zero-turn Cub Cadet, and a fund to finance a brand-name college
education. And most significantly, we claim “our right” to pursue a
career for our own”self-fulfillment.”
 
Deep down, however, we know that our generation has eaten its
seed corn. We lack the discipline and the vision to deny ourselves in
the hope of something enduring and worthy for our posterity. We are
tired from working extra jobs, and the looming depression threatens
our 401k’s. Credit cards are nearly maxed, and it costs a $100 to
fuel the Suburban. Now the kid is raising hell again, demanding the
latest Play Station as his price for doing his school work … and
there goes that modest young woman in the home-made dress with her
four bright-eyed, well-behaved home-schooled children in tow.
Wouldn’t you just love to wipe that serene look right off her smug
face?
 
Is it any wonder we hate her so?
 
Sonny Scott a community columnist, lives on Sparta Road in
Chickasaw County and his e-mail address is sonnyscott@…
 
Obviously, we wouldn’t agree on this post, least of all the stereotype of a homeschool family. That is what made me chuckle. I don’t know many homeschoolers who look like this woman and her children. I do however agree with the references of homeschooling being a choice, and one that has consequences and financial repercussions. It is not without a cost. Sometimes I think people forget that.

Enjoy the day,

Shannon