Home-schoolers threaten our cultural comfort
Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:50 pm (PDT)
*SONNY SCOTT*6/8/2008 9:39:01 AMDaily 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 if you've met us, you know our version of neatly trimmed hair is of a different perception and girls with braids that means I'd have to be able to get near Mall with a brush, in clean (ummm, what's that?) 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. okay so maaaaybe not so peacefully, unless you call "No you can't have that No we can't get that Stop hitting your brother Do NOT leave this cart again Please look in front of you as you're walking" peaceful...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. I really hadn't thought about this, wow, how interesting! Most homeschoolers do pay local taxes into their schools, yet don't use the ps at all, and don't want to, really, why have a problem with people willing to literally GIVE money to the school system? 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? A question I've asked out loud, in emails, and on here already. I mean, really truly, I have personally experienced having people stop speaking to me over this choice. Why?...Sonny answers it pretty well here, I think.....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 that would mean I'd have to actually find the foot pedal for my sewing machine 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?I have to agree with this though, for the most part, I do feel a serene kind of joy. Yea its internal, sometimes really really really deeeeeeeep down buried under that "OW MOMMY HE DID IT AGAIN's", but its there and I love every minute of this Is it any wonder we hate her so? AMEN AND FINIS!
Sonny Scott a community columnist, lives on Sparta Road in Chickasaw County and his e-mail address is sonnyscott@yahoo.com.
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