secular homeschooling

I Cannot Write You a Happy Ending, Part Two: By Slatewoman

HA Editorial Team4 Comments

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I Cannot Write You a Happy Ending, Part Two: By Slatewoman

HA notes: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Slatewoman” is a pseudonym.

< Part One

My inability to function in the big bad world has led me to do some stupid things.

Most recently, I went and got myself addicted to heroin. I’m a functional junkie, but a junkie nonetheless.  It helped me stick with my last job for much longer than I would have because it turned my brain off. The only upside to becoming an opiate addict is that all other intoxicants pale in comparison. I no longer drink alcohol or chug Nyquil. It’s taken the special edge away from listening to music, but I assume that will come back with time as I slowly kick this stupid habit I managed to get myself into.

The worst part of it is, that I knew exactly what was going to happen.

One of my best friends has been using for years and I would hang out with him, clutching my bottle of 2-buck-chuck and watch him shoot dope on the weekends. I would never partake though, because I knew I would instantly become addicted and have no way to support my habit. When I finally tried it, I was in a somewhat stable place. I was making more money than I needed to pay my bills and feed myself with and I was on the emotional upswing, a place where you never consider the downfall.

Homeschooling and mental illness are a terrible combination.

And chances are, if a parent is mentally ill, the child might as well be too — and this cycle can go on for generations.

My way of ending it is to not have children.

I don’t want them anyway and I would be a terrible parent. But I don’t want to spread my genes and the proclivities that go along with them. Other people solve it by breaking out of the cycle with superhuman strength of will and resolution. I do not posses those things.

Eventually I’ll find a way out of those stupid hole my mother dug for me and that I petulantly stay in because I know nothing else. I need to make some friends, get an intimate partner or two and build myself a support system because as it stands, I’m alone. And nobody can get by alone, no matter how big and strong I might think I am.

It’s difficult to make friends when I’m distrustful and afraid of people, even ones who are clearly ‘on my team’. Once I get into a relationship or a friendship, I’m great at keeping problems to a minimum and resolving ones that do arise. I can give people space and I am not a jealous lover which is a rare and extremely valuable trait among non-monogamous people.

People seem to see a caricature of me though, all they see are my neuroses.

I tend to hang out in a rather large but close-knit social group. I’ve been around long enough that people have seen me have public freak-outs (either incited by drunkenness or anxiety) and have heard tales told by one or two of my ex’s. I’m not sure that anyone has a fair picture of who I am beyond my flaws and unfortunately, one of my defenses is to be prickly and standoffish in social settings.

It is helpful in many ways, but it makes it tough to make new friends.

My only ways of coping with all this is to remind myself that my life is not,  in fact, the giant shitheap I usually think it is. I don’t know how to drive, so I get around town by bicycle and I live about 10 miles from anything interesting, so I try to go out and ride instead of taking the bus and regardless of whether I actually have anything I need or want to do.

Exercise is extremely helpful in combating depression. You’ve all heard it a million times, but I promise you it makes a world if difference.

Additionally, I’m genderqueer, maybe even transgender. Don’t know and I’m perfectly happy in the in-between realm. I’ve been that way since I was a kid, since before I knew it was “a thing”. I also try not to make it a defining aspect of myself because it’s unhealthy to fixate so strongly on a single aspect of one’s self. However, because of that I have a lot of discomfort surrounding my body. Keeping in good shape and exercise makes me feel a lot better about my body and biking especially puts me in tune with my body in a really enjoyable way. I go hiking in the huge natural park behind my house.

Physical activity is a good way to keep chemically regulated and also to stay positively in touch with my body which I often feel alien in.

I write incessantly about everything. The music I’m, currently obsessed with, I rant and rave about things that piss me off, I dig around in the back corners of my brain, I write about my basic feelings for the day. Writing is a good way to deal with negativity, but in my experience it can also serve to pick apart, over-think and catalog every negative aspect of my life. Being so isolated growing up, I’ve had so much time to stew alone in my own self that I’ve developed some pretty intense narcissistic tendencies.

It is perhaps better for me to not focus on myself as much as I do.

For some, they need to focus more on themselves.

Mostly I just retreat to nature and to my universe of mostly inhumanly abrasive music. I love aggressive music, metal, oldschool industrial, experimental stuff, droney stuff, I just love music. I can’t talk too much about it because once I start, I’ll never shut up, but music has and always will be my biggest saviour.

I find companionship in it, I relate to it, often in ways that I’ve never been able to relate to another human and it can concentrate all my bad feelings into a single compact unit that I can let go of when I go to concerts, or at home if I’m intensely enough into whatever I’m listening to.

When i was 10-13, we lived in a 2-story duplex that had a closet under the stairs. I ‘renovated’ it by putting couch cushions on the floor of it and running extension cords in so I could lay down comfortably, listen to music and read in there. At the time I shared a room with my sister which I deeply resented, so I often slept in there too. When things were going poorly around the house, I went into my closet, shut the door and put on my headphones.

To this day, my response to negativity in the world around me is to hole up and block it out.

I feel like this is acceptable to a point. If that’s what it takes to recharge and calm down or whatever you need to do, so be it, But don’t stay in there. You have to come out eventually and deal with people, with the ongoing and ever-recurring job hunt, with conflicts and even the terrifying adventure of going to buy a carton of cream before you’ve had any coffee, let alone done anything else to prepare yourself to go out into the world.

This is not a story of the past or the future.

It’s the now.

I can’t offer any suggestions (except maybe “don’t do hard drugs, kids”) or write you a happy ending.

But the call was put out for stories about how mental illness has affected your life, and I decided to write one. I have no filters. By the time anyone told me it was inappropriate to be a certain way, to say certain things or act certain ways in general, let alone all the variables of places, circumstances and people around you, I had already done all kinds of damage. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. I can’t seem to learn how to adopt filters into my life and I have little desire to try because I just want to be me. I feel that if anyone has a problem with it, they’re best left out of my life because I don’t want people to become friends with a facade. No matter how idealistic that sentiment may be…

“There is an unconscious appositeness in the use of the word ‘person’ to designate the human individual, as is done in all European languages: for ‘persona’ really means an actor’s mask, and it is true that no one reveals himself as he is; we all wear a mask and play a role.”

~ Arthur Schopenhauer

I Cannot Write You a Happy Ending, Part One: By Slatewoman

HA Editorial Team6 Comments

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I Cannot Write You a Happy Ending, Part One: By Slatewoman

HA notes: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Slatewoman” is a pseudonym.

Mental illness and addiction play a huge role in my life from childhood until now, and in the failure of my Homeschool Experience. (I wanted Homeschool Experience to sound like some kind of 70’s psychedelic progressive rock opera.)

My mom has been bi-polar for as long as I can remember, but she was diagnosed when I was 10. I remember when she started taking medication for it and things got bad. Real bad. This was back before many long-term studies had been done on the medications she was given, and she was given just about every one under the sun between then and now. Before she used to be unpredictable, she would stay in bed for days at a time and sometimes get a lot more angry than should have been expected for whatever the situation was.

I remember her staying up late with me when I was of pre-school age, teaching me how to read.

Those are the last positive memories I have of her.

Somewhere in 3rd grade, she dropped the ball and officially gave up on my homeschooling (my dad is out of this story almost completely because he was self-employed during most of my childhood and not involved in my schooling or as I’m starting to learn, not even aware of the things that went on when he was at work). I tried to keep it going on my own, with a card table set up in the back room of my grandma’s house where my family was currently living (we were in the process of a semi-long-distance move), dicking around with my multiplication flash cards and never really picking anything up.

Without guidance, I floundered and was unable to make any progress. I became frustrated and quickly gave up on learning and maintaining self-discipline. I just turned 30 and I’m still sketchy with multiplication and long division makes me cry. I’ve worked out some kind of bizarre system using fingers and break-downs to figure every day math, I can go grocery shopping and estimate almost to the dollar.

As a family, my mother’s mental issues… well, we are starting to suspect that she has borderline personality disorder, something I frequently dismiss as a thing to slap on unruly teens so they can be prescribed something to make them more docile and less annoying to their parents, but my mother is in her late 50s and has displayed the same behaviour her entire life. As far as I can tell (I’m an armchair psychologist, one of the few things I’ve studied seriously on my own time), she’s a “textbook case”. She self-medicated with marijuana which I believe is detrimental to her ability to learn to manage her issues.

My childhood is crammed full of memories of my parents fighting and what I now recognize as my mom manipulating me to turn against my father.

She thrives on conflict and wants everyone on her side. My younger sister and I have been enemies for most of her life. Recently we’ve reconciled and become good friends, we go out and do things together frequently. Mom sees this and is angry because a long time ago, she decided that I’m the Antichrist, his own bad self (in recent years she’s become hyper-christian and she knows I’m now an athiest, which doesn’t go over well) and that I’m going to turn my sister against her.

What our mom doesn’t know is how deeply she traumatized my sister and that she has been against her long before she and I ever became friends.

My mom is, as far as we know, dying of terminal cancer. She’s well outlived she life-expectancy  and we’re beginning to wonder if the doctors are wrong in their diagnosis because she’s been stagnating at this low level of functionality for so long.

It may seem like I’m demonizing her when she’s actually a sick person, but there has to be a line drawn. I can’t think of any illness that would excuse the level of emotional trauma she has inflicted on my sister and I and the way she’s tried to tear the family apart. Ironically, it all backfired on her and the dynamic now is that my sister, my dad and myself have formed a protective, non-judgmental pod against her attacks.

 I would assume that any regular reader of H.A would understand this  highly dysfunctional dynamic and not blame me for writing unkind things about my dying mother.

As a result of a difficult childhood and bad genes, I’m also full of problems. I’ve had suicidal ideation since I was 12, been self-harming since I was 10 (which I’ve stopped in recent years because my mom started to do it herself, thereby ruining it for me.) and am almost unable to function in normal society.

When I was 16, I was taken to a psychologist and given one of those fill-in-the-bubble forms. I can’t recall how many pages it was, but it felt like I was taking one of those online tests to find out which elemental fairy best represents me. Well, turns out that this test said that I was clinically depressed, had an enormous problem with anxiety and was on the paranoia spectrum. Low, but on it nevertheless. I’ve been tracking my mentality for years now and I see definite patterns.

I will be at the end of my rope, ready to go take a fat OD out in the woods somewhere, and a job will appear! A place to live will appear! Everything will be ok! And eventually life will begin to wear on me again, I’ll rage-quit my job and have to move back into my family home which I both love and loathe.

See, my family is not religious, but we are old-fashioned and we want to look after one another.

I love my sister and my dad, I want to be with them. Last time I lived on my own, I was massively depressed because I was not with them and felt like I was being forced away by my mom. Unlike a lot of homeschoolers, that doesn’t manifest in a harmful manner and apart from my brain problems, I can get by fine in the outside world, I just don’t like it. I can have healthy relationships, both platonic and intimate, sometimes a mixture of both…  the fact that I’m close to my family doesn’t make me the 30 year old creep living in the My Little Pony bedroom of their childhood.

I’m not a big fan of self-diagnosis, but after tracking things for so long, it’s fairly apparent that I’m bi-polar and that the paranoia (the paranoia, not my paranoia) has ramped up considerably. It’s not so much that the little green men are listening to my brain waves, but that everyone is turning on me and what many people consider conspiracy theories don’t sound so outlandish to me.

I can sense it.

Sometimes I know when i’m being irrational, sometimes I can’t tell because the things I worry about are so boring and every-day. My boss doesn’t like me. They’re all trying to push me out so I quit instead of them having to fire me. And you know, it’s worked. I’ve never been fired from a job because I’ve left before anyone had a chance to. Perhaps if I had just not listened to my own brain and my own senses, I would still have a job. Perhaps I might have moved up to a better position.

But see, I’m starting to rant a little bit and I’m trying to keep this concise.

I have no life skills because I never went to public school and learned how to play the weird games society plays and didn’t learn them anywhere else.  

I don’t know how to deal with authority because neither of my parents are authoritarian types. In fact, I absolutely loathe any sort of authority and am a borderline anarchist. It’s just that I see that an anarchist reality would quickly collapse upon itself and hierarchies would become established, like it or not. Therefore, I mostly see myself as a nihilist, if you really want to know.

My inability to function in the big bad world has led me to do some stupid things.

Part Two >

Children’s Rights and Homeschooling: Patrick Farenga’s Thoughts

HA Editorial Team9 Comments

Children’s Rights and Homeschooling: Patrick Farenga’s Thoughts

One of the reasons John Holt, a secular founder of the homeschooling movement, decided to fully support homeschooling was his hope that parents would be more likely to work patiently and differently with their children at home than teachers in school can, and would therefore learn from the children what is and isn’t working. Holt’s ideas about homeschooling are probably very different from what many members of Homeschoolers Anonymous experienced: Holt didn’t want to bring the techniques and concepts of school—which he showed in his books weren’t working in school anyway—into the home. “Don’t turn your home into a miniature school,” Holt advised in 1981 when he wrote his only book about homeschooling, Teach Your Own.

After years of working in schools Holt was appalled at the gross incivility, mindless activities, and outright meanness inflicted upon children in the name of education. One of the ways he imagined that things could be improved for children was to promote children’s rights, since his own efforts made him realize the futility of trying to make meaningful change within the school system (which is still reforming itself 32 years since Teach Your Own appeared). Holt wrote a book that describes how and why giving children rights makes practical sense: Escape From Childhood: The Needs and Rights of Children (1974; reprinted 2013). It was controversial when it was published, causing both liberals and conservatives to condemn Holt’s ideas that children should be allowed to do pretty much what any adult may legally do.

Up until 2012, 9 out of 10 of Holt’s books were still in print. Escape From Childhood is the only one of Holt’s books that I have never been able to interest another publisher in; all editions of the book have been published by HoltGWS since the original publisher let it go out of print. Clearly, this is not a topic mainstream people want to engage with but, as I’ve learned over the years, it is vitally important if we want to find other ways to help children and their families get out of bad situations besides creating more layers of child protective service agencies.

Many of the ideas Holt puts forth in Escape are to prevent tyrannies at home and in society, and they are based on our Bill of Rights, thereby grounding all people to the same rights and responsibilities. However, Holt adds a new dimension to the concept of rights to account for children’s inexperience and their need to learn from the choices they make over time. Rather than just give children the rights of citizenship all at once beause they have turned 18, Holt offers a framework where children are able to move in and out of the “walled garden of childhood” as they feel ready and able to, so they can test the waters of responsibility and swim, or decide to wait for another day if the responsibility is too heavy on them now. Holt felt the best way to get good at making choices is to make a lot of genuine choices and determine what worked best for you. Right now our society denies young people responsible choices, while expecting them to assume this same responsibility at an arbitrarily determined age. This is the essence of Holt’s argument, though I urge you to read his book and learn about the history of childhood and all the nuances about rights, children, families, and primary and secondary guardians that Holt presents.

The issue of children’s rights is large, but I want to focus specifically on child abuse and homeschooling. Holt deals with abuse from several angles in the book, including the adult points of view. For example, he discusses the burden of having children and how the authority of the old is diminishing, but Holt presses the case for why adults need to relinquish some of their authority in order to provide children the opportunity to grow independently.

. . . to expand protection against abuses of authority without diminishing authority, is impossible, a contradiction in terms. There can be no adequate protection against the abuse of authority, of parents or the state, except to give the victim the right to escape it.

The authority that Time has in mind when it talks about the “psychic benefits of parental authority” is not natural authority but only the power to compel, threaten, punish, and hurt. The fact is that children can be and are regularly punished, by parents and the law, for any of the reasons, and the same reasons for which slaves used to be punished—for talking back, for “disrespect,” for disobedience, for being at large without permission, for running away—in short, for doing anything that might imply that they think they have any freedom or rights at all. (p. 153)

Escape From Childhood is full of examples of how children, from the mentally challenged to compliant overachievers, are often hurt or neglected by adults who, “for their own good” force them to do things the children would rather not do, so I won’t labor the point here. However, it is important to note that Holt wrote this in 1974, not knowing anything about homeschooling as we know it; he saw all children in society as being mistreated. Holt was willing to take the chance that by supporting homeschooling some children will be raised by parents whose views of children and education are radically different from the self-actualizing vision of learning Holt supports. Holt hoped that most homeschooling parents would not be so obedient to the demands of modern educational theory or religious dogma and would instead learn directly from their children what was and wasn’t working for them, and make adjustments accordingly.

Unfortunately, many adults seem willing to sacrifice their relationship with their children upon the altar of education and dogma, so I’m not surprised that now, as adults, children whose lives were insecure and violent at home now want to sacrifice homeschooling upon the altar of education and dogma. However, I urge you to take a step back and reconsider strategy and tactics.

It is easy for me to imagine Homeschoolers Anonymous becoming a typical political group, uniting anti-homeschooling forces under the banner of regulating homeschooling to protect homeschooled children from abuse. This will certainly result in an increase of professional educators’ and government reach into people’s homes, which will lead to the exact opposite of what Holt advised: our homes will become miniature schools run by the state. Your anger at being physically and emotionally abused as children, and then, as adults, being outcast by the homeschooling community for publicly noting your suffering and wishing to ameliorate it for a new generation of homeschooled children, is perfectly understandable. However, homeschooling does not cause child abuse. Being a tight-knit or loose-knit family doesn’t cause child abuse; child abuse occurs in public and private schools, churches, sports, the entertainment field, in all professions. It is a problem that is much bigger than homeschooling and we should treat it as such.

I urge Homeschoolers Anonymous to recognize the fluid nature of homeschooling regulations and laws in the United States and how many of the court decisions that allow alternatives to compulsory attendance in public schools are based on religious exemptions that are tied to preserving traditional ways of life (Amish, Mennonite, and so on). It is unlikely at this time in our history that the courts are going to rule against religious freedoms. Further, many adults in the United States appear to support corporal punishment—paddling is explicitly allowed in public schools in 19 states—and its widespread, though no less punishing, variant:  time outs in closets, padded rooms, and so on. It also needs to be noted that invasive practices such as electro-shock therapy for “difficult” children are permitted in many private institutions in states that otherwise ban corporal punishment in public facilities, so the situation is not easily solved by changing existing laws.

Rather than battle homeschooling regulations head on, with the real danger of creating more regulations for secular homeschoolers and strengthening the religious exemptions that permit families to prevent their daughters from aspiring to high school or college and keep their sons in line with stern obedience to authority, Homeschoolers Anonymous can build on the do-it-yourself model that homeschooling embodies. The prospect of increased scrutiny by outsiders keeps many abusive situations from being publicly acknowledged, and homeschooling is no exception. However, I think Homeschoolers Anonymous is correct to sound the alarm now so we can create awareness and solutions about this difficult issue that is different than what we’ve seen to date from other institutions. Like the leaders in the Vatican, the BBC, Penn State, and numerous other institutions, homeschooling’s leaders can easily fall prey to the means (ignore or cover up the abuse) justifying the ends (the institution continues to flourish despite the ongoing abuse, which the institution says it is handling in its own mysterious way). Like you, I refuse to see homeschooling freedoms preserved upon the broken bones and dashed hopes of children, and I hope we can get others to agree to offer help and enforce existing abuse laws rather than accept the status quo as the only way to preserve homeschooling freedoms.

Child abuse is a major, ugly issue that is difficult to discuss, especially among homeschoolers who are fearful of government intrusions into their lives. We tend to dismiss child abuse in homeschooling circles because most of “us” are “good people” or “good Christians.” But the reality is there is some child abuse going on in homeschooling, just as it goes on in schools and homes all around the world. To have the courage, as Homeschoolers Anonymous does, to stand up and call out an injustice being done to an unrepresented minority, children, is an important first step. Showing how this injustice is perpetuated in practice can help parents and children see that their situation is not normal and they are stuck in a bad homeschooling situation. Homeschoolers Anonymous can then provide support for dialog within their family, healing, or escape routes, among other options. It is important to let children and spouses know they are not alone and that others have navigated this path. The Underground Railroad was built and functioning for many years before the Emancipation Proclamation was made law, and I think we need to remember that.

Building the moral and legal case for children’s rights should not be a single, high-stakes courtroom battle focused on homeschooling, but a tactical approach focused on helping children and spouses find ways to get out of abusive situations and a strategic one of uniting with other groups that seek to end corporal punishment—not homeschooling—for children in society. We have a long tradition at HoltGWS of being against corporal punishment (scroll to the bottom of the page) and the list includes a Christian homeschooling group opposed to hitting children (Parenting in Jesus’ Footsteps).

I thank Homeschoolers Anonymous for the opportunity to express some of my views on children’s rights and homeschooling. There is so much more to say; I’ve only just scratched the surface with these remarks. However, I look forward to seeing the creative and powerful solutions you will make regarding children’s rights based on your collective experiences.

For further reading:

Escape From Childhood: The Needs and Rights of Children is available on Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B42K3LE

Escape From Childhood will be also available as a printed book from Amazon as of June 1, 2013.

About the author:

Patrick Farenga.
Patrick Farenga.

Patrick Farenga started work with John Holt in 1981 and published Growing Without Schooling magazine and numerous other publications related to homeschooling, unschooling, and learning outside of school from Holt’s death in 1985 until 2001. Farenga and his wife homeschooled their three daughters, who are now adults. He continues to keep Holt’s ideas alive by writing, speaking, and publishing through HoltGWS LLC and www.JohnHoltGWS.com.

The Many Men and Women Behind The Curtain: Noah’s Story

HA Editorial Team19 Comments

The Many Men Behind The Curtain: Noah’s Story

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Noah” is a pseudonym. 

"There is a homeschooling machine, whether some people want to admit it or not. There is a Man Behind The Curtain."
“There is a homeschooling machine, whether some people want to admit it or not. There is a Man Behind The Curtain.”

My family started homeschooling because they didn’t like the public schools.

This had nothing to do with God or the feared specter of Marxism. There was no prophetic mandate from above, no urge to add more offspring to Michael Farris’ cultural Illuminati. No, my parents’ reason for homeschooling was really that simple: they didn’t like the public schools. They thought the public schools were a failure.

But my story is a common one. It has a theme mirrored in so many of my friends’ stories. As time went by, my family got slowly but surely sucked into the vortex that is a particular type of homeschooling: the conservative Christian type. While a lot of people want to lay the blame at my parents’ feet, that’s not really fair. And it’s disingenuous. Because the people wanting to blame my parents are specifically not wanting me to blame homeschooling. But those people don’t know my parents. And they don’t know what my early homeschooling looked like. Those people don’t want to acknowledge that it was the homeschooling machine that changed my parents.

There is a homeschooling machine, whether some people want to admit it or not. There is a Man Behind The Curtain. Or, rather, many men (and women). Call me crazy or a conspiracy theorist. But why do all our stories bring up the same names? Gregg Harris. Michael Farris. Mary Pride. David Barton. Ken Ham. Little Bear Wheeler. Michael Pearl. Josh Harris. Etc. Etc. Etc.

You do realize that that a shit ton of money is being made by all these people, right? There is literally a homeschooling industry that is profiting off these peoples’ ideas. Their ideas are being pedaled at homeschooling conventions all over the country, month after month, year after year. Their books are being promoted in every edition of every homeschooling magazine (well, the conservative Christian magazines, but I think you know I’m talking about a particular subsection). Their ideologies are reinforced in state and local support groups, where parents that don’t follow the line get ostracized, just like the so-called “Four Pillars of Homeschooling” have long ostracized the secular homeschooling movement.

It’s really, honestly, a type of bullying. My parents experienced this from the beginning, when they tried to get into a local homeschool group when we were young. We weren’t “Christian” enough (even though we were Christians!). The other homeschooling moms talked shit about my mom until, in tears, she almost gave up on homeschooling us entirely. She eventually found a more supportive homeschooling group, but, as the years went by, she started turning into the moms she originally hated. It’s, strangely enough, just like peer pressure. As one “cool thing” like courtship became a fad, as soon as the “cool” family picked it up, everyone else had to as well. If you didn’t, if you weren’t into courtship, you became that kid in public school who got his shoes at Goodwill. You were ostracized and made fun of, rejected and abused. It’s no wonder that my parents slowly became what originally almost turned them off from homeschooling.

That’s not to say people aren’t responsible for their own actions. But my parents have honestly tried to do their best for me. I respect them and love them. But they respected and loved me not because of the homeschooling community. They respected and loved me despite the homeschooling community.

It’s really ironic, that homeschoolers hold up their practice as this alternative to the evils of bullying and peer pressure in the public schools. Because there is so much bullying and peer pressure between homeschooling parents, it’s ridiculous. Watching homeschool moms tear each other apart with their words is really scary. They’re brutal to one another.

I’m deeply grateful that I had parents that stood up for me. And I’m glad finally people are standing up for people like my parents (and in a sense, against what my parents later became), by standing up against the systematic bullying, peer pressure, and brainwashing that pervades the homeschooling world.

The conservative Christian homeschooling world, that is. I know I already said that.

But sometimes people are tone deaf.

Putting Children First: Karen Loethen’s Thoughts

HA Editorial Team3 Comments

Putting Children First: Karen Loethen’s Thoughts

The following piece was originally published by Karen Loethen on her blog Homeschool Atheist Momma with the title, “Still Looking for Disadvantages of Homeschool?” It is reprinted with her permission. Karen describes herself as “a homeschooling mum of two children (ages 15 and 12) and the wife of an amazing man.” She and her family “are Midwestern Americans, currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.”

I’ve been wondering, do I write pro homeschool stuff because I am simply reinforcing my insecurities about homeschooling?

No.

I write it so that others can find pro-homeschooling stuff easily.

But today I am motivated to explore the truth behind negative homeschool experiences.  I have been reading websites of homeschool alum who are very unhappy with their homeschool experiences and blogs of suspect homeschoolers.  I’ve been reading stories by homeschool alum, adults who feel “weird” and “odd” and in pain and who have serious difficulties relating to the world at large, who report abuse, neglect, serious emotional damage, and hugely poor parenting.  I am overwhelmed, today, with the negative homeschooling experiences for some children and adults out there.

While we can not reparent any of these wounded people who are trying so hard to heal themselves, we can offer them our love and seek to understand their claims. We, as homeschooling parents, should never attempt to discredit someone’s story (as I have seen on some of these sites). No, instead, we must learn from these experiences and offer these people our love and compassion. And offer them our thanks for being willing to share their stories. It takes courage in this world to stand up and disprove the majority. And, besides, they are people who are courageously, fearfully offering their life stories, hoping for healing.

If you go there, write nothing, or write only messages of love and support.  It is homeschooling parents who are insecure and fearful themselves who do not allow these voices to be heard without confrontation.  I understand that fear, but these boards are not the place to put one’s own issues out there.

As one woman at the Homeschoolers Anonymous website said, today, homeschooling is often portrayed in the media as some great and noble cause or as a quaint, folksy version of the Great American Dream.  I’m grateful for the “improvement,” as homeschool has had a fairly dreadful rep for a long time. Sadly, some of that rep is well-deserved. I must also add that most of the stories (all the I have read today, in fact) share a fundamental Christian motivation or Evangelical basis for their isolationist and authoritarian approaches to their homeschooling and parenting. This is not the point of my post, but it is an essential piece of the puzzle.

I think of homeschooling as an extension of, as a part of, parenting.

In my mind there is no way to separate the two.

I think we should all have the right to freely educate our children without state involvement. But this presupposes that all adults are capable of making healthy and wise choices for their families and we know that this is not the case. But whose job is it to decide who should and who should not homeschool? No one is sitting in an office making lists of people who can and should become parents.  Anyone can become a parent regardless of maturity, ability, mental issues, all other issues, etc. Parents of all ability levels have always existed in the world.

Maybe we can all agree that not all people who are parents should have been parents.

Similarly, not all people who homeschool should homeschool.

To homeschool, to parent, to the best advantage of one’s children, a parent needs to be mature enough to put the needs of themselves Last on the List and the needs of their children First on the List. A person suited to homeschool and parent children must have no philosophy, culture, or creed that puts anything, anything ahead of the good of the children. A person well-suited to parenting and homeschooling children is a person who is willing and able and apt to reflect upon new information and evidence and use that evidence and make changes, improvements, adjustments when necessary.  The person adequately suited to parenting and homeschooling is a person who takes the time to learn about a variety of educational and parenting options and looks at those options carefully, making decisions based on what makes a better human being from each child.

And more, I believe that the best approach to parenting, in my opinion, is a person who manages to believe in their children, who even believes in the human race!  I believe the more successful parent and homeschooling parent is one who finds humor in life and looks for fun.  I believe it essential to think well of people.  I think it necessary to put Love at the center of family life.  I think it necessary to be a self-aware adult.  And I think it necessary that I spend time locating my own issues, growth areas, and limitations.  And seek to improve myself.

Yes, I can be a bit serious about this.

I believe that adults owe it to themselves and to their progeny to become the best people they can be.

Because when they don’t, it’s the kids who suffer.