On Homeschooling

As someone who never particularly enjoyed the daily trudge to school - loved trudging to college though, by the way - I thought the concept of Homeschooling, when I first heard of it, as simply fabulous. Now, why it had never occurred to my parents? Just imagine, I said to my mother the other day, we could have been together the entire time, just think of all the time in my growing years that you missed, all the wonderful details of my development that you never got to witness firsthand - don't you feel kind of cheated out of the joys of motherhood?

"Nope," said Ma, not even having to think about it.

"If we had lived in the remote Outback of Australia," I told her resentfully, "you'd have had no choice in the matter."

"That's why," she said, "we never lived there."

"There are parents in the USA," I continued, ignoring that, "who homeschool their children voluntarily - they have schools in the neighborhood, but they still teach them at home - what do you say to that?"

Ma shook her head. "I'll write to the Pope," she said. "America is full of Saints. He ought to know."

"He probably does," I said. "A large percentage are devout Christians."

"Well," said Ma, "you know what Voltaire said about the Christians, don't you?"

"He also said 'I do not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it'!"

"I'd love to know what he'd have thought of your Homeschooling idea."

"It's not my idea - I just think it's pretty neat - none of that peer pressure and competitive stress stuff that goes on in school..."

"And all of it left to be faced unqualifiedly later in the stream of life - they do plan to join in later, right? - or is work to be confined within the four walls of home as well?"

"That's not fair, Ma - nobody's confined - they get together often with other Homeschooling families..."

"Uh-huh, people with exactly the same ideas - sounds like real fun - none of that stress you get around dissenters."

"There's no need to be so flippant just because you don't agree..."

"Of course I don't - ridiculous concept - unhealthy too, if you ask me - no personal life for the parents, no personal space for the kids - and what kind of one-sided view are they going to grow up with if they can't intermingle on a daily basis with people having entirely different ideas about things? We live in a society, you can't shun other people, other ideas, just because you're afraid of 'bad' influences - if that's the idea behind this whole enterprise, as I expect it is in many cases - doesn't make much sense otherwise. Anyway, ridiculous, like I said - you can't go through life wrapped up in cotton-wool - far better to face a bad influence and know to say, 'No, thank you', than go through so much trouble to avoid it entirely, which you can't anyway."

"Ma, you've heard of the violence in American Schools, haven't you? You think people should avoid that for their kids?"

"Well, of course, they should. But wouldn't it be better to address core issues like banning guns and promoting better community relations? If everyone kept their children home, it would mean a further break-down of community. That would create even more problems. It would help too, by the way, if the Religious Fundamentalists piped down a bit. Frankly, I don't care much for the 'Christian Teaching' stuff - or any fanatical religious instruction for that matter. I've come across several such sites and they truly seem the high mark of limited, intolerant thinking to me - there was this one that said they didn't accept any other view-point except for the Christian - their way or the highway, you understand? - or if you want it put more succinctly, you're either with them or against them! Good Grief! I mean, if people want to believe in something, fine - why should insist everyone else as well? - I mean, spare the rest of us such over-powering love, you know? If we had lived in the Outback, I'm telling you, I'd have packed you right off to a Boarding School - the Brits had something going with that concept!"

"Alright, alright," I said, annoyed, "But in prehistoric times, Ma, parents taught their own kids, okay?"

"Oh, Rot!" she said. "I expect they did very much the same thing that the aboriginal tribes do in the present age - group their young people and let them learn together - more or less like normal school - there's enough to be done, ekeing out a living, without needing to trip continually over the kid tied to your apron-string - without needing to mug up on Chemistry and Physics and things like that, if you really want to know, just in order to impart them to the brat - you think someone just reading up on Chemistry is going to be better qualified to teach it than someone with a Master's or PhD in the subject? And that's why we came up with the concept of school and teachers - Division of Labor, you know - isn't human development a wonderful thing? May we continually progress and never, never regress!"

"You mean people can't do what they want? They should just go along with what everyone else does?"

"Of course not - if it's absolutely necessary, it's absolutely necessary - but if there is a bridge available, why wade through the bog?"

"You're hopeless," I snapped.

"I'm only your mother," she said, sighing sadly. "What do I know?"

"Not a fat lot!"

"Aren't you happy I never homeschooled you?"