Jon Carroll’s column today talks about why we might do better just staying home with our kids and teaching them what we know, instead of shipping them off to other places to learn:
And I’m thinking: Maybe it would be better if we just stayed home and taught them what we know. Not all of us are famous mandolin players, of course, but all of us are something. We garden, we cook, we sing, we collect clocks. Nothing the matter with teaching a kid to collect clocks.
The bonus is obvious. We get to spend time with our kids; they get to spend time with us. They’ll want to spend time with their friends too, and they should, but there are lots of hours in the day if you look for them. And you’ll begin to build a relationship based on something other than the natural power differential in families.
Not that I did this when my kids were young. I was having an important career. It worked out OK in the end, but I ain’t gettin’ those hours back, and I think about that sometimes, even now.
I’d have to admit that these reasons play a big part in why I’ve decided to homeschool, but it seems these particular reasons are more beneficial to ME than to my kids, only because I get major separation anxiety, and I gain much, much enjoyment from having my kids around. 😉 BUT…I also think kids will certainly benefit from spending so much time with loving parents who are enthusiastically teaching them all they know. Like Carroll said, “…you’ll begin to build a relationship based on something other than the natural power differential in families.”
(P.S.-Re: … Yes, getting that clarification in feels good. I do try to avoid ever needing to do that, but sometimes, it’s unavoidable if I inadvertantly mislead and if I give a damn–which I usually do. 😀 Hmmm…”mistaken for a fundamentalist”… First time for everything, and truth is stranger than fiction. lol!)
“Not all of us are famous mandolin players, of course, but all of us are something. We garden, we cook, we sing, we collect clocks. Nothing the matter with teaching a kid to collect clocks.”
Sure. But while all of us are something, few of us are the same somethings that our kids are. How many great individuals had parents who were great individuals of a similar stripe?
It often feels to me like it took all of my childhood and a good chunk of my adulthood to feel secure in my own interests and abilities, and to figure out what they are and how they’re distinct from those of my parents. Had I been home-schooled, I wonder whether I’d ever have reached that point.
In my opinion, there’s a huge fallacy (sp?) somewhere in how we think of schools. I was loved and sheltered to the point of near paralysis as a child. After that, I moved on to a small private school where my parents felt I’d be safe and happy.
I was picked on throughout most of my time in that school. It was seven largely miserable years in a school too small to have any variety. You were either into sports and rap or you were a geek.
From there, I went on to a much larger high school. (There were over 1000 students in four grades versus under 800 in eight grades.) My parents hated the idea but I found other people like me. I was happy. It got even better in college.
My parents would have driven me into an early grave if I’d been homeschooled. I’d have gone the first 18 years of my life without making a choice.
I’m sure you’d be better at it, Diane, but the chance is still there. I have no intention or right to judge your parenting from the other coast but you might want to consider half day kindergarten before deciding on homeschooling.
“It often feels to me like it took all of my childhood and a good chunk of my adulthood to feel secure in my own interests and abilities, and to figure out what they are and how they’re distinct from those of my parents. Had I been home-schooled, I wonder whether I’d ever have reached that point.”
Michael, from everything I’ve read, homeschooling allows the kid to find his or her place in the world a lot easier and with a lot more confidence than going to school does. That a big part of homeschooling is helping the child find the answers to questions, strewing interesting stuff in their path, and then getting the hell out of the way when the kid wants to follow their own destiny.
This assumes, of course, that the parents are supportive of the child investigating whatever interests and abilities they have, and not rigidly following some curriculum.
I usually enjoy Jon Carroll’s columns but this one struck me as a nostalgic grandparent who isn’t exactly thinking about the reality of most parents’ lives. If my partner and I stayed “home” enjoying and teaching the offspring, “home” would be an old car parked under an overpass somewhere.
–Cherry
Cherry,
A couple of comments-
1. Homeschooling doesn’t necessarily require one parent to stay home while the other wins the bread. There are many homeschooling families in which both partners work (but on different shifts).
2. While you and your partner may absolutely need two incomes, for many American families, the second income is more for wants than needs. We homeschoolers have decided to do without in order to do what we think best for our kids.
Looking at things from a purely selfish angle, I remember having to work two jobs to keep the family going, thus missing out on much family activity that I wanted to take part in. I did my best is all I can say.
Then, after our kids married and moved away from home I was still doing the two job or more bit to finish paying off things and so missed time with our grandchildren as they grew up. I bitterly regret that.
It still seems vitally important that a parent have much time with their offspring and much can be taught by example, much that is missed being done by schools.
Having read the column, I’m not sure that the author was talking about homeschooling-vs-institutionalizing; more of the ballet-lessons-and-swimming-lessons-and-arts-and-and-and vs staying home and teaching kids to find something they love and to do it. It was more a condemnation of excessively organized extracurricular activities.
However. My view (and keep in mind that my kids are only on the way, not presently with us, so my view is worth precisely zero in practical terms) is that both homeschooling and institutionalized education have their place. I’m not really expecting the school system to teach my kids anything ‘educational’ — if we can’t instill a love of learning in our children and give them the tools to learn on their own, we have failed as parents. But the school system will teach them useful things, for example:
– that there is a world beyond the front door, and the child can survive without mommy and daddy;
– that there are whole bunch of people out there who won’t like you and that you will have to deal with them without mommy and daddy;
– that there are many situations out there where you have to do stupid, pointless things for stupid, power-drunk people who abuse their positions of authority;
– that there are situations where you are put on a schedule and how to keep to it; and
You know, basic socialization skills. And they will be exposed to a far wider range of people, and friends will come from unexpected places.
Dave,
I learned from school that there were people who would like me unlike Mom and Dad. 🙂
You make my point for me. 🙂
Having not homeschooled, I can’t speak authoratively on a lot of these issues, but one thing I’ve heard over and over again is that, unless the parents aren’t locking the kid in a room and occasionally throwing in a piece of toast–in other words, the kid gets to experience the world–socialization happens. You can’t avoid it. Wake up in the morning, see another human, socialize.
One thing I utterly and completely disagree with is something Dave says is one of the points of going to school:
” – that there are whole bunch of people out there who won’t like you and that you will have to deal with them without mommy and daddy;
– that there are many situations out there where you have to do stupid, pointless things for stupid, power-drunk people who abuse their positions of authority;”
This is what I term the “life’s a bitch and then you die, and gee, the sooner kids realize that the better” school of philosophy. Well, screw that: my job is to protect my kids for as long as I can and to give them the tools to deal with life. Throwing them out into a hostile environment and saying, “Ta ta, dear, I know it sucks, but you have to suffer the REST OF YOUR LIFE” is not, IMO, my job as a parent.