My name is Barb the Evil Genius, and I am a terrible parent. I homeschooled one daughter for five years, and the other for four years. The reason why the Musician was only homeschooled for four years was because she was fighting my attempts to homeschool her, and we put her into an online school for a year, rather than put her in a school district that we were planning on leaving in a year.
Now both daughters are in public school, happy and doing well. This obviously means that I am a poor parent, since even after many years of homeschooling, my daughters prefer being smothered and subjugated in a public school. They enjoy being around, and learning with, large groups of their peers, even though many of the peers are sometimes unkind, selfish, lying, thieving, have emotional issues, do drugs and sleep around. To be honest, my girls can be thoughtless, tactless, selfish, and lose their tempers. My youngest occasionally resists the urge to inflict bodily harm on her classmates when she finds their stupidity frustrating (what can I say, she's my little girl,) and yet she prefers public school to homeschooling. This makes me a terrible parent. They should prefer being at home with just the other sister, and having the one-on-one interaction with me as their teacher.
When my daughters were homeschooled, they were not intrigued to find out how birds built their nests, nor interested in becoming Mozart-like composers, learning open-heart surgery, or welding a scale-model Eiffel Tower in the garage. If given the opportunity, my daughters would spend a great deal of their time surfing My Little Pony memes on the internet and playing Super Paper Mario. This obviously makes me a poor parent.
My youngest daughter takes medication for her ADHD. This is to help her concentrate on her work, sit still and be quiet. Definitely I am in the poor mom category here. ADD and ADHD are just made up labels to force brainwashed children to mindlessly behave in a stifling system. My daughter would learn so much more if she was homeschooled. Talking non-stop and doing cartwheels through the backyard to work off her energy would serve her so much better. At least she could concentrate while she was playing Super Paper Mario.
So when you hear, "You can homeschool your kids too! Public school is always the worst choice!", just remember, that is only true if you are a good mom. My name is Barb the Evil Genius, and I am not a good mom.
4 comments:
I just read the article. You know what? She will likely change her mind as time goes on. Her two kids are young, 5 and 2 I want to say. She has yet to battle what you had faced with kids not wanting to learn anything beyond play.
You're not a bad mom. You're a wise mom who is doing what is best for her child and family.
Thank you, Glenda. I appreciate your kind words.
It drives me crazy when someone who has just begun to homeschool spouts off in conversation or articles about homeschooling is the absolute best choice. Unfortunately, I was probably a little bit like that too, but I NEVER said that homeschooling was for everyone.
This mom is in the throes of her homeschooling honeymoon. Schooling takes a tiny amount of her day and she is getting to spend the day playing and interacting with her very young children. She's not struggling with teaching physics to a science-hating child who would rather do anything else.
You are NOT a bad mom. You've looked and found the best situation for your children to learn. Your are involved in your children's lives and know your children's strengths and weaknesses. Bad parents are people who are uninterested and uninvolved with their children. Unfortunately, I have seen both public and home schooled parents who have checked out of their kids' lives.
You are a GREAT parent.
Thanks, Karen. I do agree with you and Glenda that this mom is in the beginning of her homeschooling years, and everything is bound to look good right now. That, and she's using the same arguments in favor of homeschooling that I've heard ever since *I* started.
Her article just got my hackles up.
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