Saturday, May 14, 2011

They Are Not Convinced

I have heard lately that many children that have grown up homeschooled are choosing to leave the homeschool choice after they are grown. Many parents and homeschool leaders are puzzled by this phenomenon. They struggle to understand why their children do not seem to want to follow in their footsteps.
I would like to offer some reasons as to why this may be happening. The one that comes into my head most is this: we have somehow, unknowingly, made our children think we are keeping something better from them. Let's think about this for a moment. Most families who homeschool these days are one income families. One income families must live at a lower standard than most two income families. We take less vacations, we eat out less, we own fewer gadgets and toys, and our children may have to do more work themselves, because we can't afford help!! Somehow, I wonder if our own discontent and frustration with these things has rubbed off on our children. And in their narrow understanding, they somehow think that life is better on the "other side". The other possiblity is that we have provoked them to wrath and rather than upset the fruit basket at home, they quietly wait until they are free to pursue the freedom they never received at home.
There is also the possibility that it is just their rebellious sin nature at work and the realities of life will eventually bring them full circle. What are your opinions?

Monday, May 9, 2011

Quality Time

A while back i remember hearing about how the Duggars try to spend an hour one on one with their children each week. I also remember how everyone seemed to be disgusted with this, thinking that it was terrible that each child only spent one hour a week with their parent. It seems that people have short memories. How many families these days spend that with their children when there is only 2.3 children?? I would probably say many. there are so many families where both parents work full-time, and the kids come and go as they please and very little takes place in the way of passing on values or meaningful interaction/conversation. Those who are so hasty to pass judgement on the Duggars must have forgotten that Michelle is of the stay-at-home variety. The younger children are also loved and cared for by older siblings(how is this worse than full-time daycare?). Also, their lifestyle is one of working together, learning together, playing together. Besides, how many only children have looked wistfully at families with lots of siblings and said, "I wish I had some of those!"