AJ cracks me up:
I completely agree with you that children are not meant to be missionaries. Does God sometimes speak through the mouth of a babe? Yes, but he has also spoken through the mouth of a donkey and no one has suggested using donkeys for missionaries. To go with your meat-grinder analogy – I could play Russian roullette with my child…but why would I want to?!?If you publish future columns regarding home schooling I would love to see some personal testimonies used. My husband always discounts statistics as being easily manipulated, but perhaps he’d put a little more stock in actual experience.
If anyone has short vignettes of their own personal experiences in the public schools and doesn’t mind them potentially seeing print sometime in the future, put them here in the comments. Keep them short and within one comment. Alternatively, I’m interested in hearing from kids who are either presently being homeschooled or were prior to finishing school.
Here’s mine: In sixth grade, I rode the bus to public middle school. One day, Geraldine, the blonde class beauty of the ninth grade, was sitting two rows behind me trying to explain to my friend Joey’s older brother that she did not wish to have sex with his best friend, as he had requested, but only wanted to have sex with him. (At the time I thought he was being uncommonly generous, but in retrospect, I suspect he was simply trying to dump her off on his friend so he could pursue another girl.)
Her exact words were: “I don’t want to fuck with him, I only want to fuck with you.” And I have to say, this socialization was not only eye-opening, but very helpful in learning how to become a respectably successful predator in time.