Why do parents insist on doing this to their children? Why do they sentence those they supposedly love beyond everything else to thousands of hours of mindless indoctrination just because everyone else does?
We’re at his classroom. We’re supposed to leave right away. They told us that in Parents’ Orientation. They said hanging around only makes it worse. It couldn’t be any worse. Robby is fighting panic, asking questions, stalling to keep us there, tears running quietly down his cheeks.
“How many hours will it be?” he asks.
Thousands, I think. Thousands and thousands, in classrooms, away from us, until you’ve learned to accept it, and you don’t cry when we leave you, and your dolphin never talks any more.
To me, the saddest thing about sentencing little children to school is the speedy and unnecessary loss of their childhood joy and innocence. I spoke with one pediatrician who told me he can tell which children are homeschooled and which are not from nothing more than their demeanor when they get their medical checkups. And the sacrifice is made in the name of receiving an inferior education combined with learning social graces more appropriate to The Lord of the Flies.