It’s interesting to see how the shoe is starting to appear on the other foot these days. For years, homeschooling parents were the ones on the defensive. Public school parents had absolutely no problem making very judgmental statements about homeschoolers, usually having something to do with the ridiculous notion of socialization, as if there’s anything normal about an environment consisting solely of people of your own age, a social environment that no one will ever see again outside of school. Apparently these amateur socialization experts have never seen the Glory Days phenomenon, just to give one example.
But now that it’s becoming increasingly obvious that homeschooling is better from academic, socialization, intellectual development and religious freedom points of view, it’s the parents who send their kids to public schools when they don’t have to that feel under assault. To them I say: deal with it. Like Space Bunny, I’ve heard far too many women say that they can’t wait until their kids are off to school so that they can have more time for themselves. Their rhapsodies of praise to the paradise that is the local school, in most cases, is nothing more than ex post facto rationalization of their desires. That’s their right, of course, not only to feel that way but also to make the decision to sentence their children to school so that they can have more time for shopping and Starbucks. Just don’t tell me that they love their children as much as those who accept a lower standard of living and sacrifice their free time in order to give their children the best education possible. Logic dictates otherwise.
Unlike the government and many public school advocates, I believe every parent has the right to educated their children as they see fit even if that means sentencing the children to twelve years of intellectual mutilation. What they don’t have, however, is the right to expect me to cheer or otherwise salute a foolish and self-centered choice.