Thanks, Doc. I'm a homeschooler (and an introverted twit) and I know firsthand some of these dangers you're talking about. I'm curious about this patriocentricity stuff. What's the history of this movement in the U.S.? Is this something American Christians made up, or does it have its roots in something older?

Also, I'm curious as to what the homeschooling movement is like in other countries. Are there any international homeschoolers out there who can expound on this?

Edit:

I used to be pretty 'Scrubby' myself, Lucy P.! My parents tell me that when I around five years old I saw a neighbor with a jack o' lantern on her sweater, and very candidly informed her that Halloween was of the Devil and that if she did not repent she was going to Hell. Yet another challenge of homeschooling...

*raises hand* Public-schooled and went on to a Christian college, then a state university. Anyone who did drugs, drank or smoked tended to stay some distance away from me. If you're "good" enough, the troublemakers won't bother because they think you'll tattle. I don't remember when this reputation started, but it sure saved me a lot of trouble!

I should qualify my remarks by pointing out that I went to school back when they still had the daily Pledge to the flag and sang Christmas carols. So what little we heard about children who didn't go to public schools led to the assumptions that:

1. They were Jehovah's Witnesses or other such objectionist group ;

2. Their parents were just trying to weasel out of paying taxes to support their community schools. They didn't care about the shared responsibility to bring up children, and probably didn't care about their own children since the kids wouldn't be able to produce a degree that any potential employer would respect.

Homeschooling is a lot more organized now, which contributes to making it more respected.

Dr Elwin Ransom wrote:

Some homeschooling leaders assume that if a woman does anything remotely close to working outside the home, or seeking higher education, then she is becoming a feminist and is therefore blaspheming God. Maybe you’ve heard this view, or more likely the implications, coming from some homeschoolers. This is patriocentricity, the father-is-pretty-much-head-of-all system of beliefs, and its leaders and trying to make its beliefs standard issue for anyone who decides to homeschool or who embraces Biblical husband/wife roles. It’s un-Biblical, subtle, and often annoying.

Recently I wrote this to someone, about a patriocentrist lady-leader. (For a supposedly male-led movement, these circles have a lot of ladies pushing these ideas and paradoxically having nice control over their acts of wifely submission; I wonnn-derrrr how that could be!)

It's definitely a "strange bedfellows" movement. On the one hand there are the Sack-Dress Women, with frizzy hair and just oozing Submissiveness, but in a really aggressive fashion. ("Uriah Heep I am, being humble! Being humble!") The kind who makes the Amish housewife lifestyle seem hippy-go-free-free in comparison.

(Some of these Sack Dress groups want to ban Little House on the Prairie and Little Women from all libraries -- not just their own but yours and mine as well -- on the grounds that these books are Raging Feminist Manifestos. I am not making this up.)

Then there's She Who Must Not Be Named -- she's a purported political figure and so not of the range of NarniaWeb -- the gazelle-like woman who for some reason is photographed for the cover of all her books wearing only a little black cocktail dress. The one who oozes Dominance. That one.

They all say certain things: that Western societies went downhill when women got the right to vote, and the more educated a woman is, the more likely she is to vote against the choices of her male relatives. That educating women only teaches them to be discontented with their lot. There's a theory that such proclaimers tend to be women because if this kind of talk came from a man, women might "smell a rat" sooner. There's also a theory (particularly from people who dislike The Gazelle Woman) that men are secretly titillated by a Dominant Woman who says, "I would rather be home making meatloaf for my family, but God has called me to His duty." So they make any such speaker (Sack Dress or Where's-the-rest-of-that-dress) an Honorary Man ... for the duration. It's all very annoying, and not just because I like meatloaf and wonder what it did to deserve being dragged into all this.

There's a hazard in the patriocentric movement that isn't as well-known. It doesn't just screw up things for the women, but for the men. It gives boys a very wrong idea of the relationships between adults, which gives them a very wrong idea of the relationship between men and Christ. The Church is the Bride of Christ, but a lot of men in this movement are deeply squicked out by this kind of talk. They don't want to be the Bride of Christ. They want to be the groom -- they want to keep being the guy. And that's because if they are someday going to experience the relationship with Christ that they require their womenfolk to have with them, that scares these men to death.

Control supposedly makes all the Scary go away. Supposedly. Anyhow that's one theory as to why patriocentric movements are so invasive in home life, including in the homeschoolers.

Dr Elwin Ransom wrote:

How would the “militant fecundity” [you must have lots of children] folks look at single Christians who don’t/can’t marry? What if my wife and me were unable to have children, or could only have one or two, or decided to have only one or two?

Depends on which group you encounter. Some would just pray for you (no doubt saying "just" a lot: "just, Lord, we just ask you that, Lord, just, Lord ..."). But there are a few fringe groups out there that would say Celibacy is a Sex Sin and Chastity/Self-Control a Defiling. They base this on the Genesis verse to be fruitful and multiply. Therefore, anyone who does not do so is committing a Sex Sin in every depraved way possible. (Their wording for just how it's a Sex Sin is rather explicit and so not included here.) If a man fails to marry and have children, he is defying God's direct and non-negotiable order to be as Christ and give a family Headship. If a woman fails to marry and have children, she is defying God's direct and non-negotiable order to find a man to submit to -- and if she's married but not having enough children, she's clearly not Submissive enough. The groups that would pray over you are often just misguided. But there are definitely fringe elements out there that declare that Celibates and Chastes are going to the flames of Hell for their defiant, depraved, irredeemable sin, which, again, they class as a Sex Sin. These adherents are not many, but they are real, and they are very serious.

Such groups sometimes overlap with the patrio-centric concerns. The adults tend to pressure their teenagers to marry their first "crush." They tell the children either that Celibacy is a sin (either fringe-group or "merely" anti-Romanist dread of monks & nuns), or alternately that Celibacy is so incredibly hard that the kids have to marry before they fall. Such groups can deeply hurt the kids by portraying self-control as too hard. It's just a guess, but I wonder if such groups really mean that the children are growing up to an age where they will be beyond the control of their parents. So they pressure the kids to make ties in this community that will keep them bound to the group later. That's the kind of control that may really be behind all this.

Anyhow, I agree with Dr. E that such concerns are definitely not typical or representative of the majority of homeschoolers! But they are on the rise.

...

There's a book called The Millionaire Mind by Stanley that explores how millionaires get rich. The author didn't interview homeschoolers, so his conclusions are drawn from the public schools. He claims several things about how people become successful:

1. People who work for themselves tend to earn more money than people who work for someone else.

2. People who got "C" grades in school are more likely to go into business for themselves, especially if no one else would hire them.

3. People who got "A" grades in school often end up working for the former "C" students as specialists.

4. An education minister came from Singapore to observe American schools. Someone asked him why he would do this, when his country's children scored higher on all standardized tests. He replied, "All our children know how to do is to take tests." (This I can see: in my opinion, the purpose of school is to teach you how to learn.)

5. People who got "C" grades and below sometimes give up. But those who don't give up may learn valuable lessons about how to stand up to critics. Learning how to deal with a teacher who dislikes a child or doesn't believe in a child can teach that child how to overcome obstacles: how to deal with adults who don't believe in one's business proposal, or with banks who won't extend loans, or with competitors and employees who drag down one's own plans.

While I don't agree with several things in Stanley's book, I am curious how homeschoolers meet obstacles such as poor grades despite hard work, and whether any of you wanted to pursue areas of education that your parents disliked. (Examples: they wanted you to go to college but you wanted to pursue a blue-collar career, or any career that you love that doesn't pay very well.)

I'm assuming that none of the homeschoolers had an obstacle of having a teacher who disliked you.

Ransom, as always a brilliant, clearly defined and intelligent post. I have nothing more to say.

There's a hazard in the patriocentric movement that isn't as well-known. It doesn't just screw up things for the women, but for the men. It gives boys a very wrong idea of the relationships between adults, which gives them a very wrong idea of the relationship between men and Christ. The Church is the Bride of Christ, but a lot of men in this movement are deeply squicked out by this kind of talk. They don't want to be the Bride of Christ. They want to be the groom -- they want to keep being the guy. And that's because if they are someday going to experience the relationship with Christ that they require their womenfolk to have with them, that scares these men to death.

Control supposedly makes all the Scary go away. Supposedly. Anyhow that's one theory as to why patriocentric movements are so invasive in home life, including in the homeschoolers.

Wow...that's a thought that had not yet occurred to me. And it all comes of not understanding the reason behind the picture of Christ as Groom and Church as Bride. Bad teaching...bad foundations.

Speaking of foundations: that's what homeschooling is all about. And if you can give your kids the foundations even though they are going to public school, and you have carefully considered your situation and how God might work in you and your children, and have then decided to send them to public school, more power to you.

And if you have no intentions of giving your kids any kind of foundation, academic or spiritual, and you have haphazardly decided to "homeschool" either because you're too lazy to do what you ought or you are hiding your sin of abuse toward your children, "homeschooling" is not for you, and there will be consequences, and likely your children will end up in public school anyway.

Without. Foundations.

And if you are choosing to homeschool because you are afraid of the Big Bad World, and you are committed to protecting your children from anything Big and Bad, then you will find that your children have no way to cope with the Big and Bad stuff that is swirling around out there when they grow up and go away from you (and they will! Do not kid yourself, or bury your head in the sand). And they will face the Big and the Bad.

Without. Foundations.

I say all this as a mother who was raised in the public schools when they were much more laudable than now, but who homeschooled all of her children until they graduated High school.

I found out that Dr. R is right about many things. We had many of the problems he mentions, including snarkiness and self-righteousness, legalism and gracelessness. Thankfully, God brought us through to a different mentality. BUT...
Praise Him, we did homeschool for the right reasons.

I recently spoke with a friend, who is also a homeschooling mom of children who are now growing up and going on with their lives. She was explaining to me carefully how she had protected her children so diligently, but that her almost-twenty son was off at a conference on a nearby secular college campus, and that he wasn't listening to her cautions. In the course of the conversation it became very clear that while she had taught her son his academics fairly well, and had protected him from the Big Bad World of Sin and Fleshly Lusts and Bad Friends, she had failed to teach him WHY he should beware of them, and HOW to deal with them scripturally, and failed to expose him to any opportunities to USE those weapons and become familiar and skilled with them.

Educate your children. I don't care how. But do not assume that whatever academic education you provide for them will also provide Foundations.

Learn Scripture.

Live Scripture.

Teach Scripture.

Public or Private or Home education will not matter if you do. Home or Private education will not help if you don't.

Maybe I'll be around later and add some more thoughts...

mm

I think my biggest problem with homeschooling is that i think it is too important when you are young to be part of the world. I really think homeschoolers spends most of the day not being part of the world and not impacting the world. They are just at their house learning, but by the time you graduate you have lost too many years not impacting the world.

I am not saying that God cannot still use you because he can, but it is so important to be in the world. To impact the people you come into contact with simple kindness.

Also if you have spent your entire childhood being separate and thinking that as Christians you should be separate i think that is a real problem. It is like Christian cruises, why separate yourself instead of being part of the world, part of the solution. I just don't get it.

I also don't really think school is as scary as you all seem to think it is.

Just want to mention a couple things RE your post, decarus.

1) My great-nephew came home the other day with a letter, sent out by the state DPS, warning parents about drug cartels recruiting among school children. My great-nephew is 5.

I personally feel that that is SCARY. Very.

2) Please give us some statistics about the difference you personally made in your school. How much impact did you have in your school for the Kingdom of God, that you would not have had if you had been homeschooled?

Inquiring minds want to know.

As a mom, I know for a fact that my children, as good as they are and as much as I teach them the proper foundations, will follow a bad example quicker than they will a good example. And in public school, your peers are your example--nobody wants to be like the teachers. The sheer weight of the many opportunities to follow a bad example will overwhelm a young child no matter how good his home life.

At home, however, I can control the number and intensity of the events that help my children build up their skills and abilities to resist temptation and confront and impact the world.

Note: I do not sequester them from the world. That is just as wrong as tossing them out there in it to sink or swim on their own.

I carefully construct the training course for their souls so that it is as rigorous as the training course for their minds. When they leave my home to follow God in their adult lives, they WILL impact their communities, and there will be no lack of that impact, no time lost...

If you aren't doing that, you're not homeschooling. "Doing academics at home", maybe. But not homeschooling.

mm

Also if you have spent your entire childhood being separate and thinking that as Christians you should be separate i think that is a real problem.

Really? When God called Paul and Barnabas he did so saying "Separate them unto me." Paul calls himself "an apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God."

[url=http://biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Corinthians+6%3A15-18&version=KJV&src="embed%20url"]2 Corinthians 6:15-18[/url] says

...what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.

And in Romans 12:2,

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

So what exactly do you mean by saying that it is a bad thing to be separate? If you mean cloistered, moanastic or sequestered I agree wholeheartedly. But if you mean that we don't have to be different, that we don't have to stick out or be conspicuous because of our faith then you're mistaken.

I agree with you about the 'Christian Cruise' thing, though. I never got that either. Christian bookstores are kind of that way too.

I think my biggest problem with homeschooling is that i think it is too important when you are young to be part of the world. I really think homeschoolers spends most of the day not being part of the world and not impacting the world. They are just at their house learning, but by the time you graduate you have lost too many years not impacting the world.

Sure, some homeschoolers are like that. They spend their lives at home, never poking their noses out the door.
Note: I have never met one like that, but most people assume that there are some out there. :S

However, most do not lead unsocialized lives. I am so glad not to have been incubated in a public school. Friendships even between grades are looked down on! Being homeschooled has allowed me to make friendships with people ages 8-80, and see them whenever I like. I have no difficulty carrying on a fruitful conversation with an adult, or with someone who is goth, or with a child. Homeschooling allows you to transcend ages and cliques if you want. That's part of what I like about it.

And please, please don't deprecate the homeschooling groups. These cooperative movements do so much good in the world. Every first Friday of the month my group gets together to make lunches for homeless people and delivers them to the shelter nearby. We're going to the March For Life this year and having a pasta dinner to raise money for the bus fares. We often have fundraising events to help the less fortunate.
Group efforts like this teach the children to do small good deeds throughout their own lives.

We are really not stuck at home. Who else can go see a movie at noon and finish up school at night if they like?

Their parents were just trying to weasel out of paying taxes to support their community schools.

There's just the small little problem that we AREN'T able to get out of "school taxes".

i think it is too important when you are young to be part of the world.

You might not mean it this way; but "part of the world" doesn't sound too good. I don't want to be "part" of the world in a certain sense. But you probably don't mean "conforming to the ways of the world" like it might seem.

Aaaand... All homeschoolers that I know of don't sit at home all the time. They do lots of things outside the home like other people. I'm just saying--I think you can be just as much as an impact whether or not you're homeschooled...

Queen Susan wrote:
There's just the small little problem that we AREN'T able to get out of "school taxes".

Didn't stop people from trying. The Amish have been able to remove themselves from assorted social programs, Social Security and so forth. Of course they were regarded as sincere objectionists with a viable back-up plan, rather than as cheapskates and mooches. The general assumption back then was that if you were a sincere objector, you had a denomination and a congregation to go with it.

Mother-Music wrote:

Please give us some statistics about the difference you personally made in your school. How much impact did you have in your school for the Kingdom of God, that you would not have had if you had been homeschooled?

Aww, "statistics" ain't fair! Or rather, some stories don't fit neatly into a spreadsheet or form. At that, I am reminded of something in which the public school was of some good to me, so it may not be quite what you were asking about.

Back when I was a young'un -- i.e. in ancient times; our prom theme was "fire" -- I was living with ye olde relatives. They were mighty churched up and they knew it: twice on Sundays, back on Wednesdays, and Bible readings. Naturally this led to the aforementioned goody-two-shoes atmosphere. (Pride: it's not just for homeschoolers. )

Then a Black family moved in down the street.

Suddenly it was time! to! move! I said goodbye to everyone I knew -- including the school bully, in retrospect not the brightest move -- and then the house didn't sell. And didn't sell. And didn't sell.

Meanwhile, I was going to school with the new kid from the new house. He was on my schoolbus, in my classes, in my band. He played trumpet: quite well; he was often first chair and never drifted lower than second. He was a sweet, nice, good kid.

In the bleak midwinter, our house finally sold. What did it matter that this required the adults to take time off work, uprooted the children in the middle of the school year, and required dragging furniture through serious ice and snow. All this because a Black family moved in down the street. Is that behavior Christ-like? Of course not. While I was too young to process most of this or to challenge the integrity of an adult, months of exposure to a new kid through the public schools opened my eyes to the fact that on some level beyond my few words, what my relatives were doing was deeply, deeply wrong.

Like I said, I don't know if this is the sort of example you were looking for.

Loving the discussions in here! Good stuff as always, Dr. R!

While I don't agree with several things in Stanley's book, I am curious how homeschoolers meet obstacles such as poor grades despite hard work, and whether any of you wanted to pursue areas of education that your parents disliked. (Examples: they wanted you to go to college but you wanted to pursue a blue-collar career, or any career that you love that doesn't pay very well.)

I'm assuming that none of the homeschoolers had an obstacle of having a teacher who disliked you.

I never had massive problems, but we did switch textbooks several times, the most frustrating change being a switch back to Saxon math in 9th grade for Algebra. I had done half of another book and it was simply not feasible for my learning style (and the change meant starting at Square One in the new Algebra textbook). I had math through the summer for two or three years (blah ) but it was worth it and I did much better at getting the math foundation I needed. Not sure if that's what you were looking for.

I may not have had any teachers dislike me while I was homeschooling (unless you count the motherly frustrations which occur with children inclined to procrastinate ), but I'm pretty sure I've been disliked by a few profs (sometimes because I'm stubborn, but sometimes for no obvious reason). Oops.

Homeschooling allows you to transcend ages and cliques if you want.

Very true. I was raised to believe that speaking with adults was a good use of my time and that I had much I could learn from them, even if I disagreed with them. Believe me, this skill will affect you when you get a job, go to college, etc. I've seen too many peers (variety of schooling backgrounds) who have no clue how to respect a superior (hint: bosses should never be considered or treated as a peer).

I agree with the Doc, homeschooling is not always the best thing for a child. As a mother and father we actually home school our kids for the first 5 years of there life anyway. If, in that time, the mother and father get along with there kids, then homeschooling them would be the best option because they were already doing it anyway. On the other hand, if, in that time, they don't get along with their kids, then homeschooling them further would just be causing more headache.

As for looking down on people who don't home school, that is a bad idea. It kind of makes us like "them". We should show ourselves to be different by our results, not our insults.

So what exactly do you mean by saying that it is a bad thing to be separate? If you mean cloistered, moanastic or sequestered I agree wholeheartedly. But if you mean that we don't have to be different, that we don't have to stick out or be conspicuous because of our faith then you're mistaken.

I agree with you about the 'Christian Cruise' thing, though. I never got that either. Christian bookstores are kind of that way too.

Of course, as Christians, we are separated from the world by God, we are called for a higher purpose and not for common use, but that does not mean that we should not be part of the world. I think God calls us to be part of this world, separate but still part, and I think that it is too important for children to be part of this world to consider homeschooling.

I agree. Christian bookstores are also odd and am not sure why they exist and it seems like their are a lot of them.

However, most do not lead unsocialized lives. I am so glad not to have been incubated in a public school. Friendships even between grades are looked down on! Being homeschooled has allowed me to make friendships with people ages 8-80, and see them whenever I like. I have no difficulty carrying on a fruitful conversation with an adult, or with someone who is goth, or with a child. Homeschooling allows you to transcend ages and cliques if you want. That's part of what I like about it.

I am not really convinced that this is a general truth of all kids who are homeschooled. It may be true of you personally, but that doesn't mean it is true of all homeschoolers in general. Some people are shy and some people aren't. I am not sure that has anything to do with homeschooling.

You might not mean it this way; but "part of the world" doesn't sound too good. I don't want to be "part" of the world in a certain sense. But you probably don't mean "conforming to the ways of the world" like it might seem.

I don't mean it in that way and the very idea that it seems everyone is taking it that way means to me that they don't know what it means to be part of this world.

I am not, of course, suggesting that homeschoolers never leave their houses, just that they spend most of their time at home.

I am not trying to say that in no case can homeschooling be a valid option. It is possible that there may be a time and place that it could be a reasonable option, but i do not want that the majority of conservative Christian families to be homeschooling their children. Though the majority of conservative Christian families do not homeschool their children because very few people homeschool in the United States.

PS. I apologize for offending those who i will offend which is inevitable, just as i was offended by they way some have spoken of schools.

= Less Christians in schools to be a light to the world.

Lucy P, friendships between different grades aren't looked down upon but the more extreme ones aren't encouraged (eg. a grade 7 student being friends with a grade 1 student). This isn't because the school system thinks friendships between children of different ages don't work, they do. It's to spare the confusion and sadness some young children would experience when their friend from grade 7 (or whatever) graduates and they're left without a friend, perhaps left without any friends. This can be very traumatic for some children.

However, most do not lead unsocialized lives. I am so glad not to have been incubated in a public school. Friendships even between grades are looked down on! Being homeschooled has allowed me to make friendships with people ages 8-80, and see them whenever I like. I have no difficulty carrying on a fruitful conversation with an adult, or with someone who is goth, or with a child. Homeschooling allows you to transcend ages and cliques if you want. That's part of what I like about it.

I agree wholeheartedly with you here, Lucy P. In my homeschooling I am accustomed to talking to people of varying ages. I and my brother have been complimented over being able to talk directly with adults.

I am taking a speech class in the home-school group I am involved in next semester, and I'm not afraid of doing speeches. I also starred in a drama (put on by our homeschool group) and did not get stage fright. I'm just saying this because I've heard people think that homeschoolers need socialization so they can get used to those types of situations (such as speaking in front of people).

When my brother began taking college classes, his speech teacher would ask who wanted to give the first speech. My brother said that no one volunteered, so he was the first one to give the first speech in that class.

Some people are shy and some people aren't.

I have known some shy and outgoing homeschoolers and public school children, and I think it's a personality thing more than what kind of education we've had. So I guess I agree with you there. I'm just trying to state that the issue of "socialization" seems meaningless to me.

You might not mean it this way; but "part of the world" doesn't sound too good. I don't want to be "part" of the world in a certain sense. But you probably don't mean "conforming to the ways of the world" like it might seem.

I don't mean it in that way and the very idea that it seems everyone is taking it that way means to me that they don't know what it means to be part of this world.

Then what do you mean, decarus?

PS. I apologize for offending those who i will offend which is inevitable, just as i was offended by they way some have spoken of schools.

Similarly with me; I mean no offense in anything I have spoken here.