In 2004, a lady in Saugatuck, Michigan wrote a letter to the editor about how she felt that homeschooling parents are on an ego trip. The letter caught the eyes of homeschoolers.

• About.com, “Homeschooling robs children”

So, now it’s 2006, and Ms. Boyce is again writing to the editor about homeschooling. Her viewpoint, as before, doesn’t reflect the experiences I’ve had with homeschooling, or schooling, for that matter, but maybe that only means we cancel out each other.

Holland Sentinel, Holland, Michigan, 18 September 2006, Missing out on back to school

One can feel the excitement. Why? Because it is back to school time!

I guess that explains all the cartoons of happy children waiting for the bus, and reports of school vandalization.

However, there is a group of children being robbed of this incredible experience.

My kids had that incredible experience for a few years. Once they were homeschooled, they used to lie in bed reveling in not getting up. They didn’t seem to miss it at all.

I have written in the past of a Harvard study that followed a flock of homeschooled children that found no significant difference in their academic achievements that the traditionally schooled children, with the exception of some gaps where the parents were just not knowledgeable.

Harvard study? Did I miss this?

• No, this one’s about home and school. Harvard Education Letter, July/August 1997, The Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development
• No, this one’s about Harvard’s Extension School. Harvard Extension School Alumni Bulletin, Fall 2005, All the Worlds a Classroom

If anyone knows which study this refers to, please share. I even tried finding articles by Ms. Boyce that reference Harvard, but didn’t find any.

• Harvard + homeschool + Boyce
• Harvard + home-school + Boyce

However, the mothers do get a huge ego boost. Is that why we have children? To boost a mother’s ego?

A woman’s ego, not a mother’s. First comes the woman-ness, then comes the motherhood. Using this example, a woman would become a mother to boost her ego, not a mother would become a mother.

And no, to answer the allegation from one point of view, our family didn’t undertake homeschooling so I could get a rush. I’d gone through one child completing public school, and was seeing similar developments that weren’t ‘happy’ ones in my son’s younger brother and sisters. The homeschooling was to see if it helped the kids. It seems to have worked.

As an experienced mom as well as a former teacher, I believe that this intense parenting can usually have two outcomes.

And, as an experienced mom who attended parent-teacher conferences, I’m just glad I didn’t have to have one with a person who felt that anything I tried doing to help my children was for my own gratification. I can see that conversation going nowhere fast.

One, the child becomes very stifled, unable to function independently at all, or what often happens, the moment the child reaches 18 (or sometimes younger) they are gone. If they go to college, it will be very far away. As adults they will remain far away. I have spoken with many grown children who would say, “I could never live near my parents” and enumerate the controls put upon them as children.

Yes, there are lots of children who go far away to college. Not all of them are homeschooled. The same goes for where adult children live. This is a human situation, not a homeschooling situation. History is rife with the kids going off to seek their fortunes. If it wasn’t, we’d all be shopping at the WalMart in the Olduvai Gorge.

And as for being able to function independently, homeschooled kids manage just fine.

Mark your calendars, and be on the lookout next year for homeschooling’s Five o’clock Charlie.

Tags: back to school time, Harvard's Extension School, homeschooling, Michigan, parents, Saugatuck

This entry was posted on September 21, 2006 at 11:21 am and is filed under News-Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.