The Humble DevilDog takes no prisoners in his post about there being no genuine financial excuses for not home schooling. (Those of nervous disposition should be warned that he is not afraid to couch his argument forcefully.)
Given that we know of single parents finding ingenious ways to home educate, we have to agree with him.
William Pitt the Younger:"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
HT:Chris O'Donnell
Love it :-)))))...
ReplyDeleteThanks Carlotta for a great read...
Jft and dh < big grins >
I have my suspicions that DevilDog is actually a Cheltenham Lady!
ReplyDeleteI agree about the two incomes, it's rubish. When I had a partner we did fine while I was on minimal wage.
ReplyDeleteNow I would love to be able to say I am one of those ingenious single parents, but I am not. I live on welfare. :(
I'm one of the examples home-educators would be proud to wave around. Oh well.
I meant would not be proud. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteLeo...I reckon you were right the first time! It is still pretty hard sorting this out in a predominantly welfare orientated, school orientated society and I don't think you should be harsh on yourself in the current circumstances.
ReplyDeleteAll it would take would be just a relatively small tip the other way to make it so much easier for HE families to be mutually supportive. As it is, we already usually share out the kids for 2- 3 days a week, so it wouldn't take much more sharing in this way, to make it possible for both mums of the families to work at least part time.
Come the day that HE is normal, siblings and grandparents would routinely help out, it would all be a different matter.
Actually, thinking about it again, this article is no good. It's too agressive and it's meant to provoke guilt.
ReplyDeleteHappy people do not communicate in this manner. Me thinks thinks his homeschooler wanted a BMW badly but is self-sacrificing. :)
I do not think children want the burden of a self-sacrificing parent that lives for them alone.
I also look at myself and I think what kind of a living example I am giving my child surviving on welfare?
I don't think 'self-sacrificing' comes into it. Maybe I'm just being self-righteous, but I don't feel that I am sacrificing anything when I spend time with my children - it's genuinely what I prefer to do! I'm not staying at home with them *just* because I think it's good for them, and our family, but because I enjoy it - yes it's tough, and tiring, and relentless, and monotonous at times but it's also rewarding, exciting, educational (for me) and a whole load of other positive things. I'd much rather be doing this work than the work I was trained to do, and I'd love it if my children grew up also seeing motherhood as a life choice that is important and valuable. Even better if it were seen as so by society as a whole by the time they become mothers. Better even than that, that society has changed enough that there are jobs that they can do that easily fit in with being a mother, that they're children can be a part of as well. In the long time that humans have been around, our current idea of women's place being 'mothers and homemakers' is very, very new and the sooner we can return to the situation where families can work together to home-make, parent *and* bread-win the better!
ReplyDeleteCx
Thanks, Carlotta, for the great link. Not exactly how I would have phrased the argument, but then again as he says at the top of his blog, "Sometimes, using a sledgehammer to kill a fly is appropriate. The fly isn't any deader, but, the other flies certainly sit up and take notice."
ReplyDeleteSome certainly sat up and took notice lol.