The next time a person questions our choice to educate our children outside of school I will tear one of their arms off and beat them about the head with it. My husband says that isn't exactly a glowing example of homeschooling and proper socialization....but he later understood my passionate outburst. You will too.
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Almost my entire life I have been fielding questions about home education. I've also heard the unfounded criticisms repeated again, and again, and again.....and AGAIN. It gets old. It really does. The worst bit I've heard though is this:
"Homeschooling can be a cover for abuse! If the child isn't in school there is nobody to know and intervene if the child is being abused/neglected at home!"
For the love of Pete....this is where I shake my head. When I was 17-years-old I had dinner with my former boyfriend's parents for the first time...his stepfather grilled me about the possibility of homeschoolers being abused since he'd seen a news report about this one case I'd ever heard about. Hardly good dinner conversation...did I mention he was an ass in general? Yeah, he was.
Let me be clear: Are there abusive homschooling families? Damn straight there are! I don't know any personally, but I'm sure they do exist just like there are abusive families whose kids are enrolled in school. School doesn't magically protect your child from harm....and why exactly is it that teachers and school staff are viewed as protection and parents are all viewed as potential abusers?! Abuse takes place in school just like it can and does at home!
Which leads me to back to my episode with the tearing of limbs and beating about the head...we've all heard the stories and reports of abuses happening in school. Bullying, abuse and molestation at the hand of other students as well as teachers and school staff....in fact I was reading a story about a teacher leaving his wife and own teen daughter to live with his just-turned-18 former student when I came across the following story:
3rd grade teacher feeds students his semen on cookies...
What. The. Fuck.
I was mortified! And angry...not only because these horrible things happened to children, but because I am seen as a potential abuser for keeping my child out of school....yet this stuff happens! Are people insane?! Why are there any children left in schools?! Between the bullying, poor educational outcomes, teachers sleeping with students, shootings, bomb threats, kids getting blowjobs in the back of class, special needs students being voted out of classes by their peers, lack of recess, children with allergies dying, an autistic boy being left on a bus for hours in the summer sun....and F-ing SEMEN COOKIES....WHY AREN'T WE RIOTING IN THE STREETS?! This stuff should NOT be happening...and what galls me is that schools are assumed to be safe. I'm the potential danger by not sending my child to one of those hell-holes....
How does that make sense?! News flash: Schools aren't automatically safe. Nor will teachers always be able to help the children who are abused at home.
So I probably won't actually tear off an arm and use it as a club, BUT I will shove a laminated copy of that vile story into their hands and say "Read this. I'll wait."
