I don't really see the need for those, no. If many people had an issue finding support as homeschoolers because the only groups available required that you be an unschooler or a CM homeschooler, I'd say that was a big problem and they should change their policy. Again, there's a time and a place to be with the like-minded. If you've got enough people in your group to have a subgroup that meets sometimes to talk about unschooling or classical homeschooling or CM homeschooling or conservative Christian homeschooling, I see no problem with it. But, no, I don't agree that a homeschooling co-op or support group is serving people by excluding people who don't subscribe to any particular ideology. They should be allowed, obviously. But, I don't think that's really the best way of providing support and I do think that the fact that many homeschooling families lack support should be taken into consideration, and people should set aside their "right" to be exclusive in order to serve the most people. They can then have other, informal means of creating "safe spaces."

But there's exclusion in practice--not everybody can make the meetings, not everybody will get along, not everybody will like the classes being offered, etc.--and exclusion in principle--anybody who isn't X or Y can't join. I don't think anybody is saying that exclusion-in-practice is something that can or must be avoided in all situations. But that's very different from people being excluded for ideological reasons. I just don't think a homeschool support group or co-op should function as a "safe space" for people with certain religious beliefs to get together. There are plenty of other times and places where they could do so. Like at church, for a big one. Or, they could form a prayer group or Bible study. I think it would be much better--and more Christian, quite frankly--for people to use that sort of venue to gather with like-minded people and discuss religious matters without having to worry about anybody disagreeing or getting offended, and to use a homeschool support group or co-op as a place for providing support to all homeschoolers in the community. I guess I don't see why people would feel the need to turn the homeschool support group into a "safe space" for their religious beliefs, rather than simply as a "safe space" for homeschoolers, when there are so many other options available to them if they do want a place to talk about their religious beliefs with only like-minded individuals.

And this is exactly the problem. It's not like there's a ton of co-ops for most people in most parts of the country to choose from. If they have a homeschool support group or co-op available at all, there's likely just one. And if that one group is exclusive, that shuts out people who could use the support.

I saw that a study of French and American eating habits found that the French eat just as much packaged food as Americans. Not to mention, we don't want to overestimate the difference between Americans and Europeans in terms of body size. American is not overrun by 200 lb. toddlers and 500 lb. adults, as I mentioned above. While America does have a higher percentage of people who are overweight or obese, most overweight and obese Americans are not that large. They are, in terms of actually body weight, not significantly heavier than Europeans. Here's a list I found from 2006 of the average BMI of Europeans: Malta - 26.6 Greece - 25.9 Finland - 25.8 Luxembourg - 25.7 Hungary - 25.6 Cyprus - 25.6 Lithuania - 25.5 Slovenia - 25.5 Denmark - 25.5 UK - 25.4 Italy - 24.3 France - 24.5 Austria - 24.8 Poland - 24.8 Netherlands - 24.9 Slovakia - 25.0 Belgium - 25.1 Latvia - 25.1 Estonia - 25.2 Czech Rep - 25.2 The difference between the "fattest" and "slimmest" nations was only 2.3, which is something like 6-8 pounds in many cases. According to the CDC, in the U.S. the average adult man has a BMI of 26.6 and the average adult woman has a BMI of 26.5. Again, we're talking about the average American, then, being in the range of maybe 6-10 pounds heavier than your average French person, not that French people are all thin and Americans are all 400+ pounds, despite the popular mythology.

Aren't Christians supposed to lay down their rights? I keep seeing people talking about how groups have the right to be exclusive, but to me, that's a non-issue. Sure, we have the right. We have the right to do all sorts of things. But that doesn't make those things right or good. The problem is that many homeschoolers are already isolated. And, when the only co-op in your area is exclusive, that means it's going to be that much harder for people who don't share the views that it seems like many homeschoolers share to find social outlets for their children and support for themselves. And, that stinks. I would think that, in order to better love and serve the other homeschoolers around them, Christian homeschoolers would make the decision to lay down their right to exclude whoever they want from their groups and find a way to include all homeschoolers in their groups and activities. Now, they are certainly free not to do so, and to exercise their right to be as exclusive as they wish. I'm not saying they shouldn't. But, to me, that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do or something to be applauded. If people really feel the need to have time to be around "like-minded" individuals, isn't that what friendship is for? Have a couple of like-minded friends over and be as exclusive as you want during the time you're together. But, I think it does need to be recognized that finding support is very difficult for many homeschoolers, and these sorts of exclusive SOFs just make it that much harder, particularly for homeschoolers who aren't conservative Protestants, to find support. So why not save exclusivity for other times and use a co-op to serve as many homeschoolers as possible? To me, that just seems like the right and loving thing to do. I was part of a mom's group when I first moved to my neighborhood. A number of the moms were part of a specific church group. They could very easily have only had a group for people who shared their beliefs. But, I'm really glad they decided to lay down their right to do so and to have an inclusive group, because a lot of friendships were formed (many between people with different beliefs) that are still strong six years later. These women (who were part of the same church group) also had a Bible study group together that met once a week, and I'm sure they got together as friends, so it's not like they lacked time with the "like-minded." It's not like they never had any time to be around people who believed just the same as they did. But they recognized that the community as a whole could benefit from a mother's group that was inclusive rather than exclusive. I'm not sure why more homeschooling co-ops can't take the same approach.

Do you honestly think that a parent can just overfeed a child to the kinds of weights we're talking about here--200 lbs. toddlers, 500 lbs. adolescents--without there being some serious underlying factor? Because I don't. A parent could not--literally could not--force a child who was predisposed to be normal-weight or perhaps just a bit overweight to eat enough to become that large. You might, with a really unhealthy diet, get a child to weigh 20 or 30 pounds than they normally would. You could not "overnourish" a child to 500 pounds barring a very strong genetic predisposition, metabolic issues, or other biological/hormonal/health issues, unless you were to strap them down and forcefeed them all day. That's just not how body weight works. Of course, the 200 lb. toddler is our newest cultural bogeyman, not a whole lot different from the welfare queen. People claim to see them all over the place, but verified, documented sightings are shockingly rare. FWIW, people comment all the time on how chubby my toddler is, and she weighs 32 lbs. So if a 32 lb. toddler raises eyebrows, I'm kind of guessing that our country isn't actually overrun by 200 lb. two year olds, as many people seem to want to believe.

Yes, there is. Because a child who is being starved is in immediate danger of dying. Even an extremely, extremely obese child is not at immediate risk of death. AFAIK there has never been a single case of a child dying just from being too fat or eating too much, whereas tens of thousands of children die of starvation around the world each day. At most, you could say that they are at a higher risk for developing certain health conditions that could shorten their lifespan. But, research I've seen indicates that even the most severely obese individuals (who make up a tiny, tiny percentage of the population) will still only see maybe a 10-15 year decrease in lifespan. So we're talking about the difference between a child who could die within weeks if they don't get fed, and a child who might have their lifespan shortened by (and I'll go with the most alarmist possible stats here) 15-20 years if they don't lose some weight at some point. That difference is critically important. Now, if a child has diabetes and is being fed sugary foods that are immediately threatening their life, then I'd agree that's the same as a parent starving their child, in terms of risk. But, starvation is a much more immediate, serious health risk than even the most extreme cases of obesity, and so is a far more valid reason to take action like removing a child from their home.

Sort of o/t, but I think that having incentives for healthier processed and "fast" foods would be more practical. It's my understanding that Americans do not eat out more than people in Europe and Asia, and in fact eat out less than people in some of those places. We also don't eat more "packaged" foods--people in most of Asia and Europe eat just as many packaged foods as we do, and so don't spend more time cooking from-scratch meals. But, the packaged foods we have are more processed and less healthy, and the fast food/take out places we have are also less healthy. I really don't think it's realistic for many people to spend more time cooking, so I think it would be a better use of resources to figure out ways to encourage fast, convenient, and cheap meals (both packaged and take-out) that are healthier than what is currently available. Because, really, if people are faced with the choice of a $10 meal for their whole family at McDonald's, a $25 meal for their whole family at a healthier restaurant, spending 30-45 minutes cooking a tasty meal (and then the time needed to clean up afterwards) from scratch, or putting some lettuce, tomatoes, and carrots in a bowl and calling it dinner, it's not surprising to me at all that many people would, for a number of reasons, choose McDonald's. If we could find a way for them to get a tasty, ready-to-eat, healthy meal on the table cheaply and quickly--and none of the options provide for that--then they'd probably be more likely to choose that. I think the push for "slow food" is bound to fail, because we're not willing to make the other societal changes we'd have to for that to be a reality. Sure, my family enjoys slow, homecooked meals most nights, but that's because I only work part-time for part of the year. It's not difficult for me to find the time to cook. But with single parent and dual income homes a reality for so many people, I think it would be far more practical, for many families, to encourage healthier take-out options and healthier packaged foods than to encourage a return to cooking from scratch. I just think this idea that it's somehow easy to feed their family healthy from-scratch meals is a lie. I love to cook. I do my best to cook healthy, from-scratch meals for my family as many nights as week as possible. But, it's not fast or easy. I'd say that a "quick" meal takes me at least 30 minutes (between prep time and cooking time), and most days I spend significantly more time than that in the kitchen preparing dinner, probably close to an hour or an hour and a half. (Obviously I'm not cooking the entire time, but from the time I start prepping dinner to the time the meal is on the table is about 60-90 minutes.) Again, since I love to cook, and because I'm home during the day, it's not a big deal for me. (Plus, I'm in a two-parent household, so most nights my DH does clean-up. Not having to spend another 20-30 minutes washing dishes after I already spent an hour in the kitchen cooking is a big help.) But, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that it's fast and easy to get nutritious home-cooked meals on the table, because it isn't.

I'm going to see it in 3D tomorrow. I get kind of motion sick, so I'll report back on how it goes.

Was your ped concerned? My DD is a lot less verbal than my DS was. My DS had a dozen or more words by the time he was 8 months, and he was using sentences at a year. My DD is just not like that. She babbles a lot, but even at 16 months, she's only got a few words. In her case, I think she just has less to communicate to us than our DS did. He was a really, really "high-need" child, so I think he had a lot of incentive to talk, so he could make us aware of what he wanted. DD is so laid-back most of the time, I think she just doesn't have the motivation or reason to talk as much or as early.

I don't consider this respectful, but condescending and silly. I mean, if they are talking about this child somehow creating an "unsafe" environment, that makes no sense. For one, I doubt he's any more likely to be disrespectful of anybody's beliefs than any of the other kids there (because, while their parents might affirm the SOF, who knows what the kids actually believe?). And, if any child does put another child in a position to defend their beliefs, give them a warning or boot them from the class/co-op. But, the idea seems to be that simply having an LDS child present would somehow create an "unsafe" space for the other students. Or, if they are talking about not wanting the LDS child to be put in a position where his beliefs are challenged, that's really patronizing. Shouldn't that be up to the parent to decide?

I don't think that's the question at all, since nobody has, as far as I've seen, questioned the right of these groups to exist. The question is whether it's the right thing to do. Should it be legal to have a group that only allows yellows to join? Sure, and I don't think anybody is looking to take away their legal right to do so. But, is it moral? Is it right? Is it loving? Is it just? Those are the questions that we should be asking, especially if the yellow circles claim to be associating around a devotion to a yellow of love and justice.

Have you lived in an inner city where access to supermarkets that have decent produce is extremely limited, if available at all, unless you have a car? And, do you honestly think it's healthier for kids to eat just salads for dinner every night? Because, it's not. A child who ate nothing but salads for dinner would be lacking protein, carbs, fats, and calories. Honestly, a child who eats McDonald's every night is probably going to be better off in the long run than a child who is passed a plate of lettuce, carrots, and tomatoes, because kids who lack necessary calories, fats, and protein have significant health and learning problems. Obviously a middle ground would be ideal, but to say that it would be better for people to, basically, give their kids a plate of iceburg lettuce every night than to feed that a burger and fries is to show how completely unhealthy our ideas about food are in this country.

I have two. My DS has never thought anything positive or negative about it. I've just told him that, if he wants one, he's got to wait until he's 18.

I think it does say something about the AMA, though, that they'd even suggest this. I mean, have they ever suggested having the children of smokers removed to protective custody? There is a huge amount of fat-bias within the medical establishment, to a level that is simply not warranted by the evidence, and I think this shows how deeply entrenched it is within the AMA.

I don't think anybody has indicated that this group shouldn't have the right to exclude anybody they want. But just because we have the right to do something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

No, but I'm taking my DS to see it in 3D at an IMAX theater on Saturday. I wasn't going to take him, but they're having live owls in the theater lobby all afternoon, and my DS adores owls. He's promised to tell me if he gets scared, in which case we're leaving.

Where I live, it's not uncommon for the Catholic schools to have most of their students not be Catholic. As long as the parents understand that Catholic views will be presented, it's fine.

For some people. I don't wear PJs all day, but I also don't "dress my best." I really don't like wearing my work clothes, which are more dressy/professional. I feel too stiff and formal. (I also am not one of those women who feels more confident when my hair is done and I've got make-up on--instead, I feel kind of fake and awkward.) I much prefer wearing clothes that I'm comfortable getting down on the ground in, and digging in the dirt with my kids in, and sprawling out on the couch to read in, and rubbing my hands on while I'm baking cookies in. So whenever I'm not teaching (in which case I generally wear dressy pants and a button-down shirt), I'm pretty much sure to be wearing jeans or knit pants and a t-shirt. I feel much more comfortable, much more myself, and so much more contented and confident.

It would depend. If the blues said that, in their group, you could not question the love of blue but the love of yellow could be challenged, that wouldn't be fair. But if the blues decided that, in their group, you could not confront anybody about their favorite color, then that's fine. That's what makes an inclusive group different from an exclusive group. I haven't seen anybody say, "Hey, what a group needs is a SoF that would exclude conservative Protestants!" It's an issue of whether groups should include everybody or not. And, no matter how much we try to twist it, there is a huge difference between those two positions. Being inclusive is not the same as being exclusive, and in fact it's the opposite.

Most of the older people I know tend to leave the TV on as background noise when they're home, whether they're watching or not. And, since most of them are retired, that can add up to a lot of hours a day. If they're counting as "screen time" time when a TV is on and somebody is in the room, as mentioned by someone above, I would imagine households like that would really bump up the totals. My MIL, for example, will have one of the news networks on all day. She spends most of her time doing other things--reading, chores, cooking, gardening, etc.--but she's always got the news on and will pay attention if something strikes her as interesting. So she probably is in a room with the TV on for 10+ hours a day, but she doesn't watch nearly that much.

FWIW, the government has not suggested a program of removing children from their homes for being obese, although it has happened in some isolated cases. This was the AMA publishing an editorial in one of their journals suggesting it.

I'm not sure why they'd even reject him for a religion class. Assuming that you knew what would be taught, and didn't object to it, and your DS knew that he needed to respect the beliefs being taught, why should it matter if your DS believes differently? But, it's particularly ridiculous for a Spanish class.

Right. Confirmation bias plays such a large role in this. Media coverage of the "obesity epidemic" has exploded in the last ten years. Ask most people, and they'll insist there are more fat kids today than ten years ago. But, actually, rates of childhood obesity have been level since about 2000. We're a lot more likely to notice the junk food in the grocery store cart of the fat parent (or parent with a fat kid) than we are to notice the junk food in the grocery store cart of the thin parent of a thin kid. People will zero in on the one 500-pound woman sitting in McDonald's and fail to notice the many average-weight people eating there. We see what we expect to see, so much of the time.

My mom is going to be 61 this year. Most days I have DS get dressed after breakfast, before school. But, we do school in the morning, and if we're having a day where I know we're not going out in the morning and nobody is coming over, I don't stress if he's in his PJs during school and then changes after. And once in a while we have a jammie day, usually if somebody isn't feel very well. We pretty much always got changed in my house unless we were sick, but we had lazy mornings if it wasn't a school/work day or we weren't going anywhere. There was no rush to shower and dress.