I have a hyphenated last name, and often part of it gets cut off on either my boarding pass or my son's. It's never been an issue.

Right now, we don't have room for one, and I'm not sure how practical it would be. DS is the only one homeschooling, and come the fall I'll have a newborn and a 1yo as well, so homeschooling in the main living area makes the most sense. DD can play with her toys or watch DVDs, and the baby will be in easy reach. So at this point I'd doubt we'd use a schoolroom, if we had room for one. But, if I was homeschooling all the kids, and we had room, I would love a dedicated school room.

Somewhat. I find it pretty easy, especially having kids, to make acquaintances in a new community. I can make lots of friendly acquaintances pretty quickly. My problem is always moving from the acquaintance to the friend stage. We've lived in our neighborhood now for six years, and I'm *just* getting to the point where I feel like a number of acquaintances have turned into good friends. I think I'm a pretty guarded person, so that's a transition that it's really hard for me to make.

When I was a kid, we had a Girl Scout leader who homeschooled her kids. I don't know anything about their religious beliefs, but they weren't at all conservative and were very hippy/crunchy in their lifestyle. I always thought it seemed really cool, and it was always something I had in the back of my mind as something I'd like to do. I never associated it with being a religious fundamentalist or hiding your kids from the world or any of the stereotypes that, if they'd been my first introduction to homeschooling, probably would have made me think that it wasn't something that could be for me.

Why? Are kids after #2 more valuable than other kids? I'm kind of at a loss with this one.

Nor is there standard belief among Christians. The mainline Protestants and Catholics who believe in theistic evolution are going to have very different beliefs (and probably differ quite a bit amongst themselves) than the fundamentalists who believes the earth was created in six literal days.

It's very unlikely we'll be flying for a while. However, TSA policies have nothing to do with it, and I'd have no problem with my children going through security.

I did this as a kid. If I was in really big trouble--or, even worse, if I was watching somebody else get into really big trouble or get really bad news--it was hard for me not to smile or laugh. I totally didn't think the situation was funny, not even a teeny, tiny bit, but that's just how my anxiety and discomfort and embarrassment over the situation came out. I probably did it until my late teens. I knew it was an inappropriate reaction. In fact, I can remember worrying about it, like what if I was at a friend's house, and they found out their grandmother died, and I laughed? How horrible that would be. I used to really get myself stressed out over that. I don't think it's an extremely uncommon reaction for people to have, especially when they're young. That's too funny. I used to have people tell me all the time how much I must LOVE public speaking, because whenever I had to present a paper in class or at a conference, I'd be super-animated and really smiley. Truth was, I was scared to death. I'd be up there feeling like I was about to die, and sure everybody could tell, but my adrenaline seems to kick my body into smiley-happy mode on the outside.

A lot of families who might have trouble affording it could feel uncomfortable applying for a scholarship, though. You could ask families for their financial information and create a sliding fee scale based on income and number of children, but that would probably feel overly invasive to many families. So I think this is one reasonable way of trying to have costs not prohibit larger families from attending.

We do what works (or, really, what is necessary) for the individual child. We do plan on keeping infants in the bed for the first few months, to make nursing easier. After that, it depends. DS coslept out of necessity. He would not fall asleep otherwise. DD went into a crib out of necessity. She wouldn't, after about 3 months, fall asleep otherwise. We're hoping that DS2 will go into a crib like DD did, but we're willing to do what works for him, too.

You've got lots of good Tillichian choices, but you left out my favorite, "the ground of being." I think that, or "s/he within which we live and move and have our being" is probably the closest to how I'd define God, although I don't think either is a perfect, exact, or full definition.

I'm not sure how having a sacred text changes that, honestly. The Bible or the Koran or the Torah doesn't prove the existence of God, so I'm not sure how those texts would make somebody know that God is real unless they already come to the text with a bunch of presuppositions.

This. I think the idea that there's evidence for a YE but it's being kept secret by the scientific establishment just misunderstands how science works on a practical level. You don't make a name for yourself by repeating what other people have said. Sure, you can make a living doing that, but that's not how you get famous. What gets you famous is coming up with a credible new paradigm. If there was actually evidence that indicated that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, and somebody could come up with a comprehensive explanation like you mention that was better than the OE explanation, than that person would become immensely famous. That's Nobel Prize stuff. That's your-name-in-every-history-book stuff. That's the kind of discovery people would dream of making. Do we really believe that every mainstream scientist in the entire world, across the religious and political spectrum, is so committed to perpetuating what would have to be a multi-generational international conspiracy to deny the evidence for a YE (for no other reason than to discredit one particular way of interpreting the Bible that really only a small number of modern American Christians hold to), that they would turn down the chance for that kind of personal glory? There's just no way.

Homeschoolers are a diverse group. The problem with the HSLDA is that they come in and presume to speak for all homeschoolers, even though they have a very clear, rigid, and narrow agenda, much of which has nothing to do with homeschooling. My understanding is that they've also exerted a lot of pressure on state homeschooling organizations to switch from being inclusive to exclusive groups.

Yes, it's very strange to me that a group that is so into parental rights--and who I'm assuming thinks that parents should have the legal right to make all sorts of decisions for their children until they reach 18--are okay with laws that allow a 16 year old to drop out and their parents not have any recourse. I don't think the law is particularly useful. But, given the realities of our economy--in the past, it may have been possible to drop out of high school at 16 and find a decent job, since that's the age in most states where you can start working full-time, but today that just isn't reality--I can totally understand why they'd want to change it. Are people opposed to having a minimum age at which students can drop out with no alternative plans? If so, should 10 year olds be allowed to drop out? If not, why is 18 a problem but 16 isn't?

I applied for numerous receptionist/admin assistant jobs a few years back. Every single one required a BA, most wanted 5+ years of experience, and not one paid more than $20K/year.

Maybe you're saying "no" too politely? I know I do that all the time. I don't want to hurt somebody's feelings, so I give kind of an evasive no: "I think we're busy that week," "Hmm, thanks so much, but I don't think we'll be able to make it," etc. And when I do that, while I'd interpret that kind of thing to mean "We're not interested, don't ask again," I think the other person is entitled to assume that it's not a matter of my not wanting to go, but of it not being convenient, and so inviting me to something similar again. One thing I've learned the last few years is that some people do NOT know how to take a hint. There's no ulterior motive, there's no secret agenda, they just need to have things explicitly spelled out for them before they get it. So I'd just say something, if you haven't, like, "I appreciate the invitation, but the kids only attend activities at our own church."

It's not that science depends upon the age of the earth, it's that the tools of science are what lead scientists to the conclusion that the earth is around 4.5 billion years old. If we decide that we think that our interpretation of the Bible is a better way to attain knowledge about the age of the earth than the tools of science, then the idea is that we cannot trust the tools of science to provide us with at least somewhat-reliable information about the natural world and its processes. Once you decide that, then science really ceases to matter at all. I certainly believe there are questions that are outside the realm of science or are not best answered by science. I'm not going to turn to science for answers about ethics or beauty or the nature of God. But, when we're talking about attaining factual information about the natural world, then science, while certainly not perfect, is the best means we have. Deciding that we will only turn to science for information on the natural world when its conclusions conform to our theological presuppositions doesn't work.

At every school I've attended or taught at, all students, regardless of major, were expected to take an introductory composition course and an upper-level writing course (which could be either a writing-intensive course in their field or an intermediate comp course). If they weren't found to be prepared for the introductory comp course, they needed to take one and sometimes two remedial courses to become prepared. I think that's pretty standard policy. When I've taught intermediate comp, I'd say that for 95% of the students in my class, they assume it's the last time they'll ever have to write a paper, and they are VERY glad about it.

My first two are almost 6 years apart (5 years and 9 months). Then we had a surprise pregnancy, and #2 and #3 will be 16 months apart. I'm really not concerned about 2 & 3 excluding their big brother. If anything, I'm more concerned about DS1 having two littles tagging along after him all the time, vying for his attention! You also never know how things will work out long-term. My father is one of five. He has a brother who is two years younger than he is, and he was very close to him growing up. His youngest sister is ten years younger than he is, and they weren't close as kids. Now, as adults, he rarely talks to his brother, but he and his youngest sister are best friends.

The reason I'd be surprised to hear it is that I attended VBS at Protestant churches as a child--I was raised Catholic--and DS has attended VBS at Protestant churches (ELCA, Episcopal, and recently the Evangelical Covenant Church), and I'd never encountered tactics like that. If you are coming from a more mainline Protestant experience, it would absolutely be a surprise, I think. The Episcopal church where DS does VBS in August is having a Harry Potter-themed program this year. He's super-excited about it.

Absolutely. Science is not infallible, and there is absolutely bias within it. But, that doesn't mean that it doesn't lead to better conclusions that pure speculation. The only way to conclude that the earth is less than 10,000 years old--the absolutely only way--is to begin with the presuppositions that 1) the Bible is true in an absolute, literal sense on every matter, including science, 2) an interpretation of the Bible rooted in that sort of inerrancy is to be privileged above any other means of acquiring knowledge, and 3) reading the Bible in that way leads to the conclusion that the earth is less than 10,000 years old. Then, you interpret your data based on that. Nobody starts with the data and then concludes from there that the earth is young without holding those presuppositions. Scientists were NOT starting from the conclusion that the earth was 4.5 billion years old, and then interpreting data from that; they came to that conclusion because of the data. And, scientists from a wide variety of religious backgrounds share that same conclusion: believing that the earth is ancient does not require that one have any specific set of religious presuppositions they are bringing to the table. Christian (of all types--Catholic, mainline Protestant, evangelical, Orthodox), Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist, agnostic, pagan scientists, provided they aren't starting from the assumption that anything that doesn't accord with a certain way of interpreting their sacred texts must be rejected, all come to the same conclusion. So, sure, it might be wrong that the earth is 4.5 billions years old. That doesn't mean, though, that it's just as likely that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, at all. I mean, by that logic, why not say it's just as likely that the earth was created yesterday, with the "appearance of age"? Because, there's just as much evidence for that as there is for an earth that's 6,000 years old. Just because science is fallible doesn't mean that it doesn't provide us with more objective and accurate information about the natural world than other realms of inquiry.

If they can't write well enough to get a job, then that's a good genuine motivator to improve their writing. The problem is that many incoming first year students--the students who usually end up taking the general courses--don't see that. To them, it's a waste of time. And, I think it's always more effective to learn something because you feel a real desire to or need to, than because somebody else says you have to learn it, especially when we're talking about adults, which college students generally are. My mom tried to show me how to do the laundry a few times when I was living at home. But, she continued to do all the laundry, so I had no interest, didn't really pay attention, and left home not knowing how to do laundry. The first time I had to do my own laundry at college, I asked somebody how, paid attention, and learned. Easy. Now, obviously writing is more difficult. But, that's part of the problem. If a student is coming into college unable to compose in standard written English, they are in for a long, hard road if they do want to be able to do so. By the time they're college-age, it's incredibly difficult to remediate poor writing skills. It requires a lot of effort and motivation, and very few students taking writing classes to fulfill a requirement have that. They leave class, in most cases, writing just as poorly as they did before, happy to have passed with a C or C-. I do think, though, that if they had a lot of self-motivation, and were willing to put in the work, they absolutely could improve their writing significantly.

My 7yo read the first two really quickly and loved them, enjoyed the third but kind of slogged through the end, and then lost interest about halfway through the fourth. I think at that point it was just dealing with themes too mature to interest him. It's kind of hard, I think, for a 7yo to stay interested in what a 15-year-old kid is doing. He's been asking me to read the first one to him at night, though.

Yes. Honestly, I'm a bit baffled by this "It doesn't matter" or "I wasn't there, so I can't know and have no opinion" stance many are taking. Does it matter in theological terms? IMO, no. Does it matter for how most of us live our lives? Probably not. But, does it matter? Of course, especially if we're talking about how we educate our children. It matters a lot in science, for instance. If the earth actually was only 6,000 years old or so, then pretty much everything we know about science would be wrong. It would discredit the entire field. This isn't just a "You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to" issue; if the earth really is young, then the scientific method, and science as we know it, is entirely useless and unreliable. That matters. And, there are many, many things we weren't around for that people don't remain agnostic on. I don't suppose anybody here was around in 30 A.D., but many probably have pretty strong beliefs about the resurrection. Why not just say, "Well, I wasn't there, so I can't know"? Why teach our kids about history at all if we're going to assume that, because we weren't there, we can't come to some valid conclusions about what happened?