In Sense and Sensibility, Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant were romantically involved. I watched the commentary and she was saying that people thought she was too old to be his love interest even though he's older than her. She then ranted about how Hollywood had done this by always putting much younger women with older men. Then a couple years later they played brother and sister in Love Actually. She very clearly calls him her older brother, and I always wondered if she put that in there because she was still upset about it (justifiably so!).

Well, my dad told me recently, after I'd already been accepted to my PhD program 600 miles away, that I should investigate online PhDs because they were just as good and that my reasons for getting a PhD sounded like I "just wanted to be a student for the rest of my life." Thanks, Dad. Way to be supportive. If I haven't done anything you've thought I should since I was 17, what makes you think I'm going to start now?

I think that in part it stems from the fact that if you say Duchess of Cambridge, readers may not know who you mean because her first name is not in the title. My sister's theory about the waiting is that they waited to get married until they were ready to have children so there wouldn't be all the pressure of procreation.

German movies - Mostly Martha, the Lives of Others, Vitus, Europa Europa, Goodbye Lenin

It's a pretty new field! My department has only existed for 7 years or so. I was so thrilled when I discovered there were programs about learning languages! My school even has an undergrad minor in it!

I've spent the last year applying to PhD programs, and will be starting a program in Second Language Acquisition in August! I have a teaching assistantship in the Spanish department. We are moving over 600 miles away! We already found a place to live, but my husband is still looking for a job. My high schoolers are going to finish up high school homeschooling with me supervising. My younger children will be in public school as they are now. We are all SO EXCITED!!!

I've spent the last year applying to PhD programs, and will be starting a program in Second Language Acquisition in August! I have a teaching assistantship in the Spanish department. We are moving over 600 miles away! We already found a place to live, but my husband is still looking for a job. My high schoolers are going to finish up high school homeschooling with me supervising. My younger children will be in public school as they are now. We are all SO EXCITED!!!

OK, yeah, I started thinking I remembered that Elizabeth Smart was homeschooled and that's how the guy who kidnapped her saw her, because she was home while he was there working. But obviously I was remembering that wrong or making it up. I will say that I do think the Andrea Yates case could have something to do with homeschooling. Yes, only one child was old enough to have been in school and the second oldest would have probably started kindergarten that fall, and probably under Texas law the oldest was not mandated to be in school yet. However, most people who do not plan to homeschool DO send their children to kindergarten - I've never heard of anyone who didn't this day and age - and many have their children in preschool as well. At one time I had four children 5 and under and it's extremely stressful, and that's putting it mildly. To never get a break, to never have any hope of a break because you are homeschooling, is an enormous amount of pressure. I've read that the reason she said she drowned them because she was a bad mother. Her feelings of failure as mother could have been exacerbated by feeling responsible for their entire upbringing and education. If they were constantly with her and she was a bad mother and a bad example, then they would turn out badly and so it would be better for them to die as innocent children. I'm not saying that this is what happened, because I do not know. But having been a homeschooling mother with lots of little ones, I understand the stress and pressure. If the oldest had been in school, and the 5 and 3 year olds in preschool, that would have left her with only a 2 yo and a baby to deal with for several hours a day at least. I do believe that her husband was remiss in not making alternative educational arrangements for the children. I don't mean to turn this into a thread about the Yates family; I just wanted to make that comment pertaining to homeschooling.

Wasn't Elizabeth Smart homeschooled before she was kidnapped? Or am I remembering wrong?

Yes, I have been a member for a long time and I don't really post much anymore. I am not exclusively homeschooling anymore. I also have gotten wary about posting lots of info on a public board. I was using the speech therapy and Barton programs as examples of a strong thread I see in the homeschooling world of not relying on experts or using experts to assist us. It makes sense, because that's in part why we choose to homeschool. I know that parents can successfully use Barton with their children - I have a friend who did so. You can't find posts about my personal situations with speech therapy and remediation for my dyslexic dd because these things happened more than five years ago and the board has probably changed formats since then. Using speech therapy as an example, I know that I was told multiple times about a program that I could buy and use with my twins. They had turned three and had one madeup word between them. I had 5 other children from college to newborn and was homeschooling all of them. If they had been my only children, if I had any sort of a background with speech therapy, if I understood how to form sounds in my mouth, perhaps I could have helped them. Instead, we got a real speech therapist, who knew what she was doing to come do the job that she had a master's degree in. It was her who recognized that my 5 yo also needed speech therapy (he was on a 2yo articulation level). To me he sounded a lot better than the twins so I wasn't worried. There is nothing wrong with letting others assist us in their areas of expertise, but again, I have seen a strong prejudice against it. A homeschooling mom CANNOT do everything and be everything to everyone. That is how educational neglect begins, or one way anyway. So, yes, a parent can do Barton at home. Perhaps a better organized parent than me, with bunches of other children, could still manage it. My daughter was blessed with two tutors trained in Orton-Gillingham who volunteered to tutor her 3x a week for nearly 2 years. I disagree that this group wants homeschooling to be ruined or made illegal. I don't see where they say that. In my years of experience, the biggest negatives I've seen with homeschooling are isolation, lack of support, and financial impacts. If I knew this back when we were looking for a house 15 years ago, I might have reconsidered buying one out in the country, as that only aggravates all of these negatives. But I didn't know that, and I hardly ever see people discussing the negatives and how to mitigate them. I was just discussing with another long time homeschooling mom, who is now working again, about finances and she said, "You always hear about how much less we spend than the schools by homeschooling, but I never heard anyone talk about the long term impact of losing one income." If we could have honest discussions about the negatives of homeschooling and make it clear that you're not failing if you need outside help, maybe we can prevent anymore grown up homeschoolers going on Homeschoolers Anonymous and talking about how they didn't get an education that their parents told the state they would provide.

No, I don't think the things they are talking about are illegal. maybe some are. In the state I live in, I could homeschool my children and no one ever see my children. Sure I have to give them a standardized test, but I can administer it. I could order a CAT test from Seton, fill in the blanks as though my child were taking it and send it back and no one would ever know. I could totally not educate them and the government allows that! Sexual abuse is illegal and could be prosecuted. ditto for physical abuse. At least at a public school, someone sees the child regularly that could notice if they were being abused. Is it illegal to withhold someone's paperwork from them? No. To refuse to assist them with financial aid info so they can go to college? If so, many divorced fathers would be charged. To not give someone an education when you said you would? Not to my knowledge. It seems to me that responses on this thread have been dismissive - "I can't see where that's really a problem. Do parents really do that?" etc. Yes, they do. I know a homeschooled girl who was stuck in limbo because her mom stopped doing anything educational with her in high school. She had no transcript, didn't really graduate, wasn't educated to do anything except run a household. She had no driver's license, no documents to get one. She had to get a GED and has had to live with relatives. She is completely unprepared to care for herself and bravely risked her parents' wrath to leave them, but is struggling. I mean, I guess that is just life, right? How could one go from homeschooling for educational reasons to being sucked into a fundamentalist lifestyle? I'll answer that. We began homeschooling after being dissatisfied with public school. Right around then the Internet became more important. I joined a Catholic moms group and some were homeschooling. After a miscarriage I asked for help dealing with things and was directed to Managers of their Homes by Steve and Teri Maxwell. It made sense, some parts helped me. I joined their board. I became involved with fundamentalist moms. I read fundamentalist books. Etc. I never went as far they did - I distinctly remember the points at which I said, "They are crazy!" There's a strong feeling within the homeschooling movement that we don't need anybody else. When I had non-verbal 3yo twins, I had people telling me (probably on this very board) that all I needed was some homeschooling speech therapy program that I don't remember the name of and I could do the therapy myself. I could do Barton myself with my dyslexic daughter. and on and on and on. Move out to the country so you can be self-sufficient! Garden! Grow all your own food! Can it! Raise livestock! Live off the grid! Don't participate in that evil society! Your children don't need friends - they can be each other's best friend through homeschooling! And God forbid, DON'T put your children in public school! And that's not just fundamentalists - Seton has a book called Catholic Homeschooling that pretty much says that putting Catholic children in public school is a sin. Oh, and do all this while you continue to have baby after baby. I'm sure it will all be fine. Because there are no negatives to homeschooling! nothing to see here, folks, move along. Don't you know homeschoolers are always superior to publicly schooled children?

One poster called them spoiled brats. That's demeaning.

There are homeschooling parents who won't even admit that there are negatives about homeschooling. I've seen this sort of propaganda over and over and over in the homeschooling community. "Just keeping your child out of school, even if you don't do anything else, is better than sending them to school." When I was deciding to send my dc to school, I had almost decided when I suddenly had a huge panic attack that I was turning my back on everything I believed about education by enrolling them in school. The pressure to continue homeschooling can be overwhelming even when not part of a cult. To me as well. I see nothing wrong with a state homeschool record keeping system, unaffiliated with the public schools, where diplomas and transcripts are kept on file and where homeschool graduates could get impartial confirmation of their education. There are definitely cases where it is needed. I am saddened that people have rejected and demeaned homeschoolers who are sharing their stories which belong to them. We, the "nonexistent" homeschooling community, cannot just ignore them because they don't support our desire to homeschool free from any encumbrances.

I think it needs to be a joint decision, a negotiation between adults. With that said, it doesn't sound like your dd is acting very adult.

Hate the Saints! I root for whoever is playing them. Go Seahawks! Signed, A Carolina fan

She might want to watch Destinos. It's free on learner.org and there are textbooks you can get used.

If I had a child who really really really wanted to jump in the bounce house, I might go over and politely ask. If they said no, I would explain to dc that they rented it and it's theirs.

I had someone almost hit me before Christmas doing the exact same thing! I was so irritated. It's not a passing zone for a reason, dude!

I'm talking about crosses, flowers, anything at the site where a loved one died, which usually is the side of the road.

Thanks for your concern! I don't think it is an issue, since we are far away from the studio. I just had the idea for her to see if she could teach a movement class at the preschool my youngest attended the last two years.

Wow I love this ballet birthday party idea! I'll have to discuss that with my daughter. She could assist in a class, but the problem is that her studio is 30 minutes away and the little kids' classes are at times that interfere with our schedule, which is why we thought of her teaching a class closer to home.

Yard sales are an interesting idea, but we don't have a garage or shed to store stuff in. I'm not sure if we live in an area where we would get enough traffic to make it worthwhile. I had thought of doing it with stuff we're not taking when we get closer to the move. Thanks!

My dd 17 is a serious ballet dancer, which is expensive. We are currently planning which summer intensives she will apply for. Last year we paid for it, but it was on the less expensive side of these programs. This year we are most likely moving during the summer and I am not sure how much we can put towards dance. I would like her to be able to earn some money to contribute, but we have some serious restrictions on what she can do, the biggest of which are that we live in the country and she cannot drive yet. She has tons of experience with little children and is good with them, but the driving is the issue there, plus the fact that dh is uncomfortable with her babysitting for strangers. The school that I teach at and she goes to is about 5 miles away, we may be able to find clients through there that would bring her home after she babysat. She likes doing crafts and painted an awesome doll trunk for her sister's AG doll Kirsten, and we could see if she could maybe find some people who want to custom order doll trunks, but that took her like 8 hours to paint and she'd have to buy the trunk and the paints. How much could she feasibly charge for that? She has also thought of offering a younger kids' dance class in the little village where our school is, but I am concerned about how complicated that would be to set up. Please give me any ideas you have! TIA!

It's very common in my area and with the homeschoolers I know to have high schoolers involved in multiple outside classes, coops, dual enrollment, middle college, or whatever.

I'm sorry, Ellie, but when I last checked, San Jose State was not an Ivy, which is what I was talking about! :-) I myself did an AA and then transferred with all my credits accepted to Rutgers-Camden as a junior. I could have applied to Penn, but I would have been starting over basically as a freshman, which was not acceptable to me. However ths was 20 years ago; policies may have changed.