Coalition for Responsible Home Education

[Crimson Wife]

Andrea Yates and her husband had been warned by doctors not to have any more children because of her previous PPD. They didn't listen because they were part of the "Quiverfull" movement. So like in so many of the other cases, it had nothing to do with homeschooling per se, and everything to do with being part of a cult-like movement within Christianity.

[Pen]

...

 

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.

 

Lots of children is no doubt stressful.

 

But I do not think the situation should be blamed on homeschooling.

 

Having children in school can be enormously stressful also. For example, around here the italicized would likely mean getting up at 6AM to prepare eldest for getting to the school (food, dressed etc., what do you do with the others whilst meeting the bus or taking the eldest to school?) A little while after that getting the 5 and 3 year olds ready for and transported to preschool (how long and how far is that? here the nearest would be half hour drive there and back again, what about the two others while that is going on, are they in the car too? then they had to be readied and put in their seats)--Get home with a little while to rest before time to pick up the youngers, but may not be able to rest because of need to deal with baby and 2 year old, lunch and so on, maybe trying to do some cleaning. Then it is time to get everyone loaded back into car seats and go back to pick up at the preschool, which says btw, that you'll be expected at an open house and also to do something at a fundraiser and the teacher wants to talk with you about something little so-and-so did that was a problem. Get back home, and have a short while, and then time to get the older child or receive him/her home from the bus. Next your help is needed with homework (my ds had over an hour per day of it in K). Then try to get littlest ones to nap while preparing dinner for everyone. Then bath times. And then cleaning out back packs and  lunchboxes and preparing lunches for the next day for the in school children, then...  eventually night comes, but the baby is fussy and you are up a few times so that you have barely had sleep when at 6AM it's time to do it all over again.

 

In my own experience, meeting the time schedule and demands of bricks and mortar schools was more stressful than homeschool. That might be different for someone else, but I think that someone with deep depression would not find that alleviated by having children at B&M school.

 

Perhaps people should be speaking out about the problems of having many children so close in age. But there too, most mothers with that situation do not murder their children, no more than most homeschool mothers do, nor than most brick and mortar mothers do.

[jenbrdsly]

I'm a public school/Afterschooler, so none of this debate really applies to me, but I've been reading this thread with interest because I know people personally involved with the Hana Grace-Rose Williams case. I looked at all of the links to the Coalition etc., and it's hard to read any of that without having compassion.

 

Could somebody please explain to me (without yelling at me because I'm clueless) why Doug Wilson, Vertias Press, and the Logos people aren't being drawn into any of this? To me as an outsider looking at Fundamentalist Christian Homeschoolers (which I realize that most of the people on this thread are definitely not, right?), the Idaho take on Classical Education is a lot more similar to ATI than it is to the Well Trained Mind. Have any Federalist Vision kids come forward? If so, why do you think not?

 

Also I agree with Crimson Wife that our society should do a better job at making sure all people can recover academically from inadequate educations.