Homeschoolers Anonymous

[Faithr]

I was reading lots of stuff at this site after following some links. At first I thought it was trying to be objective but after a while I began to question this. It does seem like people with deep dysfuntional family wounds. I feel terrible for them. My dd teaches at a ps, and if these folks think there isn't the same trapped feeling going on there, they aren't dealing in reality. Around here the schools have been dealing with a rash of suicides. There is all sorts of dysfunction with all sorts of supposed oversight. I do think there are cultures that encourage abuse, though. Anyway, I have never been part of the type of hs culture these folks grew up in,so I only ever read about it. I am curious about other people's thoughts are.

[Ms.Ivy]

A lot of the posters there on HA were so sheltered that when they were finally introduced to the "real" world, it was to middle class American college students. So a lot of them think that middle class America is the norm, and think all public school experiences are like those that their college buddies had. I know there was a lot of crazy stuff that went down in conservative homeschool circles, but they imagine that abuse gets caught and reported if you're in public school. I am glad they shine the light on the wackiness of some teaching in the 1990s, but they way they relate it to homeschooling is a bit over the top. It just strikes me as very naive. I used to personally know some of the people who have posted stories on HA. Some of the "reports" about certain people and events are inaccurate and shouldn't be taken at face value. I'm not going to go into which stories or why for privacy reasons. But anyway, I feel bad for the people who went through the crazy stuff. I'm glad to see Gothard and Phillips go. But HA is a very tiny minority of homeschooled grownups. Those thousands of us who had a decent experience in the 80s and 90s, even in Christian circles, don't post there. It's good to keep that in mind, I think.

[zarabellesmom]

I somehow ended up over there one day. It's very sad.

[Ms.Ivy]

I think that feeling excluded and different as an adult is a normal result of growing up in a different subculture than others. But some HA posters tend to think that this feeling is unique to homeschoolers, and that's it's a bad thing.

 

I know homeschooled people who hated homeschooling in their 20s, and then put their own kids in public school for a couple of years... and then became homeschoolers themselves. Sometimes a few more life experiences can change your whole viewpoint.

 

I know a lot of the posters of HA just want to prevent more pain and suffering. But sometimes you need maturity to figure out how that works in the real world.

[Faithr]

Yeah, I could sense the pain of some of the writers but, I think you are right, there is a naïveté.  It is so hard and painful trying to reconcile oneself to one's family's dysfunctions, but the truth is there is no guarantee anywhere that life will be optimal and carefree.  Their parents were probably reacting against their own experiences with secular culture.  The people I knew who were the most attracted to that extreme kind of world view often came from very dysfunctional homes themselves.  This is anecdotal, but the first person I ever met who was homeschooling was someone who had run away from home as a teen, been involved in drugs, had her first baby out of wedlock and then became a born again Christian who joined one of these extreme groups and homeschooled all 7 of her children.  She was really rigid and it was because she knew how lost she had been.  She thought she was sparing her own children by being so extreme.  I have lost contact with her, but I could imagine maybe one of her children being like the posters on HA.  Even the most well meaning parent can be misguided because of their own emotional wounds or insecurities.  But I guess mercy comes with age.  As I get older I realize how much of a mess I am myself!  Everyone is just muddling through.  Not that we shouldn't try to right wrongs and expose abuse!  We should!  And maybe it is good for kids who grew up in bad circumstances like this to console and support each other, but I do hope they aren't letting themselves boomerang or ricochet or whatever would be a good analogy, by letting their anger take them to the other extreme.  

[Guest]

It is very sad. I agree, though, that there is certain zealous bent that doesn't speak to the majority. That's hardly unexpected given their backgrounds though,no?

 

Still, I appreciate their storirs for two reasons. First because its good for hurting ppl to be able to connect with other hurting ppl, and learn from/with them how to heal. Secondly its good to remember the human cost of not shining a bright light on abusive paradigms, which is really what all that crazy pants gothard stuff was.

[Farrar]

I disagree with the depiction that these are simply formerly sheltered adults who are bitter about not having grown up in more standard middle class homes. I mean, maybe that describes a few people there - it's a huge spectrum of people - but many are people who were abused or witnessed great abuse as children, who faced deep problems getting jobs or further education because of limitations placed on their lives by their families, who were sometimes kicked out of their homes as minors.

 

I think theirs is a hard truth to hear for those of us who love homeschooling and support it as an idea. However, minimizing it doesn't make it less true.

[HS Mom in NC]

It's like adoption.  There's a huge range of experiences in the adoptive community ranging from terrible to wonderful and everything in between.  Bad experiences don't negate good ones and good ones don't negate bad ones.  I think it's important for people to tell about their own experiences wherever they fall on the spectrum so people who are willing to learn can learn from them.

Lumping all homeschoolers together, whether as bad or as good, is a counterproductive.  People tend to want to do it, but they should learn to resist the urge.  It doesn't make homeschooling categorically bad when we acknowledged the bad homeschooling situations.  It doesn't make homeschooling categorically good when we acknowledge the good situations.  Life is complicated and diverse and so are adoption situations and homeschooling situations.  Overly simplistic views don't contribute constructively to conversations about either or things in general.

[Farrar]

I like the adoption metaphor drawn above.

 

Homeschooling is one of many symptoms of the problems in those families... but homeschooling greatly exacerbates *all* the issues by allowing their parents to have a cover for abuse that's considered acceptable. I think their ire isn't misdirected. Homeschooling itself was a genuine part of the problem in those families.

[Farrar]

But homeschooling *is* a common factor in their stories. And it's why it wasn't in a vacuum. There was a concerted effort by Gothard and others to use homeschooling as a way in to winning converts to a particular style of Christianity. These things went hand in hand. And a lot of families started out as just run of the mill, mainline Christians - conservative, but not deeply into patriarchal ideas or anything - and ended up under the sway of these ideas in part because it was the community that was available to them. It's why the conference circuit became such a mess and why statements of faith are such a big thing in homeschool groups - it's about controlling homeschoolers.

 

Also, homeschooling in a state with no regulation means that many of these families had kids who never met or had contact with anyone else. They didn't have documentation of their own education like they would have if they'd attended public or licensed private schools. They didn't have contact with anyone who was a mandated reporter for abuse like kids in school would have. Any family of any ideology or schooling can be or become abusers, but homeschooling allows families to draw a curtain over abuse.

 

I also chafe when I see some of the HA people talk about homeschooling - I firmly believe that homeschooling is usually positive, that it's a great way for many families and kids to learn, that it's a good thing. And I don't know what regulation there should be - I'm not advocating anything change necessarily - there are a lot of issues with increased regulation and I've never seen it work very well. But I'm not going to look at this community who was abused and say, stop whining about being abused, you're nothing more than jealous - not everyone gets to have a nice suburban upbringing. Or even, your problem is your crazy family and not the ways in which the government allowed them to legally hide their abuse. I think that's sort of offensive. This is their truth. They have the right to speak out and be angry. And, honestly, I think a lot more homeschoolers would be well served by reading their stories and putting on their non-judgmental listening hats.

[Ms.Ivy]

Speaking as one who intimately knew some people who have shared on HA, as someone who knew parents who later abused their kid to death, and who was ostracized as a teen by most families in my church for standing against ATI and crazy teachings.... I honestly don't mean to discount the experiences of those who grew up in abusive homeschooling families. I grew up with an abusive homeschooling mother, too. But I see different problems and different solutions than what is promoted by HA. And I honestly observed that some of the very people who are complaining about the seclusion during their homeschooled years are also still living in a bubble of sorts, and due to their sheltered life, lack the life experience to have a wider perspective on potential solutions. As someone who lives in a very different social class than the majority of homeschoolers, I see things from a much different perspective. I don't think I have a problem with HA sharing stories (except the ones I know to be untrue). I do shake my head when I see Facebook comments on HA about how horrible homeschooling is because it made someone feel awkward at their first job. That kind of attitude won't help their cause much. And I don't believe it's helpful to focus on adding back to the next generation of children's lives whatever the grandparents subtracted. I just think it's a dangerously simplistic way to fix things.

 

I really hope Christian homeschoolers stop supporting homeschool convention speakers who are nothing more than snake oils salesmen. A lot of scam artists jumped on the homeschool bandwagon in the 90s and pretended that homeschooling was "their" movement. They attributed the success of other homeschoolers to themselves. And as more families started homeschooling and following these people, the more they were able to organise into big exclusive groups, and fool themselves into thinking that they were the homeschooling movement. A lot of the posters on HA came from these groups. So I understand that to them, homeschooling and crazy church teaching seems nearly inseparable. I think since I was from an older generation of homeschoolers, I was able to see the change.

 

Eta... we shouldnt allow anyone whose only claim to fame is a non-profit speaking "ministry" to speak as an expert on anything at homeschool conventions.

Edited January 22, 2016 by Ms.Ivy

[HS Mom in NC]

I think we have to remember that the bad homeschoolers just aren't like regular homeschoolers. You have to sort them out and talk about them in their differences.  The abusive homeschooler (as opposed to the neglectful homeschooler) is someone who is aware that they're out of the mainstream when it comes to parenting and social norms.  They usually scoff at typical parenting as being too soft.  They are aware that the things they do would be considered abusive by legal standards.  That kind of person is going to be very attracted to homeschooling because they know they have complete control over their child's contact to people outside the home. There are people who really do isolate their kids from "outsiders."  Now, remembering our logic lessons, we all know that homeschooling and its inherent potential to isolate a child from the outside world doesn't cause the parent to be abusive, and no one is actually claiming it does, but it makes homeschooling far more attractive to that subset of people.  We also know with the patriarchal movement that there are other reasons homeschooling is attractive like the ability to indoctrinate children into their cult.

Some neglectful homeschoolers have an anti-intellectual bent to them to varying degrees.  They often see college and academics that prepare kids for college as categorically bad for all young adults in all situations.  Some have educational philosophies that are married to the idea that an entirely child centered education can be successful with all children at all times.  (This is not to be confused with Unschooling.) They can have a hard time recognizing and admitting that their philosophy is wrong. Others are simply disconnected from the reality of where their children really are academically and where all kids need to be at the beginning of adulthood. Sometimes that's mental health related and sometimes it's ideologically related.

I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone make the argument that it's up to homeschoolers to solve that problem.

Anyone familiar with the ps system knows that government entities and government regulations have yet to solve the problems in government run schools, including child abuse.  But anyone familiar with fostercare knows that some cases of abuse have been stopped and prosecuted because kids enrolled in ps see mandatory reporters on a daily basis 9 months out of the year K-12. 

Reality is what it is.  How we feel about it and the assumptions, fair or not, that people jump to when hearing about the reality aren't as important as having an honest look and accurately representing all the different issues going on.  No one is served by ignoring the good or the bad.

[abba12]

Speaking as one who intimately knew some people who have shared on HA, as someone who knew parents who later abused their kid to death, and who was ostracized as a teen by most families in my church for standing against ATI and crazy teachings.... I honestly don't mean to discount the experiences of those who grew up in abusive homeschooling families. I grew up with an abusive homeschooling mother, too. But I see different problems and different solutions than what is promoted by HA. And I honestly observed that some of the very people who are complaining about the seclusion during their homeschooled years are also still living in a bubble of sorts, and due to their sheltered life, lack the life experience to have a wider perspective on potential solutions. As someone who lives in a very different social class than the majority of homeschoolers, I see things from a much different perspective. I don't think I have a problem with HA sharing stories (except the ones I know to be untrue). I do shake my head when I see Facebook comments on HA about how horrible homeschooling is because it made someone feel awkward at their first job. That kind of attitude won't help their cause much. And I don't believe it's helpful to focus on adding back to the next generation of children's lives whatever the grandparents subtracted. I just think it's a dangerously simplistic way to fix things.

 

I really hope Christian homeschoolers stop supporting homeschool convention speakers who are nothing more than snake oils salesmen. A lot of scam artists jumped on the homeschool bandwagon in the 90s and pretended that homeschooling was "their" movement. They attributed the success of other homeschoolers to themselves. And as more families started homeschooling and following these people, the more they were able to organise into big exclusive groups, and fool themselves into thinking that they were the homeschooling movement. A lot of the posters on HA came from these groups. So I understand that to them, homeschooling and crazy church teaching seems nearly inseparable. I think since I was from an older generation of homeschoolers, I was able to see the change.

 

Eta... we shouldnt allow anyone whose only claim to fame is a non-profit speaking "ministry" to speak as an expert on anything at homeschool conventions.

 

All this times, like, one million

 

DH came from one of these families. Had he not met me he could very well have become a HA poster himself. I did not grow up in it personally (I got to grow up in a totally different bad situation, woo!) but I knew many families who fell into these groups, including one which is currently travelling around the country waiting for the apocolypse, never getting married because there's no point, the end of the world is soon so why form relationships? Yeah.... they were always a little wacky. 

 

In my own interest I spent a LOT of time researching these groups in depth, going on sites like no longer quivering and homeschoolers anonymous and other connected groups. I read all the stories, hours upon hours of reading for months, years in the case of NLQ, lots of researching their resources and links and whatever else they referenced as well. I wanted to understand this and know what went wrong so I could be sure to never do it. And I realized the issue in these families weren't homeschooling, and they weren't even patriarchy in it's traditional and properly biblical sense. It was abuse. It was abusive natures who were drawn into that lifestyle, or people who lacked the ability to think critically who were spoon fed by abusive people. Homeschooling enabled the abuse in these cases, but, plenty of public school kids get abused too. Patriarchy gave a framework for the abuse in these situations, but, plenty of people who never followed any form of patriarchy are abused, and sometimes women are abusers too. They had a common theme because of what they were being fed and the way it protected and justified their actions, but homeschooling didn't ruin those kids lives, abuse did. Patriarchy didn't ruin those womens lives, abuse did. I believe in both homeschooling and patriarchy, but the events that happened in their lives are inconceivable in mine, absolutely inconceivable. 

 

However, blaming the homeschooling and blaming the patriarchy and blaming everything else avoids them having to blame themselves or their parents. It is our natural instinct to blame anything except ourselves and the people we love. Even when they hate their parents as well, blaming homeschooling is still a way to deflect. 

 

Those kids went through horrible things, I know, my husband and his 7 siblings are amongst their numbers, my childhood friends are amongst them, I know these people up close and personally. But homeschooling didn't fail them. Abusive leaders, and their parents abuse or their parents lack of critical and independent thought failed them. 

 

Despite his experiences, my husband has come to believe that homeschooling is the best thing for our kids, and I agree. But we speak regularly about our pasts and the families we knew because we know our homeschool must look completely different to the way we were 'educated', not just in textbooks (in fact many of those are the same!) but in methods, attitudes and relationships. This rather upsets my mother in law. I don't care. But we can both see past the abuse and the abusive leaders to recognize homeschooling is probably what gave us the intelligence to recognize what was happening, and the skills to adjust in adulthood. I see lots of public schooled kids who were abused and have gotten nowhere in adulthood. But I haven't seen... well, any homeschooled adults who haven't been able to adjust even from awful situations into a good life. Homeschooling taught them to learn, independence, observation, motivation, work ethic, and lots of other things that they have absolutely relied on in the years since leaving their families and doing the hard work of recovering. If only all the public schooled abused kids I know had those skills. My husband has a story that could rival many on HA, but he doesn't blame homeschooling, he is thankful for it, and credits it with being what gave him the skills he has needed in adulthood. We don't all view the same experiences the same way, HA is a small minority even among those raised in these kinds of homes (and Ms Ivy is quite right, they're often the ones who went off to college and got the idea that middle class society was normal life and felt deprived of things that, in actuality, many children from all types of education are deprived of every day. Many come to maturity later on.) 

[Faithr]

Sadie!  You have pinpointed something that was bothering me.  It was the way they have generalized their particular terrible experience with homeschooling to all homeschooling.  I mean they don't know any better I guess, so all homeschooling is tainted for them, but they don't represent most homeschoolers' reality.  To call their organization Homeschoolers Anonymous is overreaching.  

[Butter]

Most adults who were homeschooled have no need to post at Homeschoolers Anonymous because we got excellent educations by parents who were not involved in patriarchal religions/groups.

 

Interestingly, I have a friend who was public schooled all the way through and his story is similar to many on HA (not Gothard, but still very sheltered and patriarchal).  He got to college and got pretty crazy.  He hates how he was raised and feels he missed out on so much because of how strict his parents were.

[abba12]

I wouldn't care that all homeschoolers were getting lumped in under their broad heading, except that the perception abuse rates are higher in homeschool families is persistent, damaging and at least in my state in AU, has been shown to be WRONG> 

 

Yet even though it's wrong, the perception influences others in some very damaging ways. Want to know why homeschooled kids in custody battles in my state get sent to school ? Because judges read this stuff and internalize the FALSE idea that homeschooling=higher chance of abuse.

 

This perception has real costs to real, living children right now.

 

I once read an Australian report, from VIC which I think is your state? that said something like 'one third of all homeschoolers are abusive'. The ACTUAL statistic was that one third of all homeschoolers reported to child services for suspected abuse were abusive. Completely, hugely different statistics there! I couldn't believe the obvious and deliberate misquote. Certain groups in the media have a lot to answer for for creating that perception here, not so much anymore but certainly 10-20 years ago. 

 

Because of the higher amount of regulation in Australia, yes, it has a real, serious effect on us right now, which is ridiculous because the groups HA come from are almost exclusively American! We had branches in australia, in fact we have an IBLP branch in QLD and there are ATI families around here, hidden about, but it's nothing like it was in the US in the 80s and 90s. Unfortunately, the regulators see what happened there and apply it here, when in actual fact the Australian homeschooling community has always been very, very different to the US one. 

[abba12]

I was abused all the way through high school by a parent. The school had SO much contact with me and with my parents, that it wasn't funny. Did they twig to the abuse ? Nope. Neither did the school counsellor or the psychiatrist. Did school help it stop ? Nope. Did going to the doctor's on a regular basis, or seeing other children or going to dance or youth theater or the frickin' library make it stop ? Nope.

 

So I may be somewhat cynical about the idea that if you just have people who aren't your family seeing you everyday, things are OK. 

 

And yet another 'yes, this times one million'

 

I was abused horrifically, I was involved in things I can't mention on this forum, and I have permanent physical damage from it not to mention psychological. That is all to say, no one who cared enough to truly look could have possibly missed it, it was so severe that despite my best attempts to hide it, the signs were there and clearly visible, physical and mental. My parents were not the abusers, though they did remain wilfully ignorant despite a million signs. 

 

I was in and out of schools, and was in school during a lot of it. I saw school counsellors, I had an IEP and special teacher meetings. Even when I homeschooled I was out and about with all sorts of people, mum ran a store and I was often roaming around town. I was never hidden or sheltered, my parents were secular and took me out of school because they decided to blame school for the symptoms of abuse I was displaying, instead of seeing the much bigger issue directly in front of them. Having said that, taking me out of school was probably the best decision they ever made for me and I'm grateful for it every day, because it hindered my abuser somewhat, though didn't come close to stopping it.

 

So, not sheltered, and for much of it not even homeschooled, but NO ONE ever stepped in and did anything, no one protected me, the only people who ever acknowledged what was happening to me did it while taking advantage of it's damage, and those people included at least one teacher.

 

Going to the library more often and making sure to get your well child visit isn't going to help, abuse happens and people don't want to see it. 

Edited January 23, 2016 by abba12

[Farrar]

To me, the whole, "school kids can be abused too" argument is problematic. Like, you see someone starving and say, "other people starve too, why should we pay attention to this starving person?" Isn't this some logical fallacy or something? This is the same as the "schools do a cruddy job therefore I don't need to bother working hard to homeschool" argument that I see occasionally.

 

I mean, of course schooled kids can be abused too. Of course the safety net of mandated reporters and government interventions fails. But people who don't have access to it are definitely worse off. And sometimes it catches things too. People who are outside its sweep don't even have a chance to be caught.

 

I also have a problem with people saying that what they're doing is "damaging" or "harmful" to us as law abiding, "good" homeschoolers. Please. Homeschooling is swimming along just fine. It's legal everywhere in the US. Statewide groups are usually a pretty powerful lobby. And while I think HSLDA is a terrible group, they're clearly very powerful (look at what they've done to disability rights and children's rights treaties...). Homeschooling is growing dramatically in popularity. We're doing fine, folks. And the criticism of a bunch of people who were legitimately abused as part of their homeschooling, who even have the disclaimer that homeschooling can be done responsibly, is not going to ruin us.

[HS Mom in NC]

I think there's a very hard question to be answered about all the issues related to HA.  What exactly, specifically, concretely can be done and by whom to help homeschooled kids in those situations?  If someone supports some sort of regulation and enforcement, exactly what law do they propose, who exactly will enforce it and how and where will the money come from to do it? The sad truth is, I don't think there is anything that can be done, but I'm willing to hear people out who have specific, concrete, ideas.

We have to remember that acknowledging there's a problem and coming up with a real world solution are two separate issues that have to be addressed individually.

[abba12]

To me, the whole, "school kids can be abused too" argument is problematic. Like, you see someone starving and say, "other people starve too, why should we pay attention to this starving person?" Isn't this some logical fallacy or something? This is the same as the "schools do a cruddy job therefore I don't need to bother working hard to homeschool" argument that I see occasionally.

 

I mean, of course schooled kids can be abused too. Of course the safety net of mandated reporters and government interventions fails. But people who don't have access to it are definitely worse off. And sometimes it catches things too. People who are outside its sweep don't even have a chance to be caught.

 

I also have a problem with people saying that what they're doing is "damaging" or "harmful" to us as law abiding, "good" homeschoolers. Please. Homeschooling is swimming along just fine. It's legal everywhere in the US. Statewide groups are usually a pretty powerful lobby. And while I think HSLDA is a terrible group, they're clearly very powerful (look at what they've done to disability rights and children's rights treaties...). Homeschooling is growing dramatically in popularity. We're doing fine, folks. And the criticism of a bunch of people who were legitimately abused as part of their homeschooling, who even have the disclaimer that homeschooling can be done responsibly, is not going to ruin us.

Yeah, the people using that argument most here, Sadie, dialectica and I aren't in the US. Homeschooling is nowhere near as safe and secure here (the country with home visits for homeschoolers) and in other countries its not legal at all. But unfortunately our legislators and media look to America, where it is most widespread, for information. So it kind of its a big deal. Dialectica said she saw HA referenced in her local media and I've seen plenty of stuff in my own about abusive families which supposedly represent homeschooling or large families

[HS Mom in NC]

It's not about minimizing abuse that Gothard kids suffered. It's about rejecting the idea that a. their experience reflects some fixed truth about the nature of homeschooling and b. rejecting the idea that attending school would have 'fixed' it.

 

Abuse happens everywhere, and people fail to pick up on it everywhere. 

 

Maybe in the US homeschooling is strong enough to withstand allegations of it being an inherently abusive practice, but it isn't where I live. 

 

It astounds me that people are not prepared to call this what it is, and that is a certain brand of fundamentalist Christian abuse. 

 

One of the byproducts of being raised in an isolating, abusive cult is the inability to see a spectrum of any sort.  They probably have no first hand experience with any other brand of Christianity and any other type of homeschooling. They have little to no experience evaluating and comparing options and making judgement calls and decisions for themselves.  People who don't know often don't know that they don't know.  Add to that the intense emotion that goes along with realizing how abused you were and the intensity of young adulthood and you get someone who has a hard time objectively thinking through things.  

 

We have a couple at church who grew up in the homeschooled AIT cult.  The pastor and his wife are basically trying to deprogram them and teach them to think.  The wife had been raised to not think and stick to narrative about how wonderful her husband is and deffer to him in all things.  The husband has been raised to do all the thinking and expect complete compliance from the wife and kids.

 

Another woman at church is married to a patriarchal movement type (not the Gothard version.) The pastor and his wife are helping her understand that she doesn't have to put up with abuse and they're ready to help her get out of the marriage as soon as she decides to. Arrangements have been made for her and her horses as there are no children in the home.  Her whole world has been distorted for so long (she's a grandmother) that it's taken months to get her to start to see how wrong the patriarchal movement.

 

It takes time for people to sort things out when they've been victims for so long.  Isolated people can't realistically be expected to have a full perspective right after they get out.  It takes time and life experience to do that and they're just not there yet.  All we can do is listen to their stories and acknowledge the problem while we consider and debate different possible solutions.  

[HS Mom in NC]

One problem we run into with news stories about abusive homeschoolers is that they get labeled as homeschoolers when they're not even legally registered as homeschoolers.  So a family abuses a child to death and because the child wasn't enrolled in ps or private school, the press calls them homeschoolers.  I have to point out in discussions about those news stories that no, homeschooling in my state mean being legally registered as a homeschooler.  Not being registered in any kind of schooling is not homeschooling, it's no schooling.

When there are educational neglect stories about legally registered homeschoolers who are doing nothing (not to be confused with unschooling) I point out in those discussions that homeschooling means providing developmentally appropriate academic instruction to a child on a regular basis.  If someone is legally registered as a homeschooler and fails to provide actual academic learning in some form, it's the equivalent enrolling your kid in ps and not sending them to school, which is no schooling.  In other words, the homeschool registration is a cover for not schooling a kid.  If you're not doing the work of homeschooling, you're not homeschooling and you're not a homeschooler, you're a fraud. So far, people seem to get that in those discussions.

Around here if you roll your eyes and point out the poor quality of journalism these days, most people on any side of an issue tend to agree with you and are usually willing to hear you out about what a crappy, misleading article that was. They'll usually let you tell them about the important things that were left out that you, as an insider know. That doesn't mean they'll be on board with homeschooling, but they tend to view the press in fairly negative light.  I don't know how Aussies view their press.

[HS Mom in NC]

Don't forget the power of victimhood in the US. Whether someone is a legitimate victim or is just playing the victim card to gain an advantage, we live in a culture that is very sensitive to grievances.  I'm not saying it's all good or all bad, but you can expect politicians to have white knight syndrome the moment someone cries in front of congress.  Americans tend to love simplistic explanations of and solutions to problems.  Those two things together usually result in the politicians and people saying something along the lines of "We have to do something!" with very little thought to the details of that something and the actual consequences of that legislative/regulatory something.  Politicians talk about their voting records not in depth, hard scientific data and analysis of the consequences of those votes.

 

Journalists, politicians and a huge percentage of people also tend to talk in terms of how they want things to be, not how things actually are.  It tends toward the ideological and theoretical most of the time when it should be on the actual and concrete. I find some people are offended at follow up questions to proposals like, "Does it actually work?"  Um, if it doesn't actually work, why are we doing it?  The last thing we need is policy as psychotherapy.  All of that makes these issues complex and difficult.

[abba12]

Well and I guess that's my point. I will flat out say I have no clue how politics in Australia works, but here, phone calls, letters and emails tend to be very powerful tools in local legislative offices. I use that clout. I am probably on a list because I don't shy from informing my representatives and senators exactly what I think it XYZ. And I have had state senators step in and have their office intervene in matters. You can't underestimate the power of being involved politically- at least here in the states. And right now, I don't feel like the ha website poses any threat whatsoever to my local homeschooling regulations. So you're right- maybe that make me more likely to give them a pass. But I feel like I can voice my opinion, make my phone calls and cast my vote without bringing them in as any type of factor whatsoever. There is always someone waiting to take my rights away on something or another- so it's up to me to be politically active. I guess that's how I see it on rights.

 

Yeah, I do all that. A very large (for Australia's sparse population) group got hugely involved and up in arms about another parental rights legislation recently. We had senate inquiries and everything. We didn't expect to win but we tried anyway The inquiry was railroaded, the media was hugely biased or simply didn't report at all (national co-ordinated protests went unreported) and despite various groups saying the legislation was essentially illegal, it has still been passed, and I haven't even recieved courtesy responses to the half dozen letters I sent about it. I've also written letters to the medical minister and my state minister on other matters over the past few years and got absolutely nowhere, except a polite thanks for your opinion. 

 

Part of it is, here, you vote for parties not for individuals for the most part. And also, we just have a totally different political climate. You make your decision when you vote, and much of our legislation is based on majority opinion and agreed on by both sides of politics. Great when you're the majority, not so much when you're a minority fighting through.

 

So, yeah, groups like this give more ammunition while politics ignores the positive stories or the ones which are giving a non-majority view. Groups like HA are 'proof' used in trying to pass even stricter laws than the ones we have now, and in countries where homeschooling is illegal it is used as evidence to keep it illegal and keep the public perspective of it negative through media.  Not everywhere works the same way the US does. 

 

I know how much work and effort went into homeschooling in the 80s and 90s, my family was part of it. We homeschooled illegally, like everyone else back then, I remember not being allowed outside during school hours, I remember being spoken to about what to do if child services ever came, memorizing phone numbers and being aware of the possibility of going over the border to another state if things got bad. It's better now, but that's mostly due to the increased popularity of homeschooling in america, not because of lobbiers here in australia. It's a different culture and political climate. 

[HS Mom in NC]

You're used to heat, you have a cool accent and you aren't a fan of rules. Start using the word "y'all" on a regular basis and you'll fit right in. :)

 

And "all y'all" as my SIL from TX says.

 

[Faithr]

I think the tension between parental control and state oversight is always going to be there.  I am actually good with how my state does things.  It is pretty minimal but we do have to register and present at least an outline of a curriculum and we have to show proof of progress by either standardized testing, an evaluation by someone (it can be the parent!) or submitting a portfolio.  I think there is a religious exemption which means you don't have to do anything but I think you have to prove why you should have the exemption.  That was the law when I first started 20 years ago.  I honestly don't know if that still applies now.  I do think the government has an interest in the education of its citizens so I am ok with some regulation.  I doubt very much that it does anything to prevent abuse, if abuse is going on.  However, I think, like other posters have said, plenty of abuse goes on with kids who are in school.  And I think schools can perpetuate abuse as well, via bullying, stress (we've got kids killing themselves because of the pressure to perform!), sexual predators (I have a relative who was sexually abused for years by a public school coach who moved from state to state), and the fact that sometimes the school overreacts sends in CPS when it shouldn't and really traumatizes the kids more than the family situation did!  Tragically, there just is no perfect solution.  

[Faithr]

I, myself, am not saying that because abuse goes undetected in schools that means we shouldn't care about abuse in homeschooling.  I am saying that there is no perfect solution.  It just seemed like some of the posters at the HA site (and I don't blame them for having this point of view at all) think if they had gone to school things would have been hunky dory when there is no guarantee of that.  Just like people, perhaps like the HA parents, who thought if they homeschooled their kids a certain way they'd raise the perfect Christian child.  And the thing is if your group, even by the very title of it, maligns a whole group of people, that's unjust too.  Their tag line is homeschool alumni reaching out.  That isn't specific enough.  It is including all homeschoolers even though their particular project is to support a particular type of homeschooler that experienced abuse.  I am sorry they experienced this, but my homeschooling has absolutely nothing to do with their experience.  So I don't like them trying to co-opt the name.  However, I do agree that that wacky extremists are dangerous and we should somehow try to protect children from them.  I just wish I knew how to do it without maligning everyone else.  

[Sahamamama]

A method of education doesn't cause or even disguise abuse in a vacuum.

 

There's a common thread in most of the HA stories, and it isn't homeschooling.

 

At the risk of being too personal, I would like to agree with this.

 

Please do not quote my post. You may refer to it, if you wish, but please do not quote it.

 

I grew up being what (at least today) would have to be called abused -- getting regularly spanked, belted, threatened, slapped, hit, punched, choked, smothered, knocked on the head, struck with hard things, and thrown against walls... not to mention the emotional impact of it all. I never could figure out how to avoid any of it.

 

I was public schooled from K through 12th.

 

We all went to church, every Sunday. As far as I know, there was not any teaching at the church either for or against the type of parenting I experienced. It was simply what happened in our home.

 

In my thinking, there was no direct connection between these separate aspects of my life.

 

Have I started a website about it? No. Did any of my school teachers know what my home life was like? No, I doubt it. I did have one teacher in high school who may have had a clue. He seemed to sense my vulnerability, and if I'd let him, he probably would have seduced me. Did any of my church teachers know? Well, my mother did, and she was one of my church teachers. Did any of my church elders know? Well, my father did, and he could put bruises on me on Sunday afternoon as easily as he could prophecy or serve communion on Sunday morning.

 

In my opinion, homeschooling has nothing to do with abuse. Church doesn't always, either (though there are wacko churches that advocate practices that are abusive, just as there are healthy churches that actively teach good parenting). Abusive parents may choose to homeschool, but that decision isn't what makes them abusive. There are plenty of abusive parents, believe me, who put their children in public or private school, while the abuse at home goes on for years. In fact, it may never be detected by anyone at school (or church).

 

Even the publicly-schooled child learns to hide what really happens. When my father hit my face with the handle of a knife (not sure why) and one of my braces brackets fell off, I lied to my orthodontist and told him I'd been chewing on a Now-or-Later (remember those?) and the bracket got stuck. We had to wait three days for the welt to go down, before we could make an appointment with him. I'm not sure he believed my story, but nothing happened to change anything.

 

Nothing ever happened to change anything. Story of my life, actually, until I grew up and had the power as an adult to confront it and call it what it was.

 

I'm not against these offspring speaking out against abuse -- but they should acknowledge that the abuse came from their parents. I do not think they have any solid ground to stand on, if they say the abuse was because of homeschooling, if they equate their educational neglect with being homeschooled, or if they think their abuse was hidden or prolonged because they were not in school.

 

Parents who abuse continually do so because they choose to abuse, because they learned to relate to people primarily through anger, power, violence, and dominance. Homeschoolers, you can abuse your children all day long, right? Who will know? Poor public schoolers, you can only abuse your children when they get in from school, on weekends, holidays, and summer break -- in your spare time, let's say. Again, who will know? Either way, it's abuse. I don't think my life would have been meaningfully different, better, or worse if I'd been homeschooled. It would have hurt, either way.

 

IME, the public school system is not the Great Deliverer of the Abused, and it has its own abuses. Ultimately, parents are responsible for what they do to their children. Perhaps some of the HA writers blame homeschooling as a way to displace some of the rage that should be directed towards their parents?

[Tanaqui]

One problem we run into with news stories about abusive homeschoolers is that they get labeled as homeschoolers when they're not even legally registered as homeschoolers.  So a family abuses a child to death and because the child wasn't enrolled in ps or private school, the press calls them homeschoolers.  I have to point out in discussions about those news stories that no, homeschooling in my state mean being legally registered as a homeschooler.

 

If the argument is "Removing a child from daily, face-to-face interactions with mandated reporters led to this child's death", then talking about how that particular family wasn't really homeschooling is beside the point. I see this argument sometimes about people who are enrolled in online school or distance education. "Oh, that's not homeschooling!" Maybe? But what the heck does that have to do with the issue at hand?

 

When there are educational neglect stories about legally registered homeschoolers who are doing nothing (not to be confused with unschooling) I point out in those discussions that homeschooling means providing developmentally appropriate academic instruction to a child on a regular basis.  If someone is legally registered as a homeschooler and fails to provide actual academic learning in some form, it's the equivalent enrolling your kid in ps and not sending them to school, which is no schooling.  In other words, the homeschool registration is a cover for not schooling a kid.  If you're not doing the work of homeschooling, you're not homeschooling and you're not a homeschooler, you're a fraud. So far, people seem to get that in those discussions.

 

If the situation is such that you can register as a homeschooler and provide no education to your child without anybody caring for 12+ years, then this is a problem. The problem is not that these people are frauds. The problem is that in many states, there is no oversight whatsoever.

 

If you enroll your child in school, and they don't show up for two weeks straight, or are chronically absent (but with periodic appearances at the school), somebody will notice. They'll call you, and if they can't get a hold of you, they'll send a truant officer to your house.

So yes, I think the issue of supposed homeschoolers not actually educating their children is really germane to this conversation. Otherwise, you're playing No True Scotsman with people's lives. That's not nice, and it's not helpful, and it's not honest either.

 

Now, I'm not saying we should all have to exactly follow the state curriculum and have daily check-ins with social workers, etc. I am saying that it is not entirely unwarranted for the state to ask for yearly confirmation that your child has learned something over the past 365 days and is in reasonably good health.

 

So, what's my suggestion to the issues raised by HA? Well, first, that we don't all get defensive and go "I'm not abusive, and neither is anybody I know!" Even if it's true - and I'm sure it is! - it's not helpful. I also don't think it's helpful to go "Kids in public schools get abused too!" This is certainly true, and there is LOTS of room for improvement here (which isn't going to happen so long as the government keeps shortchanging public education and social services, but that's another topic for another day), but it's entirely beside the point. It's like the dudes who respond to complaints about the wage gap or catcalling with "Well, women in Afghanistan have to wear burkas!" I'm not in Afghanistan. Shut up!

 

The issue of abuse by homeschooling families is something that has to be addressed both by homeschoolers and by the wider community. To start, again, I don't think a minimum level of oversight is unreasonable. Nor do I think it's unreasonable for people who started homeschooling under suspicious circumstances - like right after the principal reported them to child services - or who have open child services cases against them to be subject to greater scrutiny. (Now, you may jump in right here and say that there are whackjobs who live in the woods and eat rabbits and never get their kids birth certificates so nobody knows they exist. Or, if you're in the country, you may say there are whackjobs who lock their kids in the apartment and eat McDonald's and never get their kids birth certificates so nobody knows they exist. Granted, we can't stop these people with better laws. However, we can catch a lot of the less extreme abusers without putting too much of an inconvenience on anybody else.)

 

The second thing that our greater society should be doing is offering more opportunities for children in the community. More classes and programs and sports offered through the parks department and libraries or similar, for free or a low-cost on a sliding scale. Dual admission at the middle and high school levels - if kids are switching classes, then it has to be possible to schedule that. Vouchers to all families (or on a sliding scale) to afford day camps during summer and school breaks. Online education where you can choose the number of classes you participate in. If there are a large number of homeschoolers (using a very broad definition here!) in the community, municipally funded co-ops with licensed teachers that meet one or two days a week. If our concern is that some children don't get into contact with mandated reporters very often, well, this is an appealing way to make sure it happens, and it would benefit all kids in the community.

 

(Yes, this would cost money. On the sliding scale of capitalism v. socialism, would it surprise you to hear that I'm at the point marked "TAX THE RICH!"?)

 

So now we've covered the government carrot and stick. What role do homeschoolers have?

 

Well, this is a common story, both at HA and in similar blogs... and also in tales of people who escaped cults. There's even some similarity with people who have left abusive relationships. Stop me if you've heard it before. A family starts homeschooling, and they have few resources. Their local homeschool group is all very religious, statement of faith dealio. They sign up for the benefits of joining, and resolve not to change their lives too much. They make new friends who don't seem too extreme. Those friends introduce them to a new world of Christian literature. (Will anybody here deny that Christians make an awfully large percentage of American homeschoolers?) Everybody around them now is a little more religious and a little more right-wing than they are, and, being human, they gradually start to align a little more with their new friends. Some of these reading materials make good points, after all. As time goes by, they accept more and more of the community values, and spend less and less time with their old, pre-homeschool friends - after all, they have less in common with those people now. Five years down the line, they laugh at old pictures of themselves. They were so different back then!

 

Seem familiar? This can happen in more innocent venues as well. Harry Potter fandom, you start off reading gen kidfic, and then one day you realize you're reading mpreg dub/con twincest. You join a food co-op for low prices on organic kale, and then three years later you have a huge thing of nutritional yeast in your pantry and you're still breastfeeding your preschooler. This is how people become radicalized. (Except that fanfic and nutritional yeast are awesome, and Debi and Michael Pearl are not.)

 

So that's pretty much the role of every homeschooler who's not an abusive reactionary. You have to be visible and take a role in making sure that people have options and choices other than the path that leads to the dark side. They do NOT have cookies there.

[Sahamamama]

Locating the source of their pain in homeschooling is - I think - unhelpful. 

 

Yes. This is what I was trying to say.

[SarahW]

 

I'm not against these offspring speaking out against abuse -- but they should acknowledge that the abuse came from their parents. I do not think they have any solid ground to stand on, if they say the abuse was because of homeschooling, if they equate their educational neglect with being homeschooled, or if they think their abuse was hidden or prolonged because they were not in school.

 

 

 

No.

 

I am glad I came across HA. It taught me that my mother's abusive behavior was not her being inherently evil. Her abusive behavior was taught to her. It was only after she started homeschooling, and then went to Gothard seminars, and started reading parenting books by quiverfull homeschooling families that the spankings started. Then the big leather belt. Then she encouraged our dad to spank us, then complained he didn't do it hard enough. Then there was the mounting destructive emotional cycle, largely based on her failure to be strict enough to make us the quiet, immediately obedient, sickly sweet children that the books promised. I can vividly remember how my mother would scream "You must OBEY! OBEY!!" Then sob on the couch when we weren't compliant enough.

 

Homeschooling was the starting point, the First Cause even, so to speak, of the abuse. It was. Homeschooling was also a self`-defeating trap. There was a point when it was clear that homeschooling was not in the best interests of at least my older brother and I (the emotional downward spiral, for one, my dad losing his job and there being no money to buy middle school curriculum that my mother simply couldn't teach another). But to my mother this was just another failure. To not homeschool was, in her mind, to sin against God. I'm sure that during this time people counselled my mother that it would be better for my brother and I to move into the public school, but I am sure that my mother rejected that suggestion as the devil's temptation. So we were literally stuck in the physically, emotionally, and intellectually unhealthy situation. Abuse requires control, and homeschooling is, in essence, a controlling environment. (Which doesn't always lead to bad things, but yes, it is controlling. Isn't that why most of us homeschool, so we can control our child's education?)

 

So yes, in my case homeschooling caused the abuse. And homeschooling was integral to prolonging the abusive dynamic. My father eventually put his foot down about the "quiverful" type stuff (he never was the perfect Gothard husband and father anyways) and after a few years away from getting those types of literature in the house, my brother and I were first enrolled in some classes at a Christian school, and then, amazingly, the public high school and we were able to salvage our educations.

 

Now, that my mother hasn't touched Gothard-type things in years, she's said that "maybe she was too hard on us." It's a bit little too late, but okay. I know she was terribly led astray, doesn't make the hurt less, but at least I can understand it.

 

 

What can be done to stop this from happening? Simple: When we see people using the homeschooling umbrella to teach parents how to abuse their children, we kick them to the curb. Violently if need be. It amazes (and sickens) me to hear that these types of people are allowed to speak and set up booths at homeschool conferences. Really? Any devil can write a parenting book with a few out-of-context Bible verses in it, and then get it passively enabled at huge venues full of wide-eyed newbies. It's frightening. Absolutely frightening.

[Sahamamama]

I was abused all the way through high school by a parent. The school had SO much contact with me and with my parents, that it wasn't funny. Did they twig to the abuse ? Nope. Neither did the school counsellor or the psychiatrist. Did school help it stop ? Nope. Did going to the doctor's on a regular basis, or seeing other children or going to dance or youth theater or the frickin' library make it stop ? Nope.

 

So I may be somewhat cynical about the idea that if you just have people who aren't your family seeing you everyday, things are OK. 

 

Yes, same here.

 

 

:grouphug:

[8circles]

Yes. This is what I was trying to say.

Since I can't quote your other post, I'm quoting this one.

 

{{Sahamamama}}  I'm sorry.  Thank you for sharing. & I agree with your point.

[maize]

 

The second thing that our greater society should be doing is offering more opportunities for children in the community. More classes and programs and sports offered through the parks department and libraries or similar, for free or a low-cost on a sliding scale. Dual admission at the middle and high school levels - if kids are switching classes, then it has to be possible to schedule that. Vouchers to all families (or on a sliding scale) to afford day camps during summer and school breaks. Online education where you can choose the number of classes you participate in. If there are a large number of homeschoolers (using a very broad definition here!) in the community, municipally funded co-ops with licensed teachers that meet one or two days a week. If our concern is that some children don't get into contact with mandated reporters very often, well, this is an appealing way to make sure it happens, and it would benefit all kids in the community.

 

 

A lot of this is available in my state, and I have actually thought in the past that the folks involved in HA (as well as the rest of the homeschool community) could possibly do a lot of good by advocating for similar programs throughout the country.

 

Partial enrollment is an option at all levels of public school, I actually know a family who have their child enrolled just for library period every week at the elementary school so that they can also access speech services at that school. My twelve year old is considering taking art and choir next year at the local junior high, and maybe joining the track team. These remain an option whether we are homeschooling independently or enrolled in one of the various virtual schools, some of which allow parents to choose whatever (secular) curriculum they want and will even pay for extracurriculars such as dance classes, or for tutors,  etc., and some of which also allow partial enrollment. A family who run a STEM focused camp every summer have been in contact with a government office that is encouraging kids who want to participate to apply for individual grant money through a program they offer.

 

These kinds of programs may have very little appeal for hardcore "don't want the government involved in my family" folks, but they sure provide some appealing opportunities for most of the "we're homeschooling to try to do right by our kids" people, and provide support that won't drag them in an isolationist direction.

[Guest]

I think it is vitally important not to pass judgement on someone else's trauma and their reaction to it.

 

True, when ppl cite ha to impose undue restrictions on all law-abiding homeschoolers, cooler heads and better stories need to hopefully prevail.

 

But that does not negate the hurt ha ppl nave had thrust on them by abusive people and abusive systems. If someone tells me something about their life (like homeschooling contributed to MY abuse), I have to defer to them. Because, by dint of having lived that life, they are in a better position than me to make judgement calls about it. That is true even if my own childhood was not great.

 

We can delineate between the lived experiences of individuals, and public policy. We do it all the time. There's a whole lotta women for whom marriage has been, in and of itself, an abusive paradigm. We (hopefully) don't tell these individual women that they are illogical and short-sighted to fear marriage in particular and men in general....nor though, do we legislate marriage out of existence.

[Sahamamama]

... criticism of a bunch of people who were legitimately abused as part of their homeschooling...

 

Yes. People inside the US probably don't get it.

 

I'm in the US, and I think I get it. ;)

 

Farrar, what I take issue with is that HA and the like represent their abuse (by their parents) as stemming from homeschooling, even though homeschooling, in and of itself, can never be the true source of abuse. Homeschooling is one (quite varied) method of being educated, and that is all. It can be done well or poorly or somewhere in between, but it is about education.

 

The rest of the story is... parenting (and to some extent, the involvement or disengagement of the child's larger community). If an abused, homeschooled adult can say, "Homeschooling did this to me" in relation to being abused by their parents, then all of us abused, publicly-school adults can also say, "Being publicly-schooled did this to me" in relation to being abused by our parents. We might, likewise, say that our high schools left us unprepared for adult life. My high school certainly did. How common could that complaint be?

 

This would be ludicrous! Can we really make this correlation? I suppose one of these specific types of homeschoolers could argue, "My parents homeschooled me as part of an abusive system of parenting, so they could isolate and control me." I could argue back, "And my parents put me in school as part of an abusive system of parenting, so they could look perfectly respectable and normal."

 

It depends on how you look at it. Some parents want to control their children, others want to control their image. Regardless of motivations or educational choices, abuse happens. I think it has to do with parenting, and should be separated out from accusations against "homeschooling," whatever monolithic structure that may be. I was in constant contact with the outside world, and -- as far as stopping the abuse was concerned -- this accomplished nothing.

 

I will also say here that my parents weren't sinister people. Abusive (at least my father was, and my mother let him be), but not sinister. I don't even think they were (for the most part) intentionally hiding things, they just thought you had to yell (loudly), threaten, and knock a kid around to get results. The school system I was a part of had nothing whatsoever to do with the abuse I dealt with at home. The source of abuse is the abuser, plain and simple, and to represent a form of education -- any form of education -- as the source of abuse is misguided, IMO.

 

Again, I ask all of you to please not quote me. I know the Internet is forever, but I feel better asking.  :tongue_smilie:  Thanks.

[Guest]

"And I could argue back..."

 

Why? Why argue. Comparing abuse stories is only helpful if it helps ppl not feel alone (and in that way, sharing is invaluable). You have clearly come to conclusions about YOUR abuse. Others have come to different conclusions about theirs.

 

None of it is ludicrous imo.

 

As I said above I think its possible, and good, to attack public policy problems while honouring the Truths of the ppl attacking them from opposing angles.

[Sahamamama]

If you enroll your child in school, and they don't show up for two weeks straight, or are chronically absent (but with periodic appearances at the school), somebody will notice. They'll call you, and if they can't get a hold of you, they'll send a truant officer to your house.

 

Yes, if a child is enrolled in school, somebody will notice if the body is in the seat or not, but perhaps not much of anything else.

 

Mere attendance at school doesn't mean education is happening. Plenty of kids show up, sleep in class, put in little to no effort, and... eventually graduate. Aren't their parents neglectful, to not ensure they're getting an education?

[Tanaqui]

They'll also notice if that student chronically fails the state tests at the end of the year. That's the point of required tests.

I'm not claiming the system here is perfect, but there is at least some attempt at oversight of children in public schools. There is less oversight in private schools and, in many states, no oversight at all of children being homeschooled.

 

With regards to the issue of parental educational neglect of students in school* - No, not really. Their parents might not have the knowledge or ability to either a. successfully fight the school or b. educate their child themselves. Their parents are only neglectful if they fail to educate their child after signing up to be their child's sole or primary teacher.

 

* Gotta find a quick shorthand for "kids not being homeschooled" or "being educated in a school". I heard one once and forgot it.

Edited January 23, 2016 by Tanaqui

[Sahamamama]

Homeschooling was the starting point, the First Cause even, so to speak, of the abuse.

 

Was she abusive when she was "just"homeschooling? Because, if not, then the First Cause was Gothardism, not homeschooling.

 

:grouphug:

[Tanaqui]

The first cause is not Gothardism if she would never have been exposed to Gothardism without homeschooling, especially if Gothardism and similar attitudes (especially with regards to discipline) were normalized to her precisely because of the homeschoolers in her community.

 

Also, forgot and quoted you. Will edit and delete those in a sec, sorry.

[Sahamamama]

What can be done to stop this from happening? Simple: When we see people using the homeschooling umbrella to teach parents how to abuse their children, we kick them to the curb. Violently if need be. It amazes (and sickens) me to hear that these types of people are allowed to speak and set up booths at homeschool conferences. Really? Any devil can write a parenting book with a few out-of-context Bible verses in it, and then get it passively enabled at huge venues full of wide-eyed newbies. It's frightening. Absolutely frightening.

 

:iagree: 100%. I can't agree with this enough! I think this is what some others are saying, too, that it's unconscionable that there should be any tolerance (or support!) for abusive parenting within the larger context of homeschooling. Yes, it is sickening and awful that "whack 'em with a plastic tube" types get booths (or any audience) at homeschool conventions. And, Sarah, I am truly sorry that your mom was led astray by that horrible teaching. Even though in my case, it had nothing to do with Gothardism, the Big Belt hurts, no matter why a person uses it on you. :grouphug:

 

I actually dislike the overemphasis on parenting at most homeschool conventions, and wish they were exclusively about... well, education. You know, that work we're supposed to be doing? :leaving:

 

Math and French and stuff?

[Jean in Newcastle]

Tons of children fail the end of the year tests and nothing is done.  In our state, only 26.3 % of 11th graders are at grade level in reading.  Only 13.7% of 11th graders are at grade level in math.  Percentages for younger grades are much better but still half are not at grade level.  Our state is in the middle of the rankings in the United States. 

[Tanaqui]

In my state, you have to pass a certain number of state-mandated tests to graduate, and they do retain students based on statewide exams starting in elementary school.

 

Of course, if we want to talk about improving public school education, the answer to that is probably simple as well - smaller class sizes, better paid teachers, better teacher education programs (both prior to licensing and for continuing education), slightly shorter summer vacations, better free lunches and breakfasts, provide free books to students so even the poorest can have a small home library, stop funding schools based on property taxes, put more education dollars into education and less into test prep or administration - why should you need test prep to take a test if your teacher is competent? It might also be a good idea to provide free play-based preschool starting at age 2 or 3, at least to the lowest incomes.

 

Smaller class sizes would also increase the ability of teachers to catch children who are actually being abused.

[73349]

Public school doesn't stop abuse, but of course thirty hours a week out of the house thirty-six weeks a year would sound awfully nice to a kid who's home with the abuser 24/7.

 

On the other hand, if the misery in your life comes from school (bullying, etc.), while your family home is your sanctuary, then homeschooling would sound like a dream come true.

 

Kids getting mistreated in both places are SOL, though.

 

I'd like to see adults set a high standard for children's physical and emotional safety in all environments and find a way to uphold it without being unduly intrusive, but it's hard to figure out how that would work.

[Faithr]

Regardless of whether homeschooling opened up her mother to becoming abusive or not, it still is not all homeschoolers but a specific subset.  To call your group Homeschoolers Anonymous is overreaching.  I am Catholic.  We had horrific abuse going on that everybody knows about.  There is an advocacy group called SNAP which stands for Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.  So everyone knows exactly what that group stands for.  They didn't call themselves Catholics Anonymous, right?  They had the honesty to call themselves what they actually were.  Homeschoolers Anonymous seems to be addressing one type of homeschooling and tends to conflate all types of homeschooling into what this group experienced.  To me they are taking their cue from HSLDA which purports to represent all homeschoolers and does not in fact, represent all homeschoolers. This is ironic because HA seems to very much want to expose HSLDA as being in cahoots with Gothard to some degree.   At least that is what it looks like.  So I strongly object to their name.  I have been homeschooling for 20 years.  I have never read a book by Pearl or Gothard, never attended a Christian homeschool convention (and only rarely attended Catholic or secular ones either.  I dislike crowds!).  I am completely on the outside of all this.  It is some dim thing that went on completely out of my universe.  I don't want to be painted with the same brush!

 

I am very sorry for all the abuse that homeschoolers and public/private schoolers endured.  That is so terrible.  I honestly wish I knew how to change that.  I don't want to discount or judge them (and only to make the aside that sadly attending school is no guarantee that life will be better).

 

[Ms.Ivy]

I kind of think that HA addresses a problem in the homeschool community that is already half way out the door.  Since the homeschoolers of today are from a new generation with different reasons for homeschooling, there will be new challenges that could be either helped or hindered by exclusively focusing on what would have helped kids who were homeschooled in the 90s.  I also think that a lot of the solutions proposed by HA would not have prevented much of anything in the 90s.  I think it's easy to underestimate the exclusivity and networking/evangelism of conservative groups in the 80s and 90s.  No amount of state-funded classes or doctor's visits or other government intervention would have prevented the spread of the teachings that went around in the 90s.  

 

I believe that today, far more pastors are on the lookout for dangerous para-church teaching than they were back then.  Every single one of the families I knew who did ATI or followed Vision Forum have rejected abusive teachings for their youngest children.  I would really like to see a concerted effort to get more education into homeschool groups and get away from para-church religious teaching.  I have been focusing on that with my state "leadership."  I have let them know that I rely on my personal pastor for teachings about family discipleship, and would like to see homeschool groups provide more teaching and resources about things my church does NOT cover -- like teaching math and Spanish and science.  So I definitely hit these issues, but I hit it from an angle that I think would make sense to actual current homeschoolers.  Groups like HA will have very limited truly constructive influence as long as they are mostly made up of people who aren't actually homeschooling their kids right now.  

[OnMyOwn]

If the argument is "Removing a child from daily, face-to-face interactions with mandated reporters led to this child's death", then talking about how that particular family wasn't really homeschooling is beside the point. I see this argument sometimes about people who are enrolled in online school or distance education. "Oh, that's not homeschooling!" Maybe? But what the heck does that have to do with the issue at hand?

 

 

If the situation is such that you can register as a homeschooler and provide no education to your child without anybody caring for 12+ years, then this is a problem. The problem is not that these people are frauds. The problem is that in many states, there is no oversight whatsoever.

 

If you enroll your child in school, and they don't show up for two weeks straight, or are chronically absent (but with periodic appearances at the school), somebody will notice. They'll call you, and if they can't get a hold of you, they'll send a truant officer to your house.

So yes, I think the issue of supposed homeschoolers not actually educating their children is really germane to this conversation. Otherwise, you're playing No True Scotsman with people's lives. That's not nice, and it's not helpful, and it's not honest either.

 

Now, I'm not saying we should all have to exactly follow the state curriculum and have daily check-ins with social workers, etc. I am saying that it is not entirely unwarranted for the state to ask for yearly confirmation that your child has learned something over the past 365 days and is in reasonably good health.

 

So, what's my suggestion to the issues raised by HA? Well, first, that we don't all get defensive and go "I'm not abusive, and neither is anybody I know!" Even if it's true - and I'm sure it is! - it's not helpful. I also don't think it's helpful to go "Kids in public schools get abused too!" This is certainly true, and there is LOTS of room for improvement here (which isn't going to happen so long as the government keeps shortchanging public education and social services, but that's another topic for another day), but it's entirely beside the point. It's like the dudes who respond to complaints about the wage gap or catcalling with "Well, women in Afghanistan have to wear burkas!" I'm not in Afghanistan. Shut up!

 

The issue of abuse by homeschooling families is something that has to be addressed both by homeschoolers and by the wider community. To start, again, I don't think a minimum level of oversight is unreasonable. Nor do I think it's unreasonable for people who started homeschooling under suspicious circumstances - like right after the principal reported them to child services - or who have open child services cases against them to be subject to greater scrutiny. (Now, you may jump in right here and say that there are whackjobs who live in the woods and eat rabbits and never get their kids birth certificates so nobody knows they exist. Or, if you're in the country, you may say there are whackjobs who lock their kids in the apartment and eat McDonald's and never get their kids birth certificates so nobody knows they exist. Granted, we can't stop these people with better laws. However, we can catch a lot of the less extreme abusers without putting too much of an inconvenience on anybody else.)

 

The second thing that our greater society should be doing is offering more opportunities for children in the community. More classes and programs and sports offered through the parks department and libraries or similar, for free or a low-cost on a sliding scale. Dual admission at the middle and high school levels - if kids are switching classes, then it has to be possible to schedule that. Vouchers to all families (or on a sliding scale) to afford day camps during summer and school breaks. Online education where you can choose the number of classes you participate in. If there are a large number of homeschoolers (using a very broad definition here!) in the community, municipally funded co-ops with licensed teachers that meet one or two days a week. If our concern is that some children don't get into contact with mandated reporters very often, well, this is an appealing way to make sure it happens, and it would benefit all kids in the community.

 

(Yes, this would cost money. On the sliding scale of capitalism v. socialism, would it surprise you to hear that I'm at the point marked "TAX THE RICH!"?)

 

So now we've covered the government carrot and stick. What role do homeschoolers have?

 

Well, this is a common story, both at HA and in similar blogs... and also in tales of people who escaped cults. There's even some similarity with people who have left abusive relationships. Stop me if you've heard it before. A family starts homeschooling, and they have few resources. Their local homeschool group is all very religious, statement of faith dealio. They sign up for the benefits of joining, and resolve not to change their lives too much. They make new friends who don't seem too extreme. Those friends introduce them to a new world of Christian literature. (Will anybody here deny that Christians make an awfully large percentage of American homeschoolers?) Everybody around them now is a little more religious and a little more right-wing than they are, and, being human, they gradually start to align a little more with their new friends. Some of these reading materials make good points, after all. As time goes by, they accept more and more of the community values, and spend less and less time with their old, pre-homeschool friends - after all, they have less in common with those people now. Five years down the line, they laugh at old pictures of themselves. They were so different back then!

 

Seem familiar? This can happen in more innocent venues as well. Harry Potter fandom, you start off reading gen kidfic, and then one day you realize you're reading mpreg dub/con twincest. You join a food co-op for low prices on organic kale, and then three years later you have a huge thing of nutritional yeast in your pantry and you're still breastfeeding your preschooler. This is how people become radicalized. (Except that fanfic and nutritional yeast are awesome, and Debi and Michael Pearl are not.)

 

So that's pretty much the role of every homeschooler who's not an abusive reactionary. You have to be visible and take a role in making sure that people have options and choices other than the path that leads to the dark side. They do NOT have cookies there.

It would be wonderful if a little regulation could easily solve all the world's problems. If it did, I imagine most people would be willing to make the sacrifice. It seems so good and generous to be willing to accept regulation "for the greater good"-- even if it is completely ineffective. And so many times, when people are pushing for them, they already exist. Because don't most states already have these in place? What level of regulation is going to ensure that children are never abused?

 

I can't agree this is a home education problem any more than I can agree that children being abused who are in ps is a public school education problem.

[Tanaqui]

What level of regulation is going to ensure that children are never abused?

 

Are you really suggesting that if we can't have a perfect solution that helps 100% of all children, we should not seek a solution that would help some smaller percentage of children?

 

Well, gosh. I guess I'll stop telling my kids to buckle their seatbelts as well, because after all, no seatbelt ensures that every single child will survive their next car crash.

 

If it did, I imagine most people would be willing to make the sacrifice.

 

Here in NYS, a so-called "high regulation" state, we're expected to: Send a letter of intent every year, send a home instruction plan (mine reads something like "We intend to educate our child in all required subjects, including but not limited to blah blah blah"), send a quarterly report, and have our kid evaluated at the end of the year by... well, there's two choices in elementary school, but whatever, we just went with a standardized test. This is not really a "sacrifice". Neither is, as has been proposed in a few states, dropping by the doctor once a year for a well-child visit. That's the sort of thing we do anyway. I don't mind doing it because I like to think I'm halfway competent at this childrearing gig, and anyway, it's just not that hard.

 

And in the real world, this isn't going to happen.

 

Not with that attitude it won't.

 

And jeez, data on the bolded please.

 

Yeah, I'm gonna chalk this one up to common sense. As in "It's a lot harder for students to slip through the cracks when their teachers see 80 kids a day than when their teachers see 180 kids a day, because, um, monkeysphere." I don't think it's really necessary to provide a citation for the fairly obvious notion that it's easier to note details about others when you aren't expected to keep tabs on a bajillion people in a day.

 

I'd really like someone who is pro-oversight to address the fact that when you have oversight, people just drop out of the system!

 

And in some states, like Texas, you drop out of the system in kindergarten because nobody needs to even know you're homeschooling!

 

I'm going to really refer you back up to the first quote - if you're looking for a perfect answer that will solve every single problem of society, I can't help you there. I think that's a completely unreasonable expectation.

 

When we were kids, my sister had a quote on her wall - "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good". I never thought they were words to live by until I grew up.

Edited January 23, 2016 by Tanaqui

[Faithr]

Ms. Ivy, that is good to know this type of reactionary Christian culture is passing away.  I wonder if there wasn't something really weird going on in the 80s and 90s for people who weren't with the current zeitgeist/post sex revolution mores, etc. Suddenly, time honored values were being turned upside down and they didn't know where to turn.  I think the confusion made people vulnerable to cults.  I know it happened in the Catholic world in a different but similar way.  For example, the Legionaries of Christ grew rapidly and were very cultlsh. There was a lot of bad stuff like that going on.  Actually all cults were really growing.  My own sister got involved in Scientology and even though now they have some semblance of being in the mainstream via Hollywood, back in the late 70s and 80's they were some bad news.  I could tell you stories (like my dad having to get a restraining order because they kept harassing my sister after she left them.)   Actually that experience really blessed me because it made me wary of any thing that smacked of being cult-like.  The pull to belong and have everything be in simple black and white can be very strong.