Posted on 08/08/2024 6:00:19 PM PDT by DoodleBob
Recently I was served a TikTok showing a mom taking her daughters out for ice cream. While we watch the girls enjoy their treats, the mom’s voiceover describes how their homeschool curriculum is preparing them for a life of financial independence. From early childhood, these girls are learning to invest. They are learning about stocks, about compound interest. They are training to be self-made millionaires, the mom proudly concludes, and anyone can do this while homeschooling your kids.
Homeschooling is hot right now. Last year the Washington Post reported that homeschooling has increased by over 50 percent since 2017, making it by far the fastest-growing segment within primary-school education. What used to be the domain of religious fundamentalists is becoming not only mainstream but, inevitably, aspirational. It’s an increasingly visible choice among family influencers; several of the most successful momfluencers I have followed for years, who don’t appear especially religious, have announced their intentions to homeschool.
I have nothing against homeschooling per se, and I know there are many valid reasons to take this route. As Sarah Jones wrote last year, there’s a long history — a context in which we are existing, you might call it — of hyperlocalized schooling in the United States, that has always existed alongside public schools. But let’s not forget the reason public schools were funded in the first place: as social equalizers where communities can come together for the benefit of their children. When enough people pull their children out of public school, at a certain point, the public schools start to lose out. One of the moral consequences of the individualistic nature of this country is that no one has to shoulder any responsibility for their personal choices. This blissful arrangement will last until the only people left accessing public services are the ones with absolutely no other choice. It’s a great system we got here.
A large-scale migration away from public school deserves close scrutiny. There are more than enough bad-faith critiques on both sides of this argument. A common one among homeschoolers is that the classroom is an authoritarian space where kids are trained to be obedient sheeple. This is bullsh**: Kids these days are world-historically disobedient. Besides, many homeschoolers seem perfectly happy with authoritarianism if it’s coming from their president. Meanwhile, critics of homeschooling argue that it robs children of social opportunities. But many homeschoolers belong to groups that meet regularly, where there are plenty of friends to be had. It’s the only children of working parents whose isolation we should probably think about, not the fifth-born child of a homeschooling family. Ultimately, neither side of this debate appears to be saying what they really mean.
No doubt that parents can be committed and inspired teachers. But teaching well is an elite skill, and the homeschooling boom seems to be predicated on a fundamental misunderstanding of the role. When a teacher really gets under your skin with an idea, when they teach you something that becomes a part of you, they can seem, briefly, more than human. Ideas are bigger than any of us when they are well-articulated. It’s good to have a little distance from our teachers, so we can relate to new ideas on our own terms. There’s something vaguely monomaniacal about this increasingly common desire to be your child’s parent and teacher. It implies that anyone can teach, that all you need is energy and basic literacy. The homeschool boom, steeped as it is in a desire to control what children are exposed to, suggests an updated dream for American families: a chicken for every pot and an overcaffeinated stay-at-home mom brandishing an iPad for every pupil.
I can’t deny that the lowkey megalomania embedded in the homeschooling boom reminds me of a certain someone. How you teach is what you teach, and if homeschoolers consider taking one’s place in a classroom an unfair compromise rather than an opportunity, what does that teach children about, say, participating in a tedious but necessary democratic process like voting? What kind of electorate are we raising, if we’re teaching children that “freedom” means doing whatever you want?
I recently watched a new documentary, Join or Die, which traces the evolution of the political scientist Robert Putnam’s lifetime of research that came together in his blockbuster book from 2000, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Putnam’s basic argument is that when people belong to clubs and groups — of any kind — civil society functions better. People have more faith in their governments and therefore make demands and hold their elected officials accountable. Services are rendered. Social trust increases. Putnam found that toward the end of the 20th century, club membership was plummeting, and so were many measures of social cohesion. Putnam didn’t coin the term “social capital” — the idea that human relationships have value — but he popularized it.
While watching the film, I kept thinking about the homeschooling mom on TikTok, teaching her daughters about personal finance. Outlining a plan for becoming a self-made millionaire definitely makes for snappier content than, say, lessons about civics and how to run a fair and efficient community meeting. As Putnam remarks in the documentary, getting a group to do anything, whether you’re talking about a social club or a city government, can be kind of a pain in the ass. But social capital — the value accumulated through relationships of trust and reciprocity — makes the gears run.
Is the homeschooling boom another way that Americans are bowling alone? Relationships make up a lot of — sometimes most of — what happens in school. You find out who you trust and who you don’t, you experience boredom and anxiety and excitement, and you learn, over the course of your many hours of mandatory attendance, where you fit in. The notion of “fitting in” can have a whiff of negativity around it, suggesting social pressure and conformity. But fitting in is also a neutral process. Taking your place alongside other people is actually … good. According to Putnam, and to most social scientists, this process is essential both for individual well-being and for the well-being of any given social group. The loss of social capital is also what’s at stake in another huge social-problems book, this year’s The Anxious Generation.
But enough hand-wringing from the white-haired social scientists. What do the homeschooling influencers have to say? They represent a growing demographic among family influencers, no doubt in response to the emerging market for homeschool curricula fueled by this trend. It seems like homeschool resources represent a new way to monetize your home life through sponsorships and affiliate links. Five years ago while doing my doctoral research, a momfluencer told me off the record that in her line of work, potential income is pegged to the birth of new babies. As children grow, the income associated with their content tends to fall off, so many momfluencers were having more kids in part as a way to keep their numbers up. (She was adamant that she didn’t know of anyone who was having kids “for the money” but that it couldn’t be denied that babies generated the most engagement and, in turn, the best ad rates. A happy coincidence was how she characterized it. If you say so!)
But you can only have new babies for so long before a different revenue stream becomes necessary. I suspect that for many momfluencers whose children are getting older, pivoting to homeschool content makes financial sense. Home was already a site of income generation, and having the kids at school all day represents the loss of many hours of potential content. This is homeschooling as a domestic industry.
Family influencers have always relied on the nuclear family as a visual shorthand that makes it easier to make sense of the content as you’re scrolling quickly by: Mom, Dad, and kids. Other helpers tend to muddy the brand messaging, so it’s easier, strategically speaking, to keep them out of the content. Almost all momfluencers hire helpers to clean the house and care for the kids, and they often cop to it when their followers demand receipts. But they very rarely show the helpers’ faces.
This creates the effect of a perfectly independent family unit, cleanly self-reliant, untethered to any annoying community obligations. Bowling alone might start out as an aesthetic choice for family influencers — local randos would look out of place in the family’s branding — but it evolves into an ideological choice. I think that’s where we’re at with homeschooling influencers. Homeschooling starts to seem like the logical choice, when you’re earning an income based on your family’s nuclear structure. But it’s also having the effect of neutralizing the moral implications of a choice that has real consequences for communities and children. Homeschooling your children is more than just an opportunity to harmonize the aesthetics of their entire world and emphasize certain lessons over others. It’s a move away from the inconvenient chaos of contemporary life and the fraying net of social capital that holds us all together.
Few homeschoolers I know (including my own children) are bereft of social engagement. In public school, "clubs and groups" function as an exclusionary force more then inclusive. The "jocks" group together, barely tolerating the less athletically members of sports teams. The "society" clique derive their prestige from the fact most kids don't come from the right families, or aren't "pretty" enough to be invited in.
We had cliques like that in high school. There were the jocks, the cheerleaders, and then the elite cheerleading squad. The biggest bunch of self-important snots I ever saw.
And yet there were dozens of girls begging to get in and heartbroken if they weren’t accepted.
The Left always brings up the “your kids won’t be social enough with out going to public (government) schools.”
You can simulate the government school socialization experience by taking your homeschooled kid to the bathroom, blowing smoke in his face, beating him up, and taking his lunch money. Then giving him a queer rainbow flag.
The only time the lefties aren’t for isolation is when they can’t indoctrinate. Then they are suddenly all about not spacing, and not being remote.
Here’s how to decode the left.
‘inclusion’ = sharing what you have
‘gentrification’ = taking what we have
‘isolation’ = Not giving us access to your mind and your things
‘distancing’ or ‘remote’ = Taking time and productivity agreements away from the private sector
In high school, I existed on the fringe of a number of groups - jocks, “brainiacs”, etc. For a long time I resented not being really accepted into any of them, but as an adult I can see that not being accepted - being forced to chart my own course - was the greatest gift these other students could ever give me.
“In high school, I existed on the fringe of a number of groups - jocks, “brainiacs”, etc. For a long time I resented not being really accepted into any of them, but as an adult I can see that not being accepted - being forced to chart my own course - was the greatest gift these other students could ever give me.”
That was me. As a preacher’s kid, I was a freak — my clothes, activities I was “excused” via notes from Dad from (dancing, wearing slacks/shorts even for gym, watching movies, bowling [because there is beer in bowling alleys], skating [dancing], etc.). Total survival, and when I hear about kids/people caving to peer pressure I just shake my head.
Where were they when they closed schools and went to ‘distance learning”? Not to mention all the mask requirements which slowed down social development in youngsters...
But teaching well is an elite skill, and the homeschooling boom seems to be predicated on a fundamental misunderstanding of the role.
I argue that many of us are “freaks.”
Being conservative is counter-cultural nowadays.
Jezer-Morton seems to be trending on FR now so I went to the link. Canadian she is, and looking at a doctorate in sociology of all things. Stick a DNR tag on her, her condition is hopeless.
Isolating them from drugs and violence and bullying and leftist indoctrination if not in public schools? The poor dears. How will they ever learn all 57 genders?
I find her fascinating. And funny. And there’s a lot to be learned from this nonsense.
I noticed a VERY slight, recent uptick in TV shows where wokism is becoming the butt end of jokes. It’s usually over-the-top wokism. But it is no longer untouchable.
Now, Hollywood has NOT flipped for Trump. But maybe they’re realizing we’re all laughing at them.
Milo needs therapy. But he nailed it when he said that the ONLY stimulus that hits leftists is ridicule. Perhaps a corollary to that, is posting this nonsense and laughing at it.
I hear you.
Except, I wasn’t even on the fringe.
But I had good friends who I could trust and had fun with. They didn’t run with the crowd either.
I think the thing that really hit home with the crowd was that one day in 11th or 12th grade, I was in the hall going someone where between classes and passed one of the *in* girls, the make-up wearing, always fashionable, *popular* ones, and she was sitting in the hall being consoled by friends as she was crying cause she was pregnant.
I actually felt sorry for her at that point and realized even in my foolish teenaged years, that it didn’t always pay to be part of the crowd.
She freaked out because she TESTED positive, and wasn’t sick.
Pathetic....
So deceived.
I began to receive tense messages from acquaintances, asking for details. Did my story match the other stories circulating? Why the discrepancies? Could I account for them? At this point, three days after my positive diagnosis, I was glued to my phone. I was trying to keep my sons happy in isolation, recording slow-motion videos of them crashing their Lego trucks together, while simultaneously composing frantic replies via Instagram DMs to people I barely knew. I was called names over the phone, accused of being selfish and stupid.
I was made a scapegoat by people whose children have played with my children, whose neighbourliness I had taken for granted at one time. It was much more painful than I would have expected. I felt that the quality of my character was up for public debate — because it was. People assumed the worst from me. It caused me pain, and maybe I deserve it. But scapegoating serves no utility in a society that believes in science, even if it is deserved, because it doesn't solve any problems.
And now she’s writing articles scapegoating homeschoolers and her right-wing boys in training.
She hasn’t learned a thing.
Check
Homeschool groups and co-ops have cliques and bullying and other troubles, too, at least in the 2000s and 2010s when I was raising kids.
But, those problems never reached the level of school, mainly because we, the parents, were in control.
Also, unlike school, the kids didn’t spend their whole week in a co-op, so co-op wasn’t the most important thing in their lives.
If one co-op wasn’t working out, you could stop taking your kids there and join another co-op. To the kids, it wasn’t the end of the world because a co-op wasn’t their whole existence.
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