Many children are born and within 6 weeks, slapped in a daycare center because there was a breakdown in planning somewhere and Mom has to work to make ends meet. Or Mom likes to work. Then, after living the majority of their lives being raised by people who may or may not even care about them in a herd setting, they are sloughed off on a school system...public or private, makes no difference to me. There they spend the majority of their lives till college. Then they go through college and then on to work. And we wonder why adults act so silly sometimes? Selfish and childish? Because they are frozen in time... I believe these people yearn for the freedom to be little children. They never were.
In approximately 2 hours, I have completed Matthew's schooling and he is hard at work doing things that make him a kid. Playing, swimming, reading...he has leisure time.
My very personal opinion is, daily institutional type schooling (public or private) robs the child of their childhood. I wouldn't send them to them if they were the very best schools in the world. And I don't care if it splits the nation! :-)
And that is the best argument for it I have heard, really. Especially with the little ones!
I don't bundle homeschooling with daycare vs. stay at home parents, because they are not mutually exclusive... Kids being raised from 6 weeks on in daycare is a different problem than leftist schools, and I am actually, because of you, becoming quite a fan of homeschooling for very little ones... It can go hand in hand with motherhood, but mom being there before and after school would solve the other unnatural problems you bring up about daycare and such.
My mom stayed home with us until we were in school, and then went back to work teaching while we were in school. (She taught mentally-disabled adults job and life skills)
One change in the public schools since I was there is that kids did have more free time when I was there, and I think we were taught just as much. My friends' elementary-aged kids are attending school all day and coming home to a couple hours of homework. I KNOW I never did homework until occasional projects in High School... Their time would be much better spent playing outside, and for that your kids are very lucky indeed. Little kids are going to learn all that they can absorb in a few hours of well-focused time. then let them go... I agree.
2JM, you've articulated very well one of the reasons I have for wanting to homeschool my eventual children. My wife and I have other reasons as well, the biggest one being that we both believe schools today are not geared towards producing the best education possible for individual children. We believe that if a child is a little faster or slower than the "mainstream" (however the latest trend in child psychology defines "mainstream"), then they are pushed aside; discouraged if they are bright, ignored if they are slow. Any child that causes the teacher "trouble" (that is, more work) gets this reaction; and since every child will find some subject easier or harder to grasp, this is going to happen to every child.
Every honest educator will agree that one-on-one is the best way to teach a child. The instructor knows immediately which subjects are giving the child difficulty, and which therefore need reinforcement. Since the pace can be adapted to the individual child, you can be sure that your child is going to get the best education possible for him or her. As an added bonus, you become deeply involved in your child's life; the more parents are involved with their children, the less likely drinking, drug abuse, and anti-social Columbine-type behavior become. All pluses, I'd say.
Those are some of the reasons why we're planning to home-school.