Are Homeschoolers really similar to Islamic Terrorists?

Creative Loafing,Charlotte ^ | BY QUINN COTTON

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Homeschool Horror Divinely ordained education, taught by martyrs

BY QUINN COTTON

You know how there are terrorist cells embedded throughout the world? Well, in my neighborhood we have numerous "homeschool" cells humming in the cul-de-sacs. They're almost as scary as the terrorist ones in some ways -- and they definitely have some traits in common with them.

When we first moved to Charlotte, the houses next to us, behind us, and diagonally across the street all contained children who mysteriously never seemed to leave home, and mothers with glazed expressions on their faces. The whole set-up of moms stuck with their school-age kids 24/7 gave me the willies, and that was before I even had one of my own.

Middle class areas seem to be magnets for little suburban schoolhouses. Even though there must be homeschooling pockets all over Charlotte, somehow I don't picture your basic Ballantyne babe risking breaking a nail on a chalkboard in the bonus room, or skipping a tennis set for an educational excursion to the sewage plant. Likewise, I doubt many Belmont moms miss a beat packing those kids off to public school. It's the middle class that gets suckered into the myth that mothers and older children can survive being together all day without somebody being strangled. The true "haves" and "have-nots" know better.

What's scary is that a lot of the homeschooling faithful are as fueled by a fanatical, religion-based belief in their mission as Islamist terrorists, and seem to be just about as brainwashed. Sometimes I even wonder if they're a manufactured race along the lines of the Stepford wives in Ira Levin's book, but assembled in fundamentalist Christian churches instead of family basements. Like the Stepford robots, they're programmed to fulfill their husbands' fantasies, only in this case it's their role as the Ultimate Selfless Mothers.

Other times I feel like the heroine in another famous horror story by Levin, Rosemary's Baby, at that chilling moment when she puts together the anagram "All of Them Witches" and realizes it refers to her seemingly harmless neighbors. Some of the homeschooling moms (HMs) are kind of witch-y, with the uncut hair and the long skirts because pants on females are unholy, but the description that really applies to this coven is "All of Them Zealots."

They're not only terrorist-like in their conviction that their calling is divinely ordained, homeschoolers also often have a broad martyr streak. Rather than suicide bombings, though, they commit "suicide book-learning," sacrificing their own lives to teach their kids. I've known one or two to get pregnant as an excuse to get out of homeschooling hell, but the true martyrs keep right on instructing, with the newest little pupil glued to their breast.

Beyond a certain age, children and mothers are just not meant to be isolated together. It's unnatural. Keeping the kids at home might have worked back in the Stone Age, but cave women would've at least had each other for company, and I bet they made damn sure the youngsters stayed off in a group together while they grunted gossip and drank their Cro-Magnon coffee.

Kids need their teachers to be adults, separate from their mothers. That way they can idolize or despise them apart from a parent figure, and don't have to depend on one person for everything they require. Did a parent of yours try to teach you to drive? How'd that go? 'Nuff said.

All young animals must be immersed in a mass of their peers so they can figure out what it means to function as a member of the larger group. Believe me, I'm aware that homeschooling families get their children together, since occasionally there'll be a flood of them from next door scrambling over the fence to play uninvited in our yard, but being with maybe a dozen other kids once in a while doesn't do the trick. It takes serious numbers for developing humans to catch on to the nuances of accepted behavior and to have a chance to make enough friends. I just can't see homeschooling providing adequate socialization.

One of my neighboring HMs taught her two kids through eighth grade, then threw them to the wolves in public high school. The boy ended up dropping out and doing jail time, and the girl got pregnant.

Yes, I know that homeschooled kids have won high-profile academic contests, but for every homeschooler who aces a spelling bee, there's some poor child being "instructed" by a parent who's barely literate herself. Teachers in the public school system are required to have certification and college degrees, yet any yahoo can force their kids to stay home as long as they pass an annual test.

What's really scary about homeschooling is what it can do to the sanity of a mother deluded into thinking it's her Christian duty. No woman was ever meant to be trapped in a house all day with children old enough to spell "homicide."

So if new neighbors move in next door and you notice that the kids never leave for school and mom wears her hair in two braids, be afraid. Be very afraid

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Anyone have any comments?

EDITOR John Grooms john.grooms@cln.com

PUBLISHER Carolyn Butler carolyn.butler@cln.com

Editorial Coordinator Lindsey H. Grossman lindsey.herman@cln.com

Comments backtalk@creativeloafing.com

The paper is: Creative Loafing Charlotte: phone: (704) 522-8334 | fax: (704) 522-8088 mailing address: P.O. Box 241988, Charlotte, NC 28224-1988

[RightWingAtheist]

[Caipirabob]

Yes, I know that homeschooled kids have won high-profile academic contests, but for every homeschooler who aces a spelling bee, there's some poor child being "instructed" by a parent who's barely literate herself. Teachers in the public school system are required to have certification and college degrees, yet any yahoo can force their kids to stay home as long as they pass an annual test. What's really scary about homeschooling is what it can do to the sanity of a mother deluded into thinking it's her Christian duty. No woman was ever meant to be trapped in a house all day with children old enough to spell "homicide."

Good grief! They killed a tree for this article? Should we alert ELF?!?

[cyborg]

hehehehehe

[cyborg]

terrorist mommies ping (have barf bag ready)

[Sender]

Not much difference from Creative Loafing in Atlanta. We have John Sugg, who writes about as far to the left as you can go.

[Steve_Seattle]

If ever there was one piece which summed up the feminist attitude towards the traditional Christian woman, this is it. One of the most telling things was her utter amazement at the idea of a parent teaching a child how to drive a car, as if this is something almost beyond belief! The author of this piece is as weird and out-of-touch as she thinks home-schoolers are.

[JenB]

Really horrid article alert.

OOOOHHH, I'd like this woman to meet my mother. It was her CHOICE to have 7 children, to stay home and homeschool us. How dare this woman criticize choice? Isn't it sacred to liberals?

[Bikers4Bush]

The kids that live behind me have all been home schooled.

They are superior to the publicly schooled kids in my neighborhood in every way. Intelligence, behavior, manners, drive, etc.

I'd rather live in a neighborhood of homeschooled kids than one with publicly educated kids.

[Alouette]

Some idiot actually got paid to write this merde?

[SLB]

One of my homeschooled children graduated Summa Cum Laude from Georgetown College this past Saturday. She is going to attend the University of Cincinnati graduate school next fall on a 100% scholarship with a healthy stipend to help out.

[EggsAckley]

What a bitter, unoriginal, petty person this "Quinn Cotton" is. Not sure if it's a man-human or a woman-human......but I suspect it's a woman. There is a bitterness and jealousy about the writing that reeks of "unfulfilled woman." And she will spend her life unfulfilled due to her elitist attitude.

[marty60]

It is just the opposite, the public schools are training terrorists......HATE AMERICA FIRST

[Jokelahoma]

Isn't this just so typical? "You don't agree with me, so you're Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal. How will your children ever learn how evil America is if you don't send them to the proper indoctrination centers? This is an outrage! We must stop parents from having any control over the lives of their own children! They might not make the 'correct' decisions!"

A frightening, yet accurate portrayal of the leftist mind. The whole "I support choice, so long as you choose what I want you to... I support freedom of speech, so long as you agree with me" attitude is far, far too common. Sigh...

[Tax-chick]

This is a parody, right? People just can't be as ignorant, brainwashed, and self-serving as this writer is pretending to be. "It's her act," as I tell my kids when they ask why a public figure or performer doesn't seem quite real.

[Straight Vermonter]

Anyone who thinks that a public school is a good place to send their children is seriously misguided. Few would knowingly send their child to a place that is rife with violence, drugs, inappropriate sexual behaviors and Lord knows what else and yet millions of moms shove their kids out the door each day to go to just such a place.

[Steve_Seattle]

"Beyond a certain age, children and mothers are just not meant to be isolated together. It's unnatural."

Just shoes how ignorant the enlightened can be. If anything is "unnatural" and a-typical of human society, it is the modern public school. Throughout most of history, children were primarily taught by their parents and spent most of their lives in the company of their extended family. This constant intermingling with strangers, rounding children up into collectivities, is a modern, urban phenomenon.

[section9]

Jesus Christ, but isn't this a steaming pile of condescending garbage! Liberals compare homeschooling to attending a madrass.

What tommyrot!

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[Steve_Seattle]

This piece shows that the Left is fundamentally all about indoctrination and control over other people's children. What frightens this woman is that there are people who are out of her control. Leftists are ultimately control freaks.

[Tax-chick]

Other times I feel like the heroine ...

Suggests the author is female (or a guy who feels like a heroine :-).

I think only a woman could be this ugly about other women. Notice she (?) doesn't ever mention MEN being involved in homeschooling; it's all a project of deranged, fundamentalist mothers.