Homeschoolers Disrespected on Ebert & Roeper

Ebert & Roeper ^ | 6/18/07

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Nothing personal here, but while I understand the dislike you all express about the stereotyping of homeschool families, did it never cross your minds that you all are engaging in the same type of behavior when you describe/deride those that choose NOT to homeschool?

Nothing personal here, but for the most part the stereotyping of PS kids is right on, more so then the other way around.

Becky

[Osage Orange]

10 Simple Rules For Dating My Daughter

Rule One:

If you pull into my driveway and honk you'd better be delivering a package, because you're sure not picking anything up.

Rule Two:

You do not touch my daughter in front of me. You may glance at her, so long as you do not peer at anything below her neck. If you cannot keep your eyes or hands off of my daughter's body, I will remove them.

Rule Three:

I am aware that it is considered fashionable for boys of your age to wear their trousers so loosely that they appear to be falling off their hips. Please don't take this as an insult, but you and all of your friends are complete idiots. Still, I want to be fair and open minded about this issue, so I propose this compromise: You may come to the door with your underwear showing and your pants ten sizes too big, and I will not object. However, in order to ensure that your clothes do not, in fact, come off during the course of your date with my daughter, I will take my electric nail gun and fasten your trousers securely in place to your waist.

Rule Four:

I'm sure you've been told that in today's world, sex without utilizing a "barrier method" of some kind can kill you. Let me elaborate, when it comes to sex, I am the barrier, and I will kill you.

Rule Five:

It is usually understood that in order for us to get to know each other, we should talk about sports, politics, and other issues of the day. Please do not do this. The only information I require from you is an indication of when you expect to have my daughter safely back at my house, and the only word I need from you on this subject is "early."

Rule Six:

I have no doubt you are a popular fellow, with many opportunities to date other girls. This is fine with me as long as it is okay with my daughter. Otherwise, once you have gone out with my little girl, you will continue to date no one but her until she is finished with you. If you make her cry, I will make you cry.

Rule Seven:

As you stand in my front hallway, waiting for my daughter to appear, and more than an hour goes by, do not sigh and fidget. If you want to be on time for the movie, you should not be dating. My daughter is putting on her makeup, a process that can take longer than painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead of just standing there, why don't you do something useful, like changing the oil in my car?

Rule Eight:

The following places are not appropriate for a date with my daughter: Places where there are beds, sofas, or anything softer than a wooden stool. Places where there are no parents, policemen, or nuns within eyesight. Places where there is darkness. Places where there is dancing, holding hands, or happiness. Places where the ambient temperature is warm enough to induce my daughter to wear shorts, tank tops, midriff T-shirts, or anything other than overalls, a sweater, and a goose down parka - zipped up to her throat. Movies with a strong romantic or sexual theme are to be avoided; movies which features chain saws are okay. Hockey games are okay. Old folks homes are better.

Rule Nine:

Do not lie to me. I may appear to be a potbellied, balding, middle-aged, dimwitted has-been. But on issues relating to my daughter, I am the all-knowing, merciless god of your universe. If I ask you where you are going and with whom, you have one chance to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I have a shotgun, a shovel, and five acres behind the house. Do not trifle with me.

Rule Ten:

Be afraid. Be very afraid. It takes very little for me to mistake the sound of your car in the driveway for a chopper coming in over a rice paddy near Hanoi. When my Agent Orange starts acting up, the voices in my head frequently tell me to clean the guns as I wait for you to bring my daughter home. As soon as you pull into the driveway you should exit your car with both hands in plain sight. Speak the perimeter password, announce in a clear voice that you have brought my daughter home safely and early, then return to your car - there is no need for you to come inside. The camouflaged face at the window is mine.

[ChocChipCookie]

An interesting observation made by John Taylor Gatto is that no parent thinks the “bad stuff” ever happens in THEIR child’s school. The rapes in the bathroom might not happen, or if they do, they’re on the 6 o’clock news, but the bullying, left-wing indoctrination, etc. really DO happen, and they happen in EVERY public school.

[rljv]

Seems like a compliment to me- not intended as one, but what the hey.

[rljv]

In fact it’s an endorsement, and I’ll be sure to get the kids to it, since we haven’t been able to go to the movie theater for want of something non-offensive (including intellectually) in a long time.

[BlackElk]

May God grant to TalonJ and JenB each and every child that they seek to have! God bless both of you!

[L,TOWM]

but you’re missing a huge chunk of social development (as the lack of sense of humor in this post shows). I’ve known many home schooled kids in my day, and I’ve yet to meet one of them who wouldn’t have been better off with a real Public/Private school upbringing.

From the Dad of two Homeschooled kids, my BS detector just pegged the redline.

My kids the get every thing a public schooled kid has -- at LEAST once a week, I drag my kids into the bathroom, beat them up and take their lunch money. I make my son make lewd and rude comments about my daughters body daily. I make sure that my 11 year old boy hangs out EXCLUSIVELY with other 11 year old year boys, ESPECIALLY the really cool ones that have had a stint or two in "juvie". I make sure that my kids get promoted to the next level by doing just enough to get by.

All of this will properly prepare them for 60 years of adult family and career life, where physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual harassment, doing just enough to get by , and associating only with people your own age are daily REALITY. (Do I really need to add the sarcasm tag to the previous?)

Socialization? Into this society? Better? In a public school setting? Yours and the horse you rode in on red rider...

[Gabz]

It seems as if the tiniest minority of kids and schools give the rest a bad name. Face it, if it bleeds, it leads in the DBM and a school doing well doesn't make the headlines.

THAT, m'dear, sums it all up.

[ChocChipCookie]

Gabz, I've been reading the posts and haven't seen that Jen or Talon insulted parents whose kids are in public school. Did I miss something? I'd really like to know what the insults are that you mention.

As a homeschooler, I have often found myself backed into a corner by public-school parents loudly ranting how great their kids' school is, what good grades their kids have, they're involved in this team and that club, and were on the Principal's List, blah, blah, blah -- all because I said, "We homeschool." It seems sometimes to me that just by making that statement, non-HS parents become defensive and feel the need to hammer home how great THEIR choice is to public school. This has happened to me numerous times with people I have JUST MET!!!! Example:

"Hi, I'm Lisa. My kids are in ice skating with yours."
"Oh really? What school do they go to?"
"We homeschool."
"Oh! Well, mine go to XXX school and they make straight A's and the school has this awesome...."

I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!

Sheesh!!! I really need to come up with a good line to just stop the rants and move on with the conversation. I have never, ever come back with how much better our homeschool is or bad-mouthed public schools, which I could easily do. I keep my opinions to myself, unless asked.

I taught Jr. High and 4th grade for many years, and I have a much better idea than these parents of what goes on. I taught in suburban and small-town schools that were pretty much run by Mormons, so it's not like I was in inner-city schools.

Just because someone states their belief that homeschooling is the best option doesn't make it an insult. If you take it that way, I have to wonder why?

[BlackElk]

As a Giuliani supporter, how would you define weirdos? You have to try not to dis one of Rudee’s significant constituency groups.

[GunRunner]

Did you ever see that movie Face Off with John Travolta?

His scantily clad daughter is parked with a tattooed metrosexual type boyfriend in the driveway of Travolta's house. The boyfriend tries to take advantage of her and she starts yelling for him to get off. Suddenly, Travolta appears, kicks and shatters the driver's side window, drags the little punk out of the car by the collar, punches him in the face, and makes him apologize until he's whining like a little girl. He then threatens to kill him if he touches her again.

I think that's the model I will probably follow.

[GunRunner]

I’m taking that tagline off. Apparently the sarcasm is lost on most people.

[Gabz]

Nothing personal here, but for the most part the stereotyping of PS kids is right on, more so then the other way around.

Nothing personal, but Bravo Sierra.

If homeschoolers want the stereotyping to stop, they better stop their own........and I say that as someone who has always supported homeschooling

[Gabz]

....but the bullying, left-wing indoctrination, etc. really DO happen, and they happen in EVERY public school.

And you know this for fact? No you don't, and you know it for the lie it is.

This is exactly the attitude I have been talking about on this thread.

[L,TOWM]

Wow! -— that has got to be one of the best all time classic snippets of literature I have ever read...

Can you share more with us? Please?

[Gabz]

Do you enjoy insulting parents who utilize public schools?

I disagree with the poster’s comments in regard to homeschoolers, but was it really necessary to be so insulting?

[BlackElk]

On the homeschooling side of the fence, we not only have taken responsibility for the actual education of our children but we don't ask you to subsidize that choice in any way through your taxes. While you are certainly free to choose gummint skewels for your children, are you willing to pay the entire freight for that choice or do you want me and other non-gummint skewelers to have to subsidize the wide array of "thet's entertainment" provided to your children at gummint skewels? Why should anyone have to pay for interscholastic athletic programs, hideous taste posing as "art", cultural enrichment programs up the ying-yang, and junior years in Europe (the really swank Gold Coast skewel systems in Fairfield County, CT and the like) much less the really controversial social indoctrination and political correctness that abounds everywhere.

You went to a Catholic girls' high school. I received my secondary school education from the Jesuits so long ago that they were still Catholic. The Jebbies back then taught us: Thou Shalt Not Steal. Did you learn that, too? Then, as to school taxes, don't.

[Osage Orange]

Wow! -— that has got to be one of the best all time classic snippets of literature I have ever read...

Yes, I'm quite sure that it was..........

You're welcome.....

[GunRunner]

I was on the wrestling team in high school. I hope you don’t think that was stealing.

[Gabz]

I have been discussing this issue with Jen for quite some time now and she well knows I respect her position. All I am asking is for the same respect from homeschoolers that I give them. Jen and Talon are different than many of the nomeschoolers on this forum, they don’t agree with the decision my husband and I made for our child, but do accept it as our decision and not theirs.

I’m sorry you have been made to feel uncomfortable by parents of children in public school. When one of the moms of a team mate on my daughters little league team commented that she homeschooled I asked her if she was using Saxon or Abeka. She was amazed to learn my daughter is in public school, yet I knew about those curricula. After having read some of the threads here and reading the insults thrown at parents of children in public schools she remains amazed that I still am a proponent of homeschooling even though I did not choose that route.

Homeschooling may be the best option for some, but it is not for all, thus stating it is the best and only option is an insult to those who have chosen another option.