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

[Rebelbase]

I've come to the conclusion that when people realize they are of a lower moral character than others they deal with it by insulting, belittling and degrading those of higher morals.

I'm guessing its the mind's way of justifying bad behavior.

[Tax-chick]

Yeah, so many husbands have fantasies about a woman with scruffy hair, frumpy clothes, no makeup, and wild eyes, discussing Quality Adjectives at the dinner table table while nursing a baby and exchanging knock-knock jokes with a 2-year-old, who gets up at 2 a.m. saying, "I have to put the laundry in the dryer!" and doesn't remember it in the morning ...

[Rebelbase]

"Freepers, don't waste your time writing. "Creative Loafing" is one of those free rags you see in downtown cafes and avant-garde bong shops in Left Coast cities. We have one here in San Diego that spews leftist cr-p all the time and is hardly worth the paper it's printed on. Let Quinn Cotton write her trash. It's not changing anyone else's mind."

BUMP! Creative Loafing is a leftist bird cage liner.

[biblewonk]

Rave on but don't come knocking on my door when you wonder why my 8 kids are at home.

[Reactionary]

Creative loafing?

Indeed. But I think the loafing is more of the mental sort.

[BibChr]

LOL

[ZULU]

"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"

Obviouhe the writer is not a native North Carolinian. My guess is the writer is from New York City or some similar den of atheistic. anti-American, baby-killing, gun-hating, patriophobes. The writer might even be from Sodomscico in Gomorrahfornia.

Her comparison of children to animals indicates where her thoughts lie.

Her comparison of Christian Fundamentalists to Islamofascists demonstrates her total lack of knowledge of American culture, Christianity, Islam, history, and comparative theology.

I think the people of North Carolina would be much better off if the writer and other invaders who think like her, took their oral flatuence and went back to wherever they came from and left North Carolina what it was until relatively recently - a completely unadulturated part of Real America.

[biblewonk]

I bet the person who wrote this was one of they bisexual breeders for choice marching in DC last week.

[rector seal]

Some people's worldviews are so limited that anything different is threatening. I am not talking about the homeschoolers, but about the standardized american thinking cranked out by the public school system that writes articles such as this hoping to get a reaction out of homeschoolers.
I am not upset because my job is mostly over. My child is 10 and mostly set in his nature. He is almost old enough to start searching for what he wants to believe in. He is comfortable hanging out with Spanish/English speaking legal/illegal people of all ages as well as religious zealots of all types including know it all liberals and conservative atheists. My family has to do without some things with one income, so he is not spoiled by presents or toys that two income families shower upon their children in lieu of human interaction.
As we don't report our activities to the authorities as required in one of the worst states to homeschool, this necessitates living in areas that are less desirable to the suburban groupthink writers who hang out in suurban cul-de-sacs. In some neighborhoods, people learn to not ask too many questions
As a result, my child has met and played with more black and brown children than the author has likely met as peers in his lifetime so far (he-he).
If I was to really take the writer seriously, the question I would ask humorously would be, Whose children will be better prepared for big br0ther and the attendent collapse in living standards? Those who will sell their family's souls to keep their declining middle class lives or those who are poor in lifestyle but rich in family?
When the suburban enclaves decline to third worldism as they might put it and all sorts of riff raff such as us move in or if you flee to join us now, all I can say is welcome to the neighborhood.

[Plutarch]

I like your stomach content graphic. A lot more subtle than the usual spew photographs that are sometimes posted.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Cro-Magnon coffee...

Hehe. Cro-Mag Coffee. Sounds like a real heart starter.

[Just another Joe]

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.

Well, we see what type of mother she hangs around with.
Should we be surprised?

[MortMan]

And can you say it three-times-quickly? How about after a couple of drinks :-).

I'll have to try that - the couple of drinks part, that is!:-D

I believe the law is the same in GA - just take the test and keep the results (plus submitting attendance reports so the gubmint skool gits their tax subsidy money).

My wife and I have 2 in home school, with the four year old standing in the doorway.

[aaCharley]

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. ++++++ As opposed to Public Schools which simply pay the teachers and pass the children along whether they can pass a test or not. Then, as to the specific charge of Homeschooling creating Evil Radicals, consider the products of wonderful drug infested Public Schools. Anyone know of any planned or actual mass murders involving homeschooled students? The article is simply biased nonsense written by someone too lazy to do anything other than parrot disinformation.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Gee I had no idea I was a Stepford Wife with no social skills and glazed eyes - Now I know I have to wear mammy-made dresses and let my hair grow into a braid - I guess makeup is out too - my religious beliefs must become fanatical and extreme and I need to prepare for my son to plan for prison life due to his attempt to kill me.......

And all this time I thought I was helping him through a difficult time in his life........ I'm so stupid.....

(Disclaimer: This was typed by my son because I can barely read - I don't have a teaching certificate or a Union card therefore I must not be capable of reading or writing)

[Liberatio]

Doesn't ELF farm their members froms the public school? I would say more, but I would probably get into trouble. Hopefully, my point is made.

[Southron Patriot]

As per your statements:

When my brother and I were in Middle School(6-8th. grades), my brother was being picked on daily my a bully in his class. I told hem to fight back but he did not want to get in trouble.

One day while standing in line for lunch, this bully who weighed about the same as myself comes by and starts poking his finger in my face telling me he's going to "whup" my brother when he sees him.

I grabbed his finger and bent it back to his wrist and put him down on his knees while telling him not to ever poke his finger in my face again or I would brake his finger off and shove it down his face. I also told him if he ever bothered my younger brother again he would hear from me again!
He never bothered my brother again and would always give me a wide berth when he saw me coming. By the way I was not that intimidating at that age (5'6")and was considered to be very easy going. It was just that I stood up to him while others would knuckle under and take it. I guess it was the Irish in me(wink).
My teacher who saw and heard everything that went on, came over and congratulated me for standing up to this bully. He then took him to the Principles office for discipline. He was a rare Teacher who was a Conservative and a patriot. Most of the female teachers just looked the other way so that they would not have to deal with the problem.

[blu]

Well, the author of this article has painted us all with rather a broad stoke,don't you think? Let me point out a few of her errors:

It's 1 (ONE) braid, preferably French.

Long skirts? Ha ha, they're denim, and as short as practicable.

Public school teachers are certified to teach either by grade (elem) or subject. How many teachers do you know who are able to teach American Govt., American Lit., American History, Algebra 1, Grammar and home ec (this year's classes)? I'm talking about teaching those subjects every day. All of them. Oh, and at the high school level.

Just as at public school, not every homeschool fits the traditional pattern. Some homeschool because the high school doesn't care about the student, doesn't care that a senior reads at the 3rd grade level, doesn't care that the student flunked algebra 1, put em in Alg.2 anyway.

I wish the author lived by me. We could either open her eyes to the great flexibility of homeschooling, or we could do studies on whacky, nosey neighbors who have nothing better to do than write fiction disguised as fact.

Schooling, like shoes (and,hey, you didn't see her talking about shoes,did you? She probably wears Birkenstocks (I've never seen them, I hear libs wear them)) has many different styles. Not every student can bloom in the public schools. Thankfully, some parents are wise enough to know this, even without one of those fancy-schmancy degrees.

I could be offended at her article,but actually I find it kinda funny. How often do you see a publication that is willing to pay for its writers to display their ignorance?

And, remember ladies: It's one French braid, short skirts, men's shirts, Kerry sandals (as in flip-flop!) and a great tan. We really must dispel this myth of dowdy dressing overprotective mothers!

[mrustow]

Dear 2Jedismom,

Please forgive me for the interruption and for the typeface, but we need all FReepers, their friends, relatives, debtors, colleagues and creditors to sign the Federalist's petition to save Don Rumsfeld!

Thank you!

RUMMY Petition

We now return to the regularly scheduled thread.

[Liberatio]

Obviously this person is very ignorant of life outside of the public education system.