Posted on 09/23/2004 7:04:45 PM PDT by SLB
She lives in a small town in Tennessee, or in a subdivision in North Carolina, or on a ranch in Montana .
She may be 15. Or, she may have graduated from college. Either way, the odds are no boy has ever paid much attention to her. She may wonder if she will ever get married. She is lonely.
What’s her problem? The answer is simple: She is different.
She doesn’t particularly like being different. She may tell you that she doesn’t care; but she does.
Her peers think she is a snob. Her mom says the reason other girls don’t want to be around her is because they are jealous. That doesn’t help much. So she tries to be friendly and kind but that doesn’t help much, either. She may be shunned by other girls and ignored by boys.
She is different. And who wants to be different? Nobody likes others who are different and nobody likes being different.
I have met hundreds of homeschooled girls like this around the world. Each girl thinks she is the only one who is having these experiences. But, there are thousands just like her. If they ever find one another, there would be a huge group hug. And, yes, probably lots of tears. They would finally have found others like themselves who aren’t interested in what girls normally think or talk about. Their talk wouldn’t center around boys or movies or how stupid some other girl is. They would talk about their families and about what interests them and about God and about Jesus. They would pray together and for one another.
That girl from Tennessee who is 15. She’s actually 15 going on 21. She seems to have skipped the teenage years altogether. The girl who has graduated from college without meeting her future husband has been told many times not to worry. “Mister right” is just waiting somewhere in the future. She struggles to believe it and to trust God for her future family.
These girls are different. Not because they wear Christian hairdos or clothing. It really has little to do with externals. But it has everything to do with their Father and what He has done inside them. They are just different, whether they like being different or not. Everyone can tell.
One day I was trying to understand this regarding a young girl who was a friend of my son. All at once the Lord showed me a kind of vision about this girl. Here’s what I saw:
The girl was in her Baptist Sunday school class. All the kids were sitting in a circle. Just then I saw Jesus open the door to the room. He walked directly to this girl and held out His hand to her. She took His hand and got up from her chair. Then Jesus took her out of the class and closed the door. I understood Him to be saying, “This girl doesn’t belong in the same way other people belong. I have made her exclusively Mine.”
I knew this didn’t mean she would never have a family or always be by herself. But the Lord made me understand that He is using the home schooling movement because it is the easiest context in which to raise young people who can be truly “different.”
Why do I keep using the word, “Different”? It is because of the origin of that word. The word “different” is the most exact translation of the Greek work, HOLY (hagios). These kids are different in that the Lord has placed in them something which makes them holy unto Him. They are not really trying to be this way. It’s something He has done. He has separated them from the kind of things normal young people find important. They may struggle with what God has done. They may be terribly lonely. But they ARE different and it is the work of God, Himself.
It is not easy to encourage these girls. Loneliness is no fun and being different can be a real bummer, too. Telling someone to “have faith” can sound pretty shallow, even though it’s the truth. The girl who graduated from college and never had a boy who was a friend ended up meeting “the man of God” she had always dreamed about. They are married now. Another is still waiting, praying for faith to believe it will all turn out as her heart hopes it will.
This is a holy generation. It is a generation set apart unto Him. It is a generation of young people the world has not seen in so long it doesn’t remember what real holiness looks like. The purposes of God rest on our children being willing to walk “in the world” but, at the same time, separated from it. The world waits for a people to show them that a relationship with Jesus isn’t a religious put-on, but is worth giving their lives to, too.
Our girls have been created by the Lord to show everyone what the Bride of Christ looks like, sounds like, acts like, believes like. It can be a burden, but it is precious. We need to deeply respect our girls for what they have been called to be. They need to be encouraged to understand who they are to a world (and, yes, even to a Church) who desperately needs to see the kind of “Lady” Jesus is returning for. We need to give them a vision for who they are that is deeper than simply saying to them, “the other girls are jealous of you.”
I'm with you.
We homeschool and my boys have lots of friends. Isolation is something we have purposely avoided.
We are enrolled in classes outside the home, play sports, and are very active in our communities, families and church.
I can't express the happiness I felt when, a couple of months ago, my grown son (who's VERY social, very balanced, and a wonderful young man - can you tell I'm proud of him?) gave me a hug and said, "Mom, I'm really glad you homeschooled me."
I'm very pro-homeschooling, but I don't agree with isolating the kids.
If someone is abusing children, turn them in and let a judge and jury decide.
The public school bureaucrats are already biased and have their own preferences concerning homeschoolers. They are not objective.
Teachers are designated reporters -- if they see something off, they have to report it.
If parents isolate kids from the outside community -- it does happen -- how do you catch 'em?
Well, I think that makes you sane, even if depressed. ;~D Sorry doll.
BTT bookmark for printing later
Will some children be abused? Yes.
Is it so bad we need to establish a Nanny state to prevent it? No.
I met a 17 year old and a 14 year old who had the maturity of someone less than half their ages. The 17 year old failed the SAT and in my estimation will never pass it. But far worse is the fact that neither of these kids has any ability to communicate with anyone outside of their immediate family. An immediate family that is headed by two of the most arrogantly ignorant people you'd ever want to meet.
They have brought these kids up by spoon feeding them intellectual pablum and making them incapable of any initiative or independent thought or action.
What they've done to these kids is criminal, so I will never again give a blanket approval to home schoolers. I know there are lots of terrific examples out there, but it is the ones that aren't terrific and are actually doing damage to their kids you don't hear about."
You are right. The good news is that this family is very unusual.
We've homeschooled for ten years and I know of one family which is somewhat like this. However, I know at least fifty other homeschooling families, none of which are like this at all.
Anything can be abused.
Homeschool ping.
My job brings me into close contact with homeschooled kids and their parents. The kids I meet are almost without exception bright, inquisitive, polite and actually able to hold a meaningful conversation with an adult--at age 8 or 9. The home schooling movement may save this nation in spite of itself.
That is so good,I almost stood up and saluted! Spot on.
I really don't believe public schools are a significant factor for reducing child abuse. Family members, friends, and neighbors stop most child abuse.
We are of the fortunate ones, I guess. We obviously made the right choice in where we moved, because the school district was the number one priority for us.
We have yet to meet a teacher or administrator that does not believe in God or in education in the traditional definition of it.
No one has ever told me I wasn't "smart enough" to home school, and they best not. I chose not to do so after my daughter turned 4. I had been doing much prior to that but realized that my temperment was not conducive for the task. We chose what we felt to be best for our child.
We do much at home in addition to what she learns in school and the teachers love us for it. And encourage us to do more. I guess we are lucky, we have a public school district/system that actually EXPECTS parental participation. And they achieve it.
Darn feeble compared with their efforts to shut down homeschools, in most cases without even a scintilla of merit (hey I can speak attorney talk too).
I think if you read my post and the fact that I had been a proponent of home schools that you will find it difficult to extrapolate that I would be someone who approves of public schools.
Odds are, however, you'll find far fewer problems in the homeschool environment; as time goes on this is increasingly backed by hard data.
I can't think of 'hard data' when I look at two individuals who are going to have more than a difficult time in life because of their upbringing, their faces erase any thought of 'data'.
I can tell you this that the brother of one of the parents is going to send his kids to public school simply because of their example. I don't applaud that, he should use their example to do it better himself. The whole point I'm making is that being 'home schooled' is not synonymous with quality education.
I'm also more than turned off by the bumptious self righteous attitude that is often part of the whole home school movement.
Of course it does, frequently, but we aren't talking about public schooling here, we're talking about home schooling and those who put it on a level where it must be unquestionably praised are not doing it any favors.
Holding my sides trying not to fall down laughing!
It's obvious the parents are dunces in that, thankfully rare, case. Does Bro deem himself to be a dunce? Does he think some evil magic descends from the skies upon home schools and turns everyone there into dunces?
The race is not always to the swift or the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.
Bumpt, bumpt, bumpt
I am the mother of a very intelligent 3 year old. I am planning on home schooling him as long as I can. I have already started with the basics. My question is if any of you participate in home school coops and what is a good way to find other home schooling christian famlies in my area.
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