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why homeschool?

  • Mar. 19th, 2004 at 2:27 PM

The comments on one of [info]snidegrrl's posts got me thinking about how we choose to educate our kids (among other things). Her post is actually about gender assumptions and childrearing, but she brought up a question a lot of you parents (and potential parents) could help me answer.

What is the best way to educate children if you don't want them indoctrinated to think things like "girls are pretty", "boys are strong" and "everybody's white and has exactly one mommy and daddy"? I'm not talking about - despite what some people may immediately think - using your child as a political tool; rather, I'm thinking about protecting our kids so the choices they make aren't based on the "norm" but on what they want.

I tend to think that homeschooling is the answer (for a variety of reasons), but I don't have kids or even plans for them. So, I'm curious. For those of you who've given this more thought, what do you think are the best schooling options for your [real or hypothetical kids]? And why?

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( 4 comments — Leave a comment )
[info]snidegrrl wrote:
Mar. 19th, 2004 03:15 pm (UTC)
I really, really wish I had an answer to this.
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[info]firecat wrote:
Mar. 20th, 2004 11:56 pm (UTC)
You can't protect them, but you can tell them that making their own decisions is an option, and tell them about the pros and cons of making their own decisions, and then let them, well, make their own decisions.

I was planning to homeschool, but I ended up not having kids. On the other hand, I mostly liked school.
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[info]keryx wrote:
Mar. 23rd, 2004 07:23 am (UTC)
I totally agree that older kids need to be educated in decision-making. But I'm worried that kids get beaten with the gender stick (and all the other "norms") before they can even talk. I guess homeschooling doesn't help kids before school age, but something ought to.

It's funny that I worry about this, though, since I don't really plan to have kids.
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[info]firecat wrote:
Mar. 23rd, 2004 10:06 am (UTC)
Probably making sure infants/toddlers see caregivers/adults of all sexes doing a variety of things is the best antidote to that influence, even though it's not going to be perfect.

Here we are, without children and knowing all the answers :-)
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