brucesterling:
*Memories of the Space Age
And this is where I must quote the children’s book about Skylab that we had when I was little. “Skylab is in trouble, a wing is jammed, a shield is torn. An astronaut must take a spacewalk…” Yes, I was a nerdy child, why do you ask? I can’t believe I still remember that. And yet Skylab had already fallen to earth by the time I was born.
(Source: brucesterling)
This is part one in a two part series, I’ll be posting part two tomorrow. It was originally written as part of the Homeschoolers Anonymous series, “Homeschoolers Are Out.”
***
It turns out that it’s easy to guard your heart when you’re not attracted to someone, but I’m getting ahead of myself here. To begin this story, we need to go back in time, back to when I was a homeschool kid growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Despite my parents running the private school for homeschoolers, and my mom finding herself spending far more time on the phone giving advice to new homeschoolers than she would have liked, and that one time that they wound up helping to put together a state-wide homeschool convention (something they vowed never to do again), my family wasn’t nearly as connected to the homeschooling subculture as many people. There really wasn’t that much of a homeschooling subculture when my parents started homeschooling, since back in the mid ‘80s there weren’t many homeschoolers.
Most of the national opportunities like debate weren’t around until I was done, or nearly done, with high school. Also, my mom didn’t particularly like hanging out with other homeschool moms and talking about each other’s children, and (with the exception of the aforementioned convention) avoided homeschool conventions like the plague. The parade of supermoms in denim jumpers and white sneakers who sewed all their own clothing, baked all their bread, and still found time to design grade-appropriate unit studies made her feel inadequate—after all, she didn’t do a single unit study in 18 years of homeschooling, hated denim jumpers, and especially wasn’t going to be sewing the aforementioned jumpers. That’s not to say I didn’t have more than my fair share of homeschooled friends, but they were mostly ones I knew from non-homeschool circles, and I never considered myself one of those homeschoolers. We were about as mainstream as they come.
I don’t remember where we first heard about courtship, just that somewhere along the line when I was in middle school it began to become fashionable even among the friends who were mainstream homeschoolers. These were not the people who made their daughters wear shapeless jumpers and wouldn’t let them cut their hair; they were the cool people with the latest clothes who educated their sons and daughters equally, and it all seemed so reasonable couched in the idea that it was all about waiting until you were done with college and had a career before pursuing a serious relationship. And didn’t it make sense? After all, when my parents met my dad had already finished his first master’s degree and my mom was 28, independent, and had even studied in the UK and traveled around Europe. What was the point of rushing into a series of relationships before you even had the chance to live?
This not being the 19th century, none of us knew how this whole courtship thing was supposed to work in the modern era, but then someone had given someone else some tapes from this guy who talked about courtship, and he went by the name Little Bear Wheeler, and, oh, you should listen to him because he might be a little out there but he’s entertaining. And so off my family, who hated homeschool conventions and avoided them like the plague, went to hear this Little Bear fellow speak. That’s how these things seem to work in the homeschool world and how normal families get pulled into extremism. You start out reasonably and the next thing you know you’re wearing your one and only denim skirt (because you instinctively knew that’s what you needed to do to blend in) and you’re listing to a guy cosplaying as a pilgrim who’s telling you that the Puritans didn’t date.
I don’t remember many details, it’s been nearly twenty years, but I do remember hearing, over and over, that you needed to, “guard your heart.” If you guard your heart, then you won’t give pieces of it away to the wrong guy. If you guard your heart, then you won’t have frivolous crushes on guys who would never be suitable mates. Guard your heart. Guard your heart. Guard your heart. If you’re really spiritual and godly, you’ll be able to guard your heart until the right season of your life.
It was a message that grew into a chorus in the homeschool circles I grew up in. Guard your heart, always and in every situation, guard your heart. By the time I neared the end of high school, the chorus had grown into a cacophony, as courtship went mainstream into evangelicalism with Josh Harris’ “I Kissed Dating Goodbye.” And by the time I made it to college, it seemed as though everyone had read it, and even if they called their relationships, “dating,” it was still operating on those general principles.
Through all of this, I patted myself on my back because I wasn’t getting any “frivolous” crushes on guys, and clearly this meant that I was super spiritual and doing a great job of guarding my heart. It turns out it had less to do with being super spiritual than it had to do with being super gay.
But again, I’m getting ahead of myself.
I’ve never asked my parents about this, so I don’t know what they would have done if one of us had wanted to date in high school, or what they would have said if we’d have read all of the courtship material, listened to the speakers, and announced that we thought it all bunk. My parents didn’t have a problem with me voicing an opinion that was different than theirs, and if I had objections to courtship back then, I suspect that I could have brought those up and we would have discussed it. Except that I didn’t have any objections because my siblings and I all bought into it. It didn’t matter that we were as mainstream as they come, that my sister and I both wanted educations and careers and had been taught we could be and do whatever we set our minds to, that my brothers didn’t want to marry someone who wasn’t their equal, we still bought into it. Their experiences and opinions are not my story to tell, other than to say that despite all buying into it, eventually we all decided that the whole courtship system was a problem.
By the time you make it through college you think that you know yourself. College is when you’re supposed to find yourself, after all. And so, even after I decided that courtship was bunk, I never stopped to consider that the reason I hadn’t met the right guy had anything to do with anything other than the fact that my hometown has a serious dearth of college educated, available men. Seriously, it’s quite literally one of the worst metropolitan areas in the country for a college educated single woman to find a guy with an education, and there are plenty of statistics to back that up. It was an easy excuse, especially considering that my sister spent plenty of time complaining about the demographics too. So easy an excuse, in fact, that it never crossed my mind that it was an excuse.
To be continued.
Memo to the US: We may have the one of the best freight rail systems in the world but it’s terrible for passenger travel. I’ve taken trains all over the world, in first world countries and developing ones and I’ve never been bounced around as much as on this Amtrak train from Tampa to DC. I’d compare it to the 3rd world but any comparisons would be unfair because the 3rd world has functioning passenger rail. There’s no need for a smooth ride with freight but if we’re ever going to have a functional passenger rail system we need high speed dedicated passenger lines. If China can cover the county with rail lines surely the US can manage.
And that’s not even going into Rick Scott killing high speed rail in Florida.
Such a cool old train station. Also, currently a big thunderstorm, that’ll make things nice to look at out the windows.
—Anyone regret slashing National Weather Service budget now? (via wilwheaton)
I seem to recall going on a twitter tirade about this. Could Republicans please stop trying to kill the National Weather Service? So many more lives would have been lost without all the advance warning.
(via wilwheaton)
One of the first blog posts I ever did on this incarnation of my blog was about John Piper’s insensitive comments after deadly tornadoes.
He’s at it again. This was tweeted at 11:58 pm on Monday, just hours after scores of people were killed in Oklahoma.
“Your sons and daughters were eating and a great wind struck the house, and it fell upon them, and they are dead.” Job 1:19
— John Piper (@JohnPiper) May 21, 2013
And, in case he deletes it, here’s a screenshot:
There is a time and a place to be quoting Job, this isn’t it, or at least it isn’t the time and the place to be quoting that particular verse. The bodies aren’t even cold yet. To his credit, he’s also tweeting links to disaster relief, but this is so insensitive, I don’t even have anything more I can say. I’m too disgusted.
At least this time he didn’t blame it on the gays, I guess that’s progress?
The local paper does stories on all of the high school graduations, and where the stories for the other school graduations follow the same formula—mention something from the speaker, go with a few quotes from graduates about going out into the world, the homeschool support group graduation story includes quotes from kids talking up homeschooling as a concept.
Don’t ask that question of kids. Seriously, just don’t. No kid should be put in the position of defending and explaining their education to adults.
Aside from the fact that in 2013 it’s not like homeschooling is something nobody’s heard of, that’s just not something you should put on a kid. It’s too much pressure and it makes the kid feel even more like an outsider, an “other,” and not part of mainstream culture. Even if a kid had an absolutely wonderful experience, homeschool apologetic isn’t something a kid should be expected to do. Parents, don’t ask this of your kids. Random strangers, don’t put a kid on the spot and start asking questions. It’s not fair to the kid.
I had to put up with random strangers asking me questions about homeschooling since I was six. Six. Let that sink in for a second. How in the world would anyone think that’s remotely something that you should put on a six year old? I can’t even count how many times I was wandering around the public library minding my own business looking for interesting books when I’d be stopped by a stranger asking me, “why aren’t you in school?” Now, granted, back in the ’80s, homeschooling was a novelty, but still. It would have been one thing if it had ended with me responding, “I’m homeschooled,” but nope, the next question was, “Is it legal?” Seriously, people would ask a little elementary schooler to explain the legality of their education. No six year old should ever have to cite statutes for any reason, but I spent a good chunk of my early school years explaining the legal status of homeschooling to adults who wouldn’t stop asking questions. It took me a few years after I finished college before I could begin to look at homeschooling objectively because so many adults spent so many years putting me on the spot, asking me to defend it to them. I still don’t understand why an adult would ask that of a child, especially a very young child, but that’s what happened to me and my siblings. It would make me feel like I was some kind of performing freak show to them.
So next time you encounter a homeschool kid and feel tempted to ask them about homeschooling, resist the urge. No kid should be put on the spot to defend their entire system of education,
And thus ends Kathryn’s rant.
What other fandom would a bunch of people accidentally get sent the season DVD with the season finale a week early and not have the whole plot plastered all over the Internet and the video on torrent? I didn’t even have to make an effort to avoid getting the Doctor Who finale spoilered. I guess all the River Song “spoilers” lines over the years sank in.
Just watched the season finale of Arrow. So good. So many feels. If you didn’t watch the first season, go back and watch it now that all the shows are going into hiatus for the summer.
This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes — Morpheus, The Matrix
In the few days since I wrote my post about what I strongly suspect is HSLDA’s litigation strategy to make homeschooling a fundamental right with no restrictions, not even for abusers, people have been doing some digging and have found information that quite frankly, is incredibly disturbing.
In a nutshell, in 2009 an all male group of homeschool leaders met for a summit at one of Bill Gothard’s ATI training centers to discuss the future of homeschooling. Included among the big names present were Doug Phillips of Vision Forum (and former HSLDA attorney), Brian Ray of NHERI, and Christopher Klicka of HSLDA. Among the topics discussed was a call to abolish child protective services and plans were outlined about how they would go about instituting a Christian theocracy with homeschoolers paving the way. Heather at Becoming Worldly and R.L. Stollar at Homeschooler’s Anonymous both have extremely long and extremely informative posts laying out what exactly happened at the summit, I think it’s important to go read both posts. While I’ve long suspected that there was an agenda based on the bits and pieces of memories I have from things I read and heard from various homeschooling leaders over the years, seeing the road map laid out was chilling.
I’ve snarked about the irony of HSLDA setting me on the path to where I am today by getting me interested in law, I’ve imagined how different my life would have been if I’d been accepted to the HSLDA intern program, I’ve written about HSLDA ignoring child abuse, and I’ve laid out my theory about HSLDA’s litigation strategy, but seeing Doug Phillip’s words presented in black and white in Heather’s post yesterday morning has thrown me for a loop. I’ve suspected for years that the self-appointed leaders in the homeschool movement were using us, but as long as it was just a suspicion I could shove it to the back of my brain and write it off as the conspiracy theory of an over-active imagination. I can’t do that any more, the proof is there.
I feel sick. I feel angry. And even more than that, I feel used.
My siblings and I were the successful homeschoolers. The ones that other parents could point to as the example that homeschooling could work. Other people started homeschooling because of us. My parents directed people to groups like HSLDA as a resource, never knowing that there was a broader agenda. Heck, I directed people to HSLDA. I wasn’t a debater, and I never had anything to do with Joshua Generation, but in my very existence as a successful homeschooler I helped sell homeschooling to other people.
My very efforts to be normal showed people that homeschoolers didn’t have to be poorly socialized weirdos. People who then got sucked into the system and ended up buying into the messages that I hadn’t bought into and hurting their kids as a result.
I took NHERI’s (poorly designed, self-selected) survey about homeschool graduates, and in answering truthfully about my positive experience, I became a pawn in the effort to convince the nation that homeschoolers were better, smarter, more successful than our peers. It was a message that sucked more parents into the system where they bought into the extremism and hurt their kids as a result.
Homeschooling can be great, it can be wonderful. When I was diagnosed with ADD, my doctor told me that my parents deciding to homeschool was probably one of the best things that could have happened to me. I’m the quiet kid who just stares out the window for hours and aces tests, not the class disrupter, so homeschooling kept me from falling through the cracks. And yet.
And yet.
And yet I cannot separate my homeschool experience from the nagging feeling that by providing a safe, normal, successful face to homeschooling I was a pawn in the culture war to turn America into some sort of Christian version of Saudi Arabia. That wasn’t my choice.
There are steps I took during the culture war fights of the ’90s that I regret, and even though I was still a kid back then and didn’t fully know what I was doing, at least I went into it with some personal agency and I own that and learned from the experience. Being a cog in a homeschooling movement that has as it’s goal creating a Christian theocracy where men are the absolute heads and women only stay home and produce more children for the fight was not something I signed up for. It makes me feel dirty just thinking about it.
What makes me really mad is that in being used as a pawn in somebody else’s culture war, I was used as a pawn to make my own life harder. Not that I realized it at the time, but, I’m gay. It’s not something I chose, any more than I chose my blue eyes or being right handed. It’s just something that is. I don’t have a problem with it, I am what I am, and I wouldn’t change it. Changing would make me a different person. Not to mention that I think it’s kind of bad form to tell God that he screwed up in making you. That said, my life would be easier if there wasn’t a constant push back from culture warriors making it so that we have to fight every step of the way just to be treated as an ordinary citizen. It’s a front in the culture wars that Doug Phillips specifically mentioned at the 2009 summit, and in his vision homeschoolers are leading the fight. And my very existence as a successful homeschool graduate helps legitimize the movement.
Even if I repudiate everything, including homeschooling of any kind, because I was a homeschooler I’m still a pawn. I can’t escape it, not really. If I keep my mouth shut and play the role of the good little homeschooler, then I’m propping up a system that is actively working to destroy America as we know it. But if I speak up, if I tell the truth about my life, if I’m honest about the fact that while on most points I’m still a theologically conservative Christian, I’m also politically liberal, feminist, and gay, then I’m proof of why parents need to shelter their children, keep their daughters from college, and isolate themselves from mainstream culture. I can’t win.
And so here it is, 6 am. I should be asleep but instead I’m here writing because maybe, just maybe, if I put my feelings down into words the turmoil in my brain will quiet down. I almost wish I had just done what I’ve been doing for the last decade, shoved all the niggling little memories about homeschooling back down, and gone about my business of being the normal girl who got by, on a technicality, with telling everyone I graduated from private school.
I’ve seen how deep the rabbit hole goes and now I wish I’d taken the blue pill.
