A recent case decided in the New Hampshire Supreme Court has forced an 11-year-old girl into public school against her will and her mother’s. The case resulted from the parents’ 1999 divorce and the father’s belief that homeschooling does not allow “adequate socialization” for his daughter, despite the fact that in addition to a home-taught Bible class, the mother:
…also taught her daughter math, reading, English, social studies, science, handwriting and spelling using curriculum “comparable to the public school curriculum at the same age.” She also allowed her daughter to take private music lessons and attend a monthly theater class and weekly classes in art, Spanish and physical education at a public school.
Without getting into my perception of the father’s real motivation here, I’m just saddened and frustrated to see yet another divorce cause trouble for homeschoolers in general. Having known of several divorces in the homeschool community, I think it’s a shame that these divorces not only cause misery for the children involved, but that it seems like there’s always one parent who has to punish the former spouse by taking them to court over homeschooling, vaccinations, lack of vaccinations, etc., often creating legal precedents that then affect other homeschooling families.
Seriously, divorcing parents, must you involve the courts in these things? The rest of us are getting a little irritated at being affected by your poor decisions.
SERIOUSLY! I totally agree. I’ve decided that no matter what happens, I will remain married. I mean, I made my bed! I’m a big girl. If I don’t like the way the bed is made, I change it… I don’t go out a buy a new one! Okay, well, if the bed was the literal one, I would buy a new one if I really REALLY needed to, but as far as the “bed” being my hubby… stickin. I’m just stickin. And if not for myself, for my kids – for always!!!
PS
looks like the link to your perceptions of the father’s real motivations is not working. I tried as a left and right click (cause sometimes one won’t work, but the other will) and neither did.
Thanks for weighing in, Tori, and for letting me know about the link. I just redid it and it works again 🙂
Absolutely and without a doubt, you are right Barbara. You stated it perfectly.
Thanks, Judie 🙂
Such a sad issue on so many levels. Thanks for submitting to the Carnival of Homeschooling.
Agreed, Sarah, and you’re welcome!
Sad. My husband and I are attorneys and both do some divorce work and seriously–there are no winners in divorce court. And all too often people use their children as pawns to punish each other. It’s not worth it.
I just hope I can acquire some experience that could help if a case like this ever came along.
What would be great, C of Q, is if you could help a couple in that situation to resolve the problem out of court. There’s a risk of some of these court decisions hurting a lot of people who don’t even know the divorcing couple.
With your experience as both an attorney and a homeschooling parent, I’ll bet you could really be of help to people.