The Duggars: When Homeschool Idols Have Clay Feet

Posted on May 23, 2015 by Barb

Though I’ve never watched the Duggars on television, only a hermit would have to be unaware of them, because they’re all over the Internet too. And we’ll be inundated with Duggar reports now that the media has discovered an unreported scandal in the Duggar family some years ago.

This large Christian homeschooling family became idols for some people, who were stunned by their ability to raise children who were so different from the rest of the world. But now we’ve learned that they’re not so different after all; they have clay feet like everyone else, and the specific incident that has caused all the commotion was actually criminal in nature.

I have strong opinions about what went on with their eldest son, but my purpose here is not to air them. I’m more concerned about what this revelation will do to the average person’s conception of homeschooling, and the average Christian homeschooler’s perception of what a homeschooling family can really be. I hate that this news casts a negative shadow on homeschooling. But many in the homeschooling community have asked for this by putting these people on a pedestal.

Indeed, since homeschooling began getting major attention 20+ years ago, some Christian homeschooling families have put themselves up on pedestals, just as the Duggars did, and in every case I know of, they eventually came crashing down, leaving disillusioned homeschoolers in their wake. Without naming names, I’m thinking of a Christian homeschooling mom who was a gifted public speaker with a hidden dark personal life, a Christian homeschooling dad who ran a successful business but let his weaknesses take over and destroy his business and hurt his family, a man who ran an empire that mesmerized many homeschool families while he took advantage of young women volunteering for his organization…..so you see, the Duggars are just the latest in a series of people in the homeschooling sphere who become idols, gain tremendous popularity and then disillusion those who admire them by crashing and burning in a spectacular way.

If you’re one of the disillusioned, please don’t let it sway your good opinion of homeschooling. For every one of these people who give homeschooling a black eye, there are hundreds of hardworking parents who are giving their kids a healthy, happy home life along with a solid education. They don’t go about trumpeting themselves, and they avoid pedestals, but their families are living proof that homeschooling works. Maybe you’re one of them. 🙂

My hope is that more and more homeschoolers will learn to trust their own instincts instead of looking for high-profile homeschoolers to imitate. Maybe this latest episode of “Crash and Burn Homeschoolers” will convince them to change the channel.

Ridiculous Parenting Expectations

Posted on April 2, 2015 by Barb

OK, Buzzfeed, I’m calling you out. At first I thought your post “31 Things You Can Do With Peeps That Will Blow Your Kids’ Minds” was a joke, but no, here it is, subtitled “Make Easter Unforgettable,” and it looks to me like you’re completely serious.

Are you kidding me? After I read it, I tweeted: Impress ur kids w/Peeps? Seriously? Just relax and let the kids eat the dang things out of the pkg instead.

And I meant it. Who on earth has time to do those things? Besides, if your kids’ Easter will be forgettable without Peeps, they’re pretty spoiled, don’t you think?

What really concerns me about that post is that it’s just one more example of the tremendous amount of pressure on parents these days to make everything perfect for their children. To make matters worse, many parents have been sucked into the competitive world of Facebook, so they won’t just waste precious hours of their lives dipping Peeps into more sugar (and doing the sticky cleanup afterwards), but will also stay up into the wee hours taking photos of their “amazing” creations and putting them on Facebook so that their many “friends” will applaud them with “likes” (and secretly feel guilty that they didn’t do that for their children.)

Sigh.

I wish there weren’t so many voices out there telling parents that they must do this or that amazing thing for their children, because children’s needs are actually pretty simple:

They need consistent parenting with secure boundaries they can live safely within.
They need regular one-on-one time with their parents: time spent reading together, singing together, working together or playing on the floor together…with no phones or iPads to interrupt the fun.
They need hugs and kisses (especially after they’ve been disciplined).

Bottom line? They need love, attention, and security from their parents. That’s a big enough job without adding 31 ways to make Peeps mind-blowing.

Giving Your Children the Gift of Silence

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Barb

Matthew Crawford had a wonderful piece in the New York Times last week, where he discussed the lack of silence in our lives and how much we suffer for it.

His focus was on the pervasive advertising that surrounds us, but that’s just one facet of our loss of silence. We live in an increasingly noisy world, and that’s bad because we need silence to think.

It’s especially important for children to have periods of silence in their lives. How can they think if they’re being bombarded by sound all the time? How can they develop a rich thought life, and learn who they are?

Parents who are blessed to be home with their children most of the time can and should control the amount of sound (and silence) their children are exposed to. I was one of those parents, and I tried to include silence in my children’s lives.

When they were babies, I didn’t always pick them up the moment they awoke. I still remember standing in the hall listening to them coo, and babble, and later on, chatter, as they woke up on their own; those are great memories. By the time they were toddlers, they liked being alone in their beds in the quiet, so they rarely fussed about having a daily nap time. As they got older, they still had naptime, but they didn’t have to sleep. Instead, they could lay quietly on their beds and read or daydream.

I often sat with them in the backyard and watched them play, or took them to the park where they could hear the birds. Fortunately there were no cell phones then to chirp or play music incessantly, even in public parks, as there are now.

In the house, quiet times were common. The children had limited television time, so the rest of the day, the television was off. Sometimes I’d have music playing on a radio or tape player, but most of the time the only noise was our chatter amongst ourselves, and the children’s laughter.

I’ve written before about how parents need to be careful not to spend all their valuable time with their children chatting on the phone; that came from my childhood experience of having a mother who was on the phone for hours at a time. The background noise of hours’ long adult phone conversations isn’t really good for children, especially if they hear things they’re too young to hear.

Today, there are blaring television screens in children’s restaurants like Chuck E. Cheese’s (as if there weren’t enough to do there already) and stationed at public swimming pools. Even the silence of the public library is polluted by people chatting on their cell phones. There are few places children can go to be in silence so they can think about their world.

If parents don’t purposely give their children chances to experience silence, where else will they find it?

Saying Goodbye to Your Adult Child

Posted on December 8, 2014 by Barb

There once was a single mom whose son joined the military. She missed him terribly, and greatly enjoyed his brief, rare visits home whenever he could get a weekend pass. He was stationed in Florida, so driving home to Chicago and back took up much of the weekend, giving this mom only a few precious hours with her son.

Then one weekend he came home just long enough to say that he was going out with a girl he’d been writing to. Leaving his bag of dirty laundry in the foyer, he shaved and changed into a new suit, then flew out the door.

Late that night, after dropping his date off at her house, he arrived home to see his dirty laundry scattered across the front yard. Some of it was hanging from the trees. He had just enough time to gather up his clothes and head back to Florida, leaving one very angry mom in his wake.

That’s a true story. I often heard both sides of it, because the mom was my grandmother, the son was my dad, and his date was my mom. Whenever my dad told the story, he always laughed about it. But when my grandma told it, anyone could see that she hadn’t completely gotten over her anger.

It wasn’t just the dirty laundry that he expected her to wash, of course. It was the idea that she was no longer his priority when he came home. The many sacrifices she’d made for him and his siblings no longer seemed to matter. All he cared about was some girl he’d met, at least as far as my grandma was concerned.

Another true story that happened to a friend of mine, who is a mom of many children: one of her middle children was the first to go away to college. He was the family clown whose sunny disposition was a bright spot in her life. But whenever he came home for the weekend, he was so busy with his friends that she hardly got to see him. Needless to say, she was very excited that he would be home for the summer, working a summer job to earn money for the coming school year.

Imagine her disappointment when he called to say that he was able to borrow a lot more than he expected in student loans, so he would be spending the summer touring Europe with friends. She barely saw him at all that summer; by the time he came home from Europe, he had to pack up and leave for the fall semester of college.

I felt sorry for my friend when that happened, just as I felt sorry for my grandma when she talked about throwing my dad’s dirty laundry out of the window in anger. But it wasn’t until I had to let go of my own kids that I truly understood how my friend and my grandma felt. It hurts, a lot, and the kids don’t notice because they’re too busy taking on their future.

That said, what’s the alternative? Do you really want to lock up that adult child and keep them close, preventing them from leaving home, finding work, finding love? A common Internet meme is the 30-year-old living in Mom’s basement playing video games and trolling forums. Is that how you hoped your child would turn out? I doubt it.

No, we have to let our kids go. It’s OK to acknowledge the hurt, and to move on (which can be even more difficult than the original letting go). But it has to be done, so that your child can become the person God intends them to become. It also frees you to embrace the next stage of your own life (which is a whole ‘nother topic.)

Timeless Encouragement for Moms

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Barb

When I look back on the many years of raising and homeschooling my kids, I’m grateful for those who encouraged me.

I didn’t get much encouragement at first, but I prayed for mentors, and before long God placed some amazing women in my life. (I highly recommend praying for mentors, by the way.) Most of them were women from my church, and a few were older homeschooling moms. Then there was one woman who I never met, but who was truly a blessing in my life, and that was Elisabeth Elliot.

You may have heard of her as the wife of Jim Elliot, one of the martyred missionaries made famous in Through Gates of Splendor
, or as the author of such books as Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ’s Control
or The Shaping of a Christian Family: How My Parents Nurtured My Faith
(one of my all-time favorites).

But she also had a daily radio show that I used to listen to. It was such a big help to me during those busy years. Her calm and Biblical assurances were also a great comfort to me.

So naturally I’m excited to announce that the vehicle through which she encouraged me, her daily radio show, is now being replayed for a new generation of women, and you can access it free on the Internet!

Just click HERE and prepare to be encouraged.

(By the way, Elisabeth Elliot is now well up in years and has age-related health issues that have limited her mobility. But she is lovingly cared for by her third husband Lars Gren. You can learn more about her current life here.)