Quote of the Day
I feel like an alien, having traveled down to planet earth and found that society just does this and thinks it’s normal, and I am personally horrified but gently going ‘are you sure this is ok’ to people who insist that no, this was necessary and they will happily do it to their own children. On a planet made out of Aellas, any one of you who attended public school could go on the talk shows and discuss your traumatic upbringing where your entire childhood was wasted away into systematic damage to your curiosity. You’d get massive sympathy from the audience and you could go on a book tour and they’d make a dramatic tragic biopic about your life. On a planet made out of Aellas, you’d need therapy.
Aella
May 28, 2025
Chattel Childhood – by Aella – Knowingless
The quote above is noteworthy. Reading the entire post is reality warping.
Even loons can have blogs…
Kurt
Really interesting piece with lots of good points. What it unfortunately doesn’t confront is that many folks who are homeschooling are specifically doing so in order to indoctrinate their kids in religion, leveraging the fact that if you start telling a child stories early enough and often enough, by the time they’re an adult they’ll have no reason (or in many cases ability) to question them.
The same is true of almost any set of social structures. And many people see that as a feature rather than a bug. My preference is probably more aligned with you on this specific topic, but I prefer liberty for parents to choose for their children and let social Darwinism sort things out rather than force one size fits all on everyone.
Proverbs 22.
As one who had also been homeschooled up to 10th grade, her descriptions of public school forcing an hour’s worth of learning into a seven-hour day is spot-on. College was also makework tasks “learning” skills mastered before I could drive. Every day was an exercise in patience waiting until the one or two class periods of psychology, philosophy, or other subject that administrators decided I needed to know.
Haven’t seen much of religious isolationism in the homeschooling communities I’ve observed… Sure that’s likely an inherent selection bias, and/or a distortion spread by grifters in the current literally strict definition of fascist education cartel.
To your note that you haven’t seen much religious isolationism: it’s more than half.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/20/a-look-at-homeschooling-in-the-us/
I think it’s much more than half. If you count the leftist persuasion of almost all of the public school and tenured faculty instructors, I would say the religious isolationism is almost complete, particularly when you compare all of it to the parents who want their children to be able to ask questions and conduct analysis to determine what is true about any situation. And I don’t pretend that merely opposing the other can indicate this ability.
If you go to a Catholic school, they will teach that the Pope is good and honest and just.
If you go to a Jewish school, they will teach that the rabbi is good and honest and just.
If you go to a Islamic school, they will teach that the imam is good and honest and just.
If you home school, they will teach that the family and parents is good and honest and just.
If you go to a government school, they will teach that the government is good and honest and just.
Of all of those, I’d say that the government school is least likely to be correct.
More than half the home-schooled children in the U.S. are there because their parents want them to be taught in a religious curriculum. And not one that can be found in the religious schools that are available, particularly the Catholic church.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/20/a-look-at-homeschooling-in-the-us/
So for at least half, home schooling isn’t about teaching that family and parents are just, it’s about teaching religious doctrine.
I’ve been saying something similar for years.
In my version it’s that the particular brand of school teaches that the “brand” is the solution to all their problems.
Hence so many kids who go to government school sincerely believing that government is the solution to all their problems.
I probably originally heard it from someone else, but it stuck because it’s so true.
“So for at least half, home schooling isn’t about teaching that family and parents are just, it’s about teaching religious doctrine.”
You say that like its a bad thing.
“So for at least half, home schooling isn’t about teaching that family and parents are just, it’s about teaching religious doctrine.”
As opposed to schools, where it’s it’s not “at least half”, it’s 100% all the time.
It’s just that the “religious doctrine” they are teaching is the worship of the state.
NOT having something in that slot is, as best I can tell, impossible.
The public schooling system we have was explicitly designed to create good cogs for the machine, to produce people who obey the government and such. That it, it was explicitly created to indoctrinate.
And now, some portion of the those not participating in that indoctrination might be additional doing some of their own indoctrination, and you are upset about it.
Only half is a BIG improvement (and that’s giving you everything you claimed for the sake of argument, which is quite generous, since I’ve homeschooled my own children and have a lot of information and experience with the homeschooling community).
You are upset about the wrong thing.
I was dubious of your “explicitly designed” phrasing, but it looks like you’re right:
https://truthinamericaneducation.com/why-did-john-d-rockefeller-create-the-school-system/
And this:
https://medium.com/@sofialherani/the-dark-truth-of-the-educational-system-shaped-by-john-d-rockefeller-77bf1b0167dd
Yes, I used that phrasing intentionally, and Rockefeller is not even the worst example.
I generally try quite hard not to use other phrases with their own specific meanings as mere emphasis, as so many people do (“Misuse of the word literally drives me figuratively insane” is a wonderful saying).
I’m sure I slip from time to time, but it is a goal of mine to minimize such things. They impede good communication.
That’s the older one, right? Not Junior? I have to say I knew nothing about John D.’s role in the co-option of our education. When I was a pre-teen (or is it a “Tweener” now? Every time the educational establishment develops a new philosophy and teaching regimen the terms change), I received as a gift a biography of John Dewey the education reformer. I read it and did not think it was unusual (at 12, what would I have to think with, anyway?) Years later, I stumbled across “Dumbing Us Down”, by John Taylor Gatto, and an online history of the national school system in America, also by him. I then reread the Dewey Biography and saw that it provided evidence of Gatto’s assertions.
One thing that post is good for, is illustrating why “multiculturalism” within one country can’t work. One culture’s normal is another culture’s 20-to-life felony. Of course, when the commie left pushes multiculturalism what they real mean is “you must accept and fund and applaud our degenerate and dysfunctional culture, and your Christian / Western / functional culture must be eliminated.”
To be fair, culture is in part based on biology and historical necessity. Long winters in the northern latitudes are very unforgiving of poor long-term planning and preparation, and self-control is essential when living in close quarters all winter. That requires higher IQ, which can understand non-immediate consequences. Tropic cultures with year-round growing and warm nights tolerates poor planning and lower IQ much better. Explaining consequences to a 65 IQ person is like talking to a wall. Ask a South African white how they taught immigrant blacks to not just squat in the street like they did in the bush; it wasn’t with polite language, because they found that never worked.
I could only read about half of that before I gave up and stopped.
Sure, some people treat kids like property. Some people also commit rape and murder and arson.
Kids, in general, aren’t property, they’re responsibility.
I have a responsibility to teach my kids to understand the world, to be able to survive in it successfully, and hopefully to thrive in it.
Part of that, by the way, is teaching them the belief system in which I am devoted. If that’s Judaism, it’s my responsibility to teach them about that. Protestant Christianity, Catholicism, Islam, Paganism…doesn’t matter. If I truly believe the very souls of my children are at risk, it would be parental malpractice NOT to teach them of those beliefs.
I absolutely agree with her basic premise that what some would consider horrible abuse is “just part of growing up” to others. She used extreme examples, but some would say the way I was raised was cruel and abusive. It wasn’t. It was life on the farm. I’m glad I was raised that way…I had plenty to keep me busy and keep me fit. Much better than growing up in some econobox surrounded by concrete and people and with nothing to do but get fat or get into trouble.
Anyway, my point is that it sounds like she was legitimately abused as a kid and is dealing with the trauma as best she can. Kudos to her. But to turn her experiences into a condemnation of parenthood as “ownership of” children rather than “responsibility for” children is just wrong.
Maybe if I’d gotten to the end she’d have revealed some greater point that I missed, if so, sorry I couldn’t wade through the garbage to get to the gem, but I just couldn’t do it.