This afternoon we are off the the Exhibition. It’s like a county fair. So no time to tweak the layout today, sorry. (shoot, and I have comments to answer…)
I must say, I love my husband. (sappy, sick people we are) And I love that he blogs now. He is my calm in the storm, even if he did leave a basket of clean unfolded laundry at the end of the bed as some sort of convoluted hint that maybe I should fold it and put it away.
Aw hecj, the stuff on my mind from yesterday I am posting anyway. I’ll be gone all afternoon, so let the chips fall where they may.
Well, the same sort of thing came up in at least 3 or 4 places on the internet lately. Discussions about un/homeschooling and how some people just don’t “get” it. Of course, that’s not what they said, it’s more of an attitude of “I think homeschoolers are nuts, but not you, so don’t take it personal.” I mean, ask me a homeschooling question and I will talk about some generalizations, yes, but not as blanket statements and not as applying to the whole of everyone. I’m talking about specifically to do with me and my kids. It especially bothers me when someone else gets all riled up and they don’t even have kids, or just babies. I know it has more to do with them and their comfort zones, and I have just pulled them out of it, but sheesh.
And I realized in the middle of a discussions with someone, that I was much gentler and less flip than I would have been if I didn’t know here. Then I realized everyone should be afforded that same treatment from me.
*sigh*
In a lot of ways I feel like the newly converted. Ick. It would be nice if I had more friends who at least would try to understand my position, even if that didn’t agree with it. Okay, i guess I do have real friends like that (offline and on) but it seems like I have come across a lot of people lately who just can’t seem to entertain a thought in their head that someone may do something differently and it actually works.
What’s even more pathetic is that I didn’t feel safe enough to rant
about this whole thing in my own blog.
Well, you know, you’re an inspiration to me. You’ve helped me feel better about questioning myself and my ideas about quite a few things. I’m definitely with you on unschooling. I’m really hoping that unschooling is going to work for us (I don’t know why it wouldn’t, but you know, it’s hard to deschool your own mind and I’d like to keep an *open* mind until we know a bit more about what Rebecca will want when she’s older). I never want to hurt anyone’s feelings or make them feel bad or feel like I don’t like them because they do things differently. But then it’s hard to really speak your mind, isn’t it?
OMG, Andrea—your husband is so evolved! Did he come that way, or did you have to housebreak him yourself? (hee!—kidding…kinda…) No wonder you feel sappy about him.
Oh, by the way. Re: Ron’s entry. I giggled when I read this bit *cough* “So, when I got home I had her out in the garden…” *cough*
Heh.
I’m sorry.
I’m really really punchy and smart-alecky today.
Just regarding my own blog and the people who have come to it commenting negatively about something I have written about unschooling, I think part of what bothers me is that I feel like there is this huge gap between the place where their thinking is and where my thinking is, and to bridge that gap in one comment section over and over again… well, it can seem overwhelming. So I made a deal with myself. I’ll continue to say whatever I need to say about unschooling, but I won’t let myself feel pressured to go all out with my responses back to people who disagree. I have been saying that when I talk about unschooling I do it because I want to and it helps people to understand where I am coming from better, but I’m not trying to convince anyone to change their viewpoint. But the way I always answer every single dissenting comment (lengthily!), I wonder if there’s not a part of me that *is* trying to convince them that I’m right and they are wrong.
I think it’s hard when you feel so strongly about an issue like homeschooling, to NOT want to convert the opposition a little bit. I don’t necessarily want everyone to home/unschool, but I would like to for everyone to at least recognize it as a realistic choice for many families.
What gets to me, though, is the defensiveness which permeates the whole public school crowd. It’s like they want so badly to defend their choice, when they don’t NEED to. I’ve never posted that public school was terrible in general, just that it isn’t what I want for MY kids. Yet, I still get defensive responses from people who think that my take on the issue is an insult to them. It’s all so frustrating.
you can be sure you have a supportive IRL person of your unschooling right here:-)