Sickening

There is a video currently getting a lot of attention here on the internet. It was filmed in 2004 by a 16 year old girl with ataxic cerebral palsy. The video is a seven minute long real life portrayal of abuse masquerading as discipline. It is sickening, and may very well contain images which might be a trigger for people who have gone through similar abuse.

 

The girl being beaten in the video is Hillary Adams, the daughter of Judge William Adams. The instance of abuse shown in the video resulted from Hillary downloading software illegally. The description on the original video is as follows:

2004: Aransas County Court-At-Law Judge William Adams took a belt to his own teenage daughter as punishment for using the internet to acquire music and games that were unavailable for legal purchase at the time. She has had ataxic cerebral palsy from birth that led her to a passion for technology, which was strictly forbidden by her father’s backwards views. The judge’s wife was emotionally abused herself and was severely manipulated into assisting the beating and should not be blamed for any content in this video. The judge’s wife has since left the marriage due to the abuse, which continues to this day, and has sincerely apologized and repented for her part and for allowing such a thing, long before this video was even revealed to exist. Judge William Adams is not fit to be anywhere near the law system if he can’t even exercise fit judgement as a parent himself. Do not allow this man to ever be re-elected again. His "judgement" is a giant farce. Signed, Hillary Adams, his daughter.

I have seen people defending William Adams’ actions in comments across the internet. The beating itself does not sicken me as much as all the people who can watch it and not feel that it is wrong and evil to do that to a person, especially a person who is physically helpless. A couple of the comments I’ve seen mention that the girl did not share this video until her father threatened to cut her off financially and take away her car. I have not yet been able to corroborate that piece of information, but lets just assume for a moment that it is true. How the hell does that make the original beating in any way justifiable? I just do not understand.

Unfortunately, this man cannot be held legally accountable for this because the statute of limitations for assault is 5 years and this happened 7 years ago. He could, however, lose his position as a judge in three years if the people in his county vote him out. And I sincerely hope that people remember this in three years so that they can vote him out, because this kind of person is not qualified to make judgments about much of anything.

Apparently Michael Pearl Thinks Children Are Dogs

I just read an article on the CBS News website about a child who was beaten to death with “religious whips” for mispronouncing a word.

Apparently this couple in California adopted 3 kids from Liberia. One of those kids mispronounced a word and the “parents” decided they needed to “train” the child. By beating her with quarter inch plastic tubing. They got this idea from an evangelist named Michael Pearl, who has written a book called To Train Up A Child.

Now, there are numerous, numerous things wrong with this whole situation. I don’t have the time or the emotional energy to get into them all, but there is one thing that’s I’d like to address. I read the story on CBS’s website, I read the comments, and I read an article that was linked in the comments about Pearl’s reaction to all the criticism this story has brought his way. Nowhere in any of my reading so far have I come across a single person who is bothered by the implication that children should be trained like they are dogs or horses.

Pearl even specifically mentions in his response to his critics that the same techniques he advocates and used on his own children were used to train his dogs not to eat his chickens.

Well, I’d like to go on record here and say this bothers me.

CHILDREN ARE NOT DOGS.

Children are people. And they should be treated with just as much kindness and respect as any adult.

Intactivists Are To The Anti-Circumcision Movement What The Westboro Baptists Are To Christianity

This morning when I was checking my Twitter feed I saw that Lenore from Free Range Kids had posted a video having to do with anti-circumcision activists, or “intactivists” as they like to call themselves. The video gives a summary of the experience of one mother whose child died, due to a heart condition he was born with, the day after he was circumcised. The mother, Jill from the blog The Real Life of a Red Head, describes how after posting about her son’s death in her blog she was attacked online. People left horrible, nasty comments about how it’s her fault her baby died and that she should be charged with manslaughter. She says they stole pictures of her baby from her blog and are treating him as a martyr for their cause. They even went so far as to call the coroner to demand a review for his cause of death and were planning some kind of protest.

After watching the video, I went to this woman’s blog. I haven’t been able to find the nasty comments, but I’ve found multiple posts from her addressing this issue. I’ve also found gut wrenching posts about her pain and grief. When I had only seen the computer generated video, I was disgusted. Now that I’ve read a little bit of what this woman has to say, I’m outraged.

I made my opinion on circumcision pretty clear, I think, in the title of my first post on the topic: Just Say No To Mutilating Your Baby’s Penis. I am generally supportive of the anti-circumcision movement in this country. But what these “intactivists” have done to this mother and her family is abhorrent. They have coopted HER DEAD CHILD to their cause without even asking her permission, and they have attacked her for a choice which, in the end, didn’t really matter at all. In my mind, they are on par with the scum-claiming-to-be-human of the Westboro Baptist Church.

And I know that not all those who identify themselves as intactivists agree with those who’ve made this woman’s life hell. I saw more than one kind, sympathetic comment on her blog from people who were against circumcision. Unfortunately, every group or movement has extremist idiots who give the whole lot a bad name to the public, and from now on in my mind that name is going to be “intactivist”. The sane people who oppose circumcision aren’t intactivists, they’re just activists. Anti-circumcision activists.

Circumcision Legislation

It has recently come to my attention that a man in San Francisco is trying to get legislation passed banning circumcision. I find this to be incredibly interesting.

See, I really hate routine circumcision. I have not heard one single reason for circumcision that I find to be valid or reasonable in the face of the great deal of pain the child is put through. So one might assume I would be all for a law banning routine, non-medically necessary circumcision. Thing is, as much as I hate the practice I also kind of hate the idea of the government infringing on personal freedoms this way. Especially when such legislation could easily open the door for other choices being taken away from us.

I think it would be far more effective for someone to start some sort of initiative to really educate people about circumcision. Explain the anatomy of the infant penis, so that people understand that it’s not nearly as simple as just clipping off a little bit of extra skin. Maybe show them an actual circumcision being performed, so they can see the foreskin being torn away from the glans and hear the child screaming in a way they’ve never heard a baby cry before (or watch as to goes still because it’s slipped into shock). Explain the reason that some medical professionals recommend circumcision to help prevent the spread of AIDS in Africa, and the reason why that is a completely unnecessary precaution in developed nations such as ours. Point out how fucking creepy it is to make this kind of decision based on “wanting him to look like his father”. And show people data on the monetary cost of circumcision.

I truly believe that if more people were educated properly about this procedure, fewer of them would choose to have it done. We don’t need a ban, we need to educate people.

No Screaming Kids

A restaurant in North Carolina has recently been getting a lot of attention due to a policy it enacted about 6 months ago. Simply stated in bold print on normal computer paper and taped up in the restaurant are signs that proclaim, “Screaming Children Will NOT Be Tolerated!”

The owner of the establishment has said that so far this policy has actually been good for business overall, which surprises me. I’ve heard anecdotes about restaurants that have attempted to prohibit children and ended up with picketers outside their doors until they lost so much business they had to close altogether. And I don’t question that anecdotal evidence one bit, because I’ve seen far too many parents in restaurants who do nothing when their children scream or run around and bother other patrons. It’s as though they feel that the fact that they’ve born crotch fruit absolves them of any responsibility to make sure said fruit conducts themselves in a manner that does not infringe upon other people’s right to eat in peace. And it’s these type of entitled people I can easily imagine picketing a restaurant that is just trying to achieve a peaceful atmosphere for its patrons.

At this point I think it’s probably obvious that I support policies such as this in restaurants. They force irresponsible parents to take some responsibility; either by consciously choosing not to take their kids there to eat because they know they are not capable of keeping them from bothering other patrons, or by handling the behavior appropriately when it occurs.

That said, I can see how the argument could be made that a policy like this is discriminatory. There are special needs children who sometimes cannot control outbursts, and it does seem wrong to punish them. But I think that it’s highly likely that the management of the NC restaurant and any other restaurant with a policy such as this would see the need for an exception in cases like these if they’re simply made aware of the child’s condition. Not all rules are enacted by Zero Tolerance nazis who have no ability to think critically and make decisions based on the details of a situation rather than adhering rigidly to the rules.

Babies In The Workplace

Over the past few months (since I became unemployed I think, maybe longer but I dunno because I don’t keep track of these things) I’ve been devouring the archives of a professional advice blog called Ask A Manager. I’m actually a little surprised that I like this blog enough to go through the archives, seeing as I’m not all that career focused overall, but I digress. The reason I bring it up is because the other night I ran across an entry that got me thinking about a couple different things. The post is entitled "bringing babies to work" and was written in response to an interview Lisa Belkin conducted for The New York Times back in November of 2008. Ms. Belkin was interviewing the founder of an organization which advocates parents taking their new babies into the office and caring for them while they work for the first few months, until the baby is mobile.

The author of Ask A Manager, Alison Green, did not agree that this was a good idea and many of those who left comments on her post agreed. I myself can definitely sympathize with the objectors on this one, but at the same time I can also sympathize with the parents. I think the idea presented in the comments about businesses providing on site daycare and allowing parents to take their breaks there is probably the best middle ground, but I also know that many, many companies would not be able to afford that. For me, I don’t think I would allow bringing babies to work across the board. I think this is an issue that is far too subjective to give it an overreaching generalized answer. I can see how for some circumstances it could work really, really well. If during the maternity leave the new mother observes that her baby sleeps almost constantly and is happy and quiet when it isn’t sleeping or eating, then I don’t see any reason to say no to that baby being in the office at least for a trial run. And if the employee can get their job done with the baby there and without having to work more hours than normal or get extra help from their colleagues? Definitely no problem there. But there is plenty of potential for this situation not to work out, which is why I would treat something like this on a case by case basis if it were me.

Which brings me to something else this old post got me thinking about. Or rather, the comments on that post got me thinking. Is there really that much resentment and animosity between parents and non-parents in the workplace? Or are those comments just a really, really skewed sample? Maybe I just haven’t had jobs where my work is all that time sensitive, but I can’t ever remember getting genuinely pissed off when a co-worker called in saying they couldn’t come in that day because of something kid related. And when a colleague in one of my previous jobs went on maternity leave, I don’t remember being annoyed at having to pick up her slack, I just remember being ecstatic that I wouldn’t have to hear her talk about being pregnant anymore.

Really, Really Good Article

The Organic Sister linked to an article on her Twitter and I feel it deserves reposting. The article is called School Bullying: A Tragic Cost of Forced Schooling and Autocratic School Governance. Some of my favorite parts come at the end.

"…the much-touted D.A.R.E. program designed to make kids immune to the temptations of drugs has been shown time and again to be ineffective, and three years ago it was included, in an article published by the American Psychological Society, in a list of interventions that are more likely to cause harm than good." 

I could have told you this when I was five. I’m glad someone besides me has actually put effort into trying to prove it.

"Bullying occurs regularly when people who have no political power and are ruled in top-down fashion by others are required by law or economic necessity to remain in that setting.  It occurs regularly, for example, in prisons. Those who are bullied can’t escape, and they have no legislative or judicial power to confront the bullies. They may report bullying to the prison guards and warden, but the guards and warden may not know whom to believe and may have greater vested interest in hiding bullying than in publicizing it and dealing with it openly. Recently I read the acclaimed book by Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntau, Will the Boat Sink the Water?, about peasant life in modern day China. The peasants are not allowed to move off the land and they are governed, top down, by petty bureaucrats. The peasants have no political power and no due process of law, and so the bullies, who can best intimidate others, rise to the top. Should we be surprised to discover that at least some of our schoolchildren respond to forced confinement and dictatorial governance in the same manner as prisoners and Chinese peasants?"

Now, I have to admit that I don’t ever really remember feeling as though I were a prison inmate or a Chinese peasant when I was in school; however, I can definitely see the similarities.

"As a nation we decided long ago that there is no such thing as a benign dictatorship. To have a moral society the people who are governed must do the governing. That’s our foundational principle as a nation, and if our children are to be educated for democracy, wouldn’t it be nice if our schools, where children spend so much of their lives, were living embodiments of democracy?"

And this is just a beautiful sentiment. I love this. The author goes on to explain that he’s been involved with a school that does try to embody democracy and how well the principle works in practice. It sounds to me like he’s involved with a Sudbury School and just makes me even more interested in using one if I ever create spawn of my own.

Just Say No To Mutilating Your Baby’s Penis

 
(Picture credit- Louis Moses / zefa / Corbis)

Here in the United States it is common for male children to be circumcised at birth. Circumcision is a surgical procedure in which the foreskin, a hood of skin which covers the glans of the penis, is removed.

(Pictures credit-  KidsHealth)

There are a variety of reasons parents choose to have their baby boys circumcised rather than leaving them intact. For some, it is a religious mandate. Others believe that the little bit of extra skin on an intact penis makes it more difficult to clean and therefore more susceptible to infection. And some choose to circumcise their children because other men in the family are circumcised and they don’t want to deal with pesky questions from the child later on about why he doesn’t look like Daddy.

In my opinion, the first reason is unacceptable. If a child is of an age where he can make decisions for himself about his body and his spiritual beliefs and he decides to become part of a religion where circumcision is required, that’s fine. But pushing your religion on your child in such a painful, physical way is a horrible thing to do. I have respect for all religions, but I do not have respect for people who treat their children like possessions instead of human beings and that’s exactly what is happening when a parent decides to cut their baby for religious purposes. Not to mention the fact that circumcision is not even universal among one of the religious groups most associated with the practice- Jews. According to one website called the Jewish Circumcision Resource Center, "One is Jewish based on parental or conversion status, not whether one is circumcised."

The second reason, the one related to health issues, is just plain misinformed. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics "…there is little evidence to affirm the association between circumcision status and optimal penile hygiene." and "The uncircumcised penis is easy to keep clean. No special care is required!" The AAP also points out that "The foreskin shields the glans; with circumcision this protection is lost. In such cases, the glans and especially the urinary opening (meatus) may become irritated or infected, causing ulcers, meatitis (inflammation of the meatus), and meatal stenosis (a narrowing of the urinary opening). Such problems virtually never occur in uncircumcised penises." So, there are no definitive risks to leaving a baby intact, but there are definitely risks to circumcising him. Also, because the foreskin is originally fused to the glans and only later separates and becomes retractable, it is no more or less difficult to clean. Cleaning an infant’s penis is as simple as running a washcloth over it like you would over the rest of it’s body, no flaps of skin to pull back or clean under.

And that third reason about wanting the child to look like the other men in the family, as far as I’m concerned that’s just lazy parenting. It’s also a little creepy. Catching a glimpse of Dad or Uncle Bill in the shower or at the pool is one thing, but if the kid has a chance to study a family member’s penis to the point that they’re asking questions about why his doesn’t look the same? Something about that seems wrong. And even if the kid is exceptionally observant and it only takes a quick glimpse for him to tell there’s a difference, why is it so difficult to just answer his questions?

Those are some of the arguments against circumcision, another good reason is the pain. People tend to think that because it’s done to an infant it doesn’t hurt as much, or if it does they won’t remember it so it’s ok. The truth is, it hurts them a lot. On the website of the Circumcision Resource Center it says, "According to a comprehensive study, newborn responses to pain are "similar to but greater than those observed in adult subjects." Circumcision is extremely painful and traumatic. Some infants do not cry because they go into traumatic shock from the overwhelming pain of the surgery. No experimental anesthetic has been found to be safe and effective in preventing circumcision pain in infants." If you’d like to see pictures illustrating the pain an infant goes through when this procedure is done, you can go here and here.

So please, give some deep thought and consideration and definitely do some research before you decide to do this to your baby.

Truly Awesome

The Keeper sent me a few links this morning and two of them were simply spectacular. The first one I read was about a girl in high school who is running a library of "banned books" out of the empty locker beside her own. She gives a short list of some of the books that her school has banned and it’s absolutely amazing. Classics and literary masterpieces like The Canterbury Tales, Paradise Lost and Animal Farm are among other, more recent classics and brilliant works of literature like The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The Keeper had an English teacher in high school who almost made The Hitchhiker’s Guide required reading because it’s so good (she ended up choosing Wicked instead), so it amazed me that those books would be banned… well, until I saw that the reason a lot of books are banned at her school is because "they contained information that opposed Catholicism." Yea… Anyhow, I think this girl is truly awesome to subvert the stupid banning policy by opening up her own library right there in the school.

The second article was by a kid who has recently started a blog to document the successes and failures of our country’s public education system as well as his journey to run for his local school board. Reading his article and blog posts almost makes me want to go out and try to start some movement or initiative or something, DO something more than just share my opinions and report on the awesomeness of other people. I’m not really an activist type of person though. My answer to my dislike of public education is to find alternatives that I think would work better and try to support other peoples’ movements and initiatives as best I can.

Dear Fertility Clinic That Keeps Advertising On DC101

Please stop running the STUPID FUCKING AD that begins with the woman saying, and I quote-

"Times are so tough right now, but I don’t want to give up on having a baby…"

If times are tough for you then YOU SHOULD NOT BE HAVING A BABY TO BEGIN WITH. Beginning the ad like that makes it seem like a perfectly responsible and logical idea to attempt to get pregnant (whether through fertility therapy or just the good ole fashioned way) when you don’t have the means to support a child in the first place. And doing that is neither responsible, logical, sensible or in any way a good idea. What is it then? It’s selfish and immature. There has GOT to be a better way to advertise that your services are affordable than running this dumbfoundingly moronic ad. So stop.

In The News

So yesterday when I was checking out GoogleNews I found a few interesting stories, but I only posted about the Crabzilla one because, well, come on now… it’s Crabzilla.

But anyway, I don’t feel like posting three separate times about all this so I’m going to try something new. A multi-platypus post! I’m not sure yet how this is going to work, so just walk with me here… I’m thinking, dialog. Yea, lets try this.

Prime: Alright so this first story is about Barbie. Seems there are a couple new ones coming out. Now, normally I wouldn’t care, but the headline caught me eye: Public votes to turn Barbie into a geek. What do we think about this?

Yemanja: Well I think this is great, actually, and I imagine Cry will agree with me. I mean, it may help little geeky girls to not feel as much like outcasts. When kids pick on her maybe she can say, "Yea, well Barbie likes the stuff I do and Barbie is cool."

Crytia: Yea, I’m diggin how the doll who’s been the quintessential popular girl for most of her history is branching out. ‘Manja is right, I mean being a little geeky has become more acceptable, but I think Barbie going there might make it a bit moreso for really young girls. Hopefully that’ll carry through to when they’re older.

Rupini: Best part is that now little girls who were like me will have a slightly more realistic representation of themselves when they make Barbie and Ken bang… Now all they need is Dom Ken and sub Barbie and we’re set.

Prime: *slight facepalm and little chuckle* Alright… well our next story comes from BBC news. It seems that director Kevin Smith of Jay and Silent Bob fame was heckled on a flight and made to get off the plane because the crew determined he was too big for his seat. Thing is, he claims he was sitting comfortably in the seat and having absolutely no trouble buckling his seat belt. Thoughts?

Crytia: Oh Silent Bob, how I love you. You’re not fat, just a little chunky! Seriously though, I doubt he’s so big he should have needed the extra seat. I really hope something come from the hubbub about this for those of us who are a bit bigger, but not actually so big that we can’t fit in airline seats.

Aspasia: I don’t have any issues with the policy of making bigger people pay for the extra space and such. I mean, the airline is a business and shouldn’t be punished by being required to just give you the extra space for free. And the other passengers shouldn’t be punished either, by having their person space invaded. But if Smith is telling the truth and he wasn’t hanging over into the other seats or having issues with the seat belt then there is no reason for this. It sounds like these airlines need some stricter guidelines on how to determine whether or not a passenger needs the extra space.

Brehon: Depending on all the details he could have a discrimination case against them, couldn’t he? I don’t like the modern idea of using litigation for EVERYTHING, but I could maybe get behind Silent Bob bringing a suit against Southwest over this.

Prime: Possibly, but I got the impression from the article that maybe Smith isn’t really interested in actual legal recourse so much as sending a bunch of bad PR their way. *shrug* Ok, so if no one else has anything we’ll move on. The last thing is a story about a school bus in Arizona. It’s been outfitted with free WiFi.

Crytia: O_O Oh my fucking GOD. Those lucky little shits. Not only do they have the WiFi, but it seems like a lot of them are affluent enough to have laptops to use on the bus! Fuck them. I only got my laptop about 6 months ago! Fuck them!!

*Everyone else mostly just nods, and Yemanja mumbles something about it being a good idea.*

And I think that concludes this little experiment. Let me know if you liked it… I’m not sure yet how I feel about it. If people liked it, maybe I’ll do it again. We’ll see.

Book Banning in my Backyard

According to this story in the Washington Post, the Culpeper Country school system has decided to stop using the Definitive Edition of Anne Frank’s Diary in classes.

"Culpeper County public school officials have decided to stop assigning a version of Anne Frank’s diary, one of the most enduring symbols of the atrocities of the Nazi regime, after a parent complained that the book includes sexually explicit material and homosexual themes.

…James Allen, director of instruction for the 7,600-student system…said that the more recent version will remain in the school library and that the earlier version will be used in classes."

Technically, since the book will continue to be available in the school library, I suppose it’s not a book banning. However, I still think it’s unnecessary, stupid and sad in much the same way that I think actual banning of books is unnecessary, stupid and sad.

According to Valerie Strauss, the most cited example of "sexually explicit material" in the book is this:

"There are little folds of skin all over the place, you can hardly find it. The little hole underneath is so terribly small that I simply can’t imagine how a man can get in there, let alone how a whole baby can get out!"

It completely boggles my mind that parents of middle school or high school age kids would find something like this so objectionable that they would go to the school and demand that the book stop being used. Not to mention the fact that it is more than likely a parent who did not even realize there was sexual content in the book until their kid mentioned it, which is to say, their kid has already been exposed to it and lived so what exactly are they trying to accomplish? And do they honestly, truly think that the sentiment expressed above isn’t something the any girl that age hasn’t already either figured out or at least wondered about?

I really just do not understand this idea that so many parents seem to have that withholding all information about the human anatomy and sexual behavior from their kids is a good idea. Are you trying to raise adults or just really big toddlers?

Education

Over the past year or so I have been introduced to several alternative education models which I previously had no idea existed.

I went to public schools growing up and never had much more problem with it than I think most other people do. I knew about homeschooling, but like most kids who go to school I thought that homeschooling was a strange, impractical idea and that the kids who were home schooled were strange and awkward. Honestly, I can’t say that I have changed my opinion very much about kids who are home schooled since all those that I have met to date have been socially awkward and seem like they could have benefited a great deal in that area from having more of the social interaction that a school type environment provides, but I digress. Back to the point, I went to public school and knew that home schooling existed but did not have a very favorable opinion of it. I also knew that there was such a thing as private school, though I didn’t really imagine it to be much different than public school until I started hearing public school teachers complaining about how standardized testing was interfering with their ability to effectively teach their subjects.

It was at about that point that I really started to develop some sort of opinion on education. Given the options I was aware of, I had mostly concluded that it was unlikely I would be able to afford private school for any offspring I might produce, but given the choice I would probably choose a private school over public and either kind of school over home schooling. However, I also decided that homeschooling did have the advantage of being able to teach a broader range of subjects and in more detail than school were likely to be able to do, so I also decided that in either case there would also be some form of guided learning at home in order to round things out a little.

Then I found out about Sudbury Schools, where instead of a curriculum the students direct the learning and there are teachers there to help and guide them. Soon after learning of the existence of such places I also discovered Unschooling, which is basically a somewhat less structured home school version of a Sudbury School. I haven’t done much in depth research into either of these alternative forms of education, but from what I’ve learned so far through Wikipedia and anecdotal evidence, my perspective on education has shifted somewhat.

On the one hand, I am of the opinion that while the little games society demands people to play are stupid and annoying they do exist and therefore it is in people’s best interests to learn how to play those games. That means that even though testing and grades and competition might not necessarily be everyone’s cup of tea, I think it is in everyone’s best interests to find a way to deal with those things unless they are truly passionate about some profession or career which does not require any kind of formal qualifications. In other words, I think people should be prepared to deal with reality as it is even if I think that that reality might and probably should eventually change. That means learning to deal with anything from tests and grading to bullies and tough social situations, because no matter how you decide to act there will always be people in opposition to you because that is the way humans work.

On the other hand, I believe that while a school environment might be very good for preparing people for some of those social realities, I do not think that they are necessarily the best way to produce an educated adult who possesses the capacity for abstract thought (to steal a phrase from the Cajun Boy). It’s definitely possible to come out of public schools and not be a sheep, but it seems less likely to me that someone who learns by actively seeking out the information and questioning things for themselves would grow up to be someone who doesn’t really question anything and who just takes the information they’re fed and believes it.

So, taking both of those viewpoints into consideration, I have recently formed the opinion that the best way to go about dealing with the hypothetical situation of educating a child of my own is this: unschooling until the child is roughly 5th or 6th grade age, then a Sudbury type school for about 5th through 8th grades and then a transition into either public or private high school.

I think that unschooling during those first years could have many, many advantages. From what I’ve read, mostly on the Organic Sister‘s blog, it seems like unschooling helps to foster a better parent/child relationship, though that might just be because of the time spent together and not necessarily the educational model. I also think that unschooling early on is likely to foster more of an interest in learning, more curiosity, more passion for knowledge than a traditional elementary school environment, which would also lead to better reasoning skills and more free thinking. So I think it’s a good foundation.

Then, with the transition into a Sudbury school the child would be put into a slightly more structured learning environment (if I understand the differences between unschooling and Sudbury schools correctly). It would also end up putting them into more social situations more frequently, because while I wouldn’t isolate the child before that time I doubt they would be interacting with other kids for 8 hours or so five days a week almost every week for nine months out of the year. And by getting them into that environment around age 9-11, they’ll be able to have some stability in their surroundings and the people they interact with while they go through puberty.

After the Sudbury school the social transition into a more traditional high school will hopefully be a little easier, though I imagine there will still be some issues with the change from free, self directed, non-competitive learning to the curriculum based system in traditional schools. However, my hope is that by that time the child/young adult would be able to understand the differences and my reasons for wanting them to learn how to deal with that kind of learning environment.

Throughout all of this, I believe there would have to be a lot of flexibility and room for change. For example, if the child has friends who go to school and tell them stories which make them interested in going to school when they’re 6 or 7, I’m not going to completely dismiss the idea of the child going to school. I think the best way to handle it would probably be to go to the local elementary school and talk to the administration about sort of a trial period to make sure this is what would work well for the child, then maybe have the child go to school for a couple of weeks without actually enrolling them to let them try it out. If they want to stay, enroll them. If not, go back to the way things were, no harm no foul.

Hi, I’m Yemanja and My Opinion Matters

I want something to be clear from the beginning, before I start writing posts about my opinions on parenting and what makes sense to me and what I think is the best way to do things.

I do not have kids. I have born no crotch fruit (to steal a turn of phrase from a friend of mine who does have kids). There is a chance that I will not ever choose to have children, as I am not only selfish but I also believe strongly that one should be completely financially prepared to take care of a child before they have one and there is a chance that I will never feel as though I am at such a point. There are other factors that make me teeter-totter between wanting children and wanting my tubes tied, but those are the main two.

That said, I do not believe that my lack of midget completely disqualifies me from the realm of parental theorizing and speculation, and it bothers me more than a little when I put forth an opinion only to have it scoffed at by someone who disagrees with me simply because I have not yet put that opinion into practice. Therefore, I would like to make it clear early on that if I get any comments along the lines of, "Oh, you poor idealistic childless thing, you couldn’t possibly know of what you speak. You’ll change your mind when you have a child of your own," they will either not be approved for viewing on this blog or they will be approved and then promptly ridiculed.

I have three younger sisters that I helped raise and who I have in retrospect learned quite a bit from. I also remember quite a bit of my own experience and feelings while growing up and have based some of my opinions on those experiences. In a few months I will have a niece or nephew and while I won’t be raising that child, I intend to give my sister any advice I can offer. I’ve already given her the book Free-Range Kids: Giving our kids the freedom we had without going nuts with worry. My older sister used to be an elementary school guidance counselor and my brother in law is a high school teacher. I talk to and read the opinions of people who have children or work with them on a daily basis. As far as I’m concerned, all of this qualifies me to have opinions on children and parenting. You don’t have to agree with me, but I believe you do have to make an attempt to not be a condescending douche when you comment on my blog. So please, pretty please with sugar on top, don’t be be a condescending prick in the comments. If you disagree, explain why. Don’t just tell me I’ll feel differently once I push a watermelon sized ball of squishy human shaped flesh out of my vagina.

And, just in case you’re reading, this post has nothing to do with our discussion in the comments of your blog OrganicSister. I just wanted to get this out there before I start writing my own child related posts.