Butch Cassidy

I think the same (unfortunately) can be said about 'qualified' teachers in many cases

dbd33

Then beyond their status at the time of your childhood?


The case for being a dissolute parent made in one.

ExKiwilass

yeah, but you don't have to live with them as well.

Butch Cassidy

True, but if you have a teacher with a political agenda and parents with the same 'perverted' agenda you may as well stay home and save the travel time.

Novocastrian

Oh, goody. I've always thought we should have more threads about me.

I'm not sure what "status" means in the context. My father had inherited land, which he ran as a market garden. He sold this land for a considerable sum when I was in my early teens and retired by the time he was 50, thereafter becoming a magistrate.

Me, I'm a wage slave. It's your call.



I'm not quite certain that that's the case I was shooting for. More along the lines of not being a controlling parent I think.

fledermaus

This is the most interesting thread in a long time.

When I think of home educators I imagine hairy legged vegans dancing Isadora Duncan-like through the meadows, but that's a stereotype....

I can understand home schooling as a short term measure, or for younger children, but 13 years of it? How can a parent know and understand all those subjects? If it was that easy teachers wouldn't have to specialise. What about resources, lab equipment, school trips?

Education shouldn't stop when the child leaves the classroom surely part of being a parent is home educating - in addition to what is taught at school?

Rambling on, my brain isn't in gear. I blame my education.

acer rose

Interesting indeed thanks. Not being an expert, I found it raised more questions than it answered though.

One aspect (health care costs) is certainly a more heavily weighted concern in the US than many other similar countries, thinking primarily of Europe, Canada, Aus, NZ as I have no knowledge of Asian health care systems.

I am also unsure how she defined middle class. White collar rather than blue collar job? Certain level of education (implied perhaps at one point)? Certain level of income? Certain way of thinking?

Then there is the issue (not addressed at all) of the risk of dropping your career to focus on family. It's a high risk strategy these days and I know several women who were bitten later in life and face an uncertain financial future. It would seem to be more common than just my specific group of acquaintances too (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandsty...women-research).

I will admit that there are some families that are only middle income because both adults work. Based on the type of numbers I see bandied around here as being a reasonable salary, I made the perhaps mistaken assumption that people in Canada achieved single incomes that allowed one parent to stay home. My second (again perhaps mistaken) assumption was that this could be regarded as middle income. This is not my personal experience, or that of most I know, and nobody I know can afford to choose home-schooling, but that wasn't the point. My thinking was that if you are a low income family your choice to increase your income by increasing the total family hours worked makes more sense to those struggling than to opt out of free schooling and keep a parent busy at home with home-schooling, unless there is a religious reason. Those with higher levels of income (based on people in Canada being here because they are able to afford to have one parent stay at home don't forget) have the luxury of applying whatever more flaky (IMHO) reasoning they like about what they chose for their children since the financial impact of having one parent stay home will not result in a eating KD every night for the next 20 years. It therefore seemed logical that the group in which increases were observed was the middle income group.

I have no idea why that doesn't hold true for the high income group unless they are statistically insignificant in size. Frankly after hearing about what other people can't possibly get by on, I no longer know where middle income starts and finishes.

Oink

Didn't stop you making a long diatribe.

acer rose

I'll give you that.

I think not.