Why Home Schooling Your Kids Means You're Selfish

If you're home schooling your child for any reason other than geographic or medical necessity (and I'm talking about living 1,000 miles from the nearest school or having to feed your child through a tube every hour or so), I want you to go find the nearest electric socket and stick your tongue into it as deep as you can. Repeat as necessary until you're shocked back to your senses, or dead. Whichever comes first.

After an extended bout with the flu, the ole codger was subjected to a barrage of daytime television, most particularly Wife Swap, where if I ever had any doubts in my mind about the kind of people who home school their kids, those doubts disappeared faster than a flock of Mormons at an open bar.

From what I saw (and what I've experienced in my own life, sad to say), home schooling parents generally fall into two categories: ultra right wing religious nuts, and ultra left wing lazy bastards who can't be bothered to get their kids up and dressed for school every day.

The argument from the ultra religious right wing nuts (I'm talking to you, Duggars, and all you wannabes too) is that the kids would be exposed to views and beliefs that are counter to the religious teachings you're trying to cram down their throats. The school might teach Darwinism? Or sex education? Or, heaven forbid, they might actually associate with kids who are not being brainwashed into the same cult as yours? Last time I checked, America was a country made up of dozens, if not hundreds, of different cultures and belief systems, and last time I checked, you live here voluntarily. Your kids could use the lesson in tolerance. And come to think of it, so can you.

Then there's the lazy bastard who uses "home schooling" as an excuse to let the kids do whatever the hell they want all day. You think you're freeing your children of the shackles of society and schedules and expectations, but all you're doing is keeping your kid in a different kind of slavery -- one that doesn't allow them to have friends their own age, or learn how to do things you can't teach them yourself. If you were too lazy or weak-willed to handle the responsibilities of raising your child, you shouldn't have had them to begin with. Grow the hell up, set your alarm and put your kid on the school bus in the morning. Even if it's inconvenient for your schedule (or lack thereof).

While I'm at it, I'm going to include a third group: the Uber-Helicopter Parent. This is the type of parent who doesn't want to give up control of the kid, either physically or emotionally, until that child is old enough to run away from home and not look back. If you're this kind of parent, put the needs of your child to learn how to be a social creature ahead of your own need to control them. Part of raising a child is teaching them how to handle themselves when you're not around, whether they're 6 or 60. They can't learn this if they're under your thumb all the time, and trust the codger on this, no matter how close you watch, if they want to rebel they will...and sometimes that rebellion will be way beyond the normal teenage back-talk.

So why do I care about your kids? I'll be honest. I don't. I'm just sick of illiterates trying to teach their kids to read, people who can't balance a checkbook trying to raise their kids to understand math and budgeting, and lunatics on both sides of the fringe trying to raise their own little armies of (insert polarizing stereotype here). And the reason I am sick of it is that one of these days, my kids will end up supporting your kids when they end up uneducated and broken. And how can they do that when they should be putting their money where it counts...supporting ME?!

Now, go do something constructive...like register your kid for school...and get the hell off my lawn. Or laon. Or however your dumbass homeschool teacher tawt ya hows ta spel id.