Secular Thursday: Headbanger and the Special Snowflakes

Posted in Earnest Mom is Earnest, Funny Lernins, Homeschoolins, Secular Homeschooling Archetypes, Secular Lernins, Secular Thursdays, homeschoolin: ur doin it wrong by Smrt Mama
Sep 03 2009
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I’m going to start a homeschool band. Not a marching band (we have one locally), but a hard rock band. It will be called Headbanger and the Special Snowflakes. If you don’t get why that’s funny, you’re probably not a homeschooler, you’re a homeschooler who has never met another homeschooler, or you don’t frequent the Well-Trained Mind or Mothering.com forums. If you haven’t read those forums prior to now, don’t start, as they about scared me out of homeschooling.

While I haven’t been homeschooling long, the social circles in which I travel include quite a few homeschoolers. Between them and the homeschoolers I’ve met through the co-op, I’ve started to notice a trend towards a few homeschooling archetypes. At risk of offending, oh, everyone I know, here is my very tongue-in-cheek assessment of the secular homeschooling archetypes:

  • The Organized Mom — She is better at this than you will ever be. If you’re comparing yourself to other homeschoolers, just go ahead and quit before you get around to comparing yourself to her. You might even consider flinging yourself onto your sword. She has her days scheduled to the color-coded minute and her children obey them perfectly. She researched her curricula extensively and is most likely following a Classical model. She’s already finished planning her curriculum for next year. Her children are enrolled in enrichment programs and are now very enriched and can Appreciate (with a capital A) art and music. Her motto: “It’s never too early to start looking at colleges.”
  • The Earnest Mom — She really, really wants to be good at this. She’s absolutely certain that homeschooling was the right decision for her children. She’s equally certain that she could screw up at any moment and doom her children to a lifetime of social awkwardness and community college. She relies on the experience and expertise of other homeschoolers, especially The Organized Mom, to guide her curriculum choices. At one moment convinced the work load is much too heavy, and the next, adding logic and Bavarian folk dancing, she’s desperate to get it Right™ so that her child can be successful and well-rounded. Her motto: “Does this sound rigorous enough to you?”
  • The Idealist Mom — She believes in the power and magic of homeschooling to an extent that is almost, ironically, religious. Homeschooling isn’t just an educational choice; it’s part and parcel to a way of life that includes things like dye-free, organic, vegetarian eating and not having a television. The world in which she lives isn’t necessarily connected with the reality shared by the rest of us. She has bought into the mythos of homeschooling: that children educated at home are smarter, more socially adjusted, better educated, and better behaved than other children (and never mind that her own kids are scaling the walls with their eyes rolling around in their heads…they’re just expressing their creativity like the sweet little free spirits they are). Homeschooling, she says, is a natural extension of her parenting style. To be fair, the Idealist Mom does believe in giving her children a good education, she just places equal emphasis on creative, non-traditional expression as she does on more academic pursuits. Her motto: “Homeschooling nurtures children into becoming better people.”
  • The Laissez Faire Mom — She doesn’t believe in formal education, which works out well, since she’s much too overwhelmed to actually develop a formal curriculum. The world is her children’s school, and they can learn all they need to know through their interaction with it (and a couple of workbooks, just in case). What can books and table learning teach a child that unlimited time in the Creativity Corner can’t? The Laissez Faire mom experiences homeschooling through playgroups, music time, and co-op’d art classes. She believes, to a fault, in letting children learn at their own pace and explore their own interests. While her methods may seem successful with children under the age of 10, her 12 year old may be frustrated when she dreams of engineering, and realizes that not yet having completed fourth grade math may squash the dream before it starts. Her motto: “They practically educate themselves!”
  • The Delicate Mom — There’s one reason and one reason alone why this parent is homeschooling: no one else can appreciate the many special needs of her precious little baby. Her kid is the one with the note pinned to his shirt that says “Please don’t feed me peanuts, tree nuts, dairy, soy, apples, chicken, yeast products, or Red 40″ who has autism, ADHD, and two sensory integration disorders. Her child never misbehaves; he has a condition. He only acts out because you fed him something you weren’t supposed to. Her goal is to protect her fragile darling from the peanut-coated evil of of The System, which vastly under appreciates his uniqueness. Curriculum is not important to The Delicate Mom, because her child is going to be living with her until he’s 40, anyway. Her motto: “You couldn’t possibly understand such a gifted, special child.”

    • Do you see yourself on this list? I’m pretty sure into which archetype I fall *cough*Earnest*cough*

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    Tagged as: Earnest Mom is Earnest, homeschool, secthurs, secular lernins, Secular Thursdays