The Homeschool Choice. Kate Henley Averett

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СКАЧАТЬ step toward eradicating CSA is to talk about it openly in our communities, and that giving children access to certain knowledge can make them less likely targets of CSA, and more likely to report inappropriate behavior from adults. She advocated for teaching children the proper terms for their anatomy, including genitals, because, she argued, predators rely on children not having the vocabulary to tell others about experiences of abuse. Hillman’s presentation countered the dominant discourse about sexual knowledge that I saw at the Christian homeschooling conferences. She complicated the idea that any exposure of children to sexual themes is dangerous, by arguing that not educating children about some things actually puts children at higher risk for sexual abuse, and thus for the loss of their innocence. The fact that this presentation felt so surprising and norm-breaking to me is illustrative of how otherwise strong and consistent these messages were across these conferences.

      Given the strength of the messaging around children’s sexual innocence at these conferences, it is perhaps unsurprising that the parents who saw public schools as damaging to children’s innocence were primarily conservative Christians who framed sexuality as a moral issue. However, not all of the parents with such views were religious, and for those, and even some of the religious parents, concerns were not framed around morality. Aspen, a white, middle-income, politically conservative but nonreligious mother of two, cited “protecting their innocence” as one of the main reasons she and her husband decided to homeschool their sons. Aspen explained, “The things that children are exposed to in school before they’re emotionally or mentally prepared to deal with them are shocking to me. And scary, and it’s just gotten worse over the years, and we just felt like, you’re a child for such a short period of time, and once you’re exposed to something you can never take it out of your brain and un-learn it, and we just wanted to protect that, and them, as long as possible.” For Aspen, children’s innocence did not need to be protected for moral reasons, but rather because a failure to do so might damage them emotionally or mentally. Another parent, Ruth, who was a white, middle-income, married mother of three, identified herself as very religious, but nevertheless explained her desire to protect her children from sexual themes in biological, rather than moral or religious, terms. She stated, “I have read that all of this constant exposure to sexual themes can trigger their hormones? And I don’t know how accurate that is, but girls are going through puberty younger and younger, and I thought, well, if that’s a part of it, then I’ll just try to delay it as long as I can.”

      What both Aspen’s and Ruth’s comments imply is that, underlying this desire to protect children’s innocence is a fear that being exposed to certain ideas and concepts about sexuality has the potential to change children. Other parents implied this as well, often with comments about not wanting their children to “grow up too fast.” Margaret, a white, middle-income, bisexual, heterosexually married mother of two, who identified as politically moderate and nonreligious, talked about trying to limit outside influences on her daughter while also being open enough with her that she is not too sheltered: “We have a very open dialogue with her, we don’t censor things, she’s not as sheltered as I think a lot of homeschool kids are. We try not to—we’re trying to prepare her for the real world, but also still, you know, give her time to be a kid, and not feel like she’s being forced to grow up too fast. I want her to enjoy being a kid.” These parents all understood that their children need to “grow up” eventually, and that their innocence could not be maintained indefinitely, but they all felt it was preferable that their children avoid this change from innocent child to knowing adult for as long as possible.11

      Sexual Morality: Behavior over Identity

      For some parents, however—particularly the more religious parents—the fear of children being exposed to certain knowledge was also a fear that children would come to adopt, as acceptable, what they saw as “unacceptable” perspectives on sexuality. This was accompanied by a fear that their children would then behave in unacceptable ways. Claudia, whom we met at the beginning of the chapter, explained the dangers of putting children in public school in the following way:

      Even if you talk to a child, and prep them, and encourage them, and send them out into a public-school setting, they’re going to make mistakes. They’re going to. I think the pressure is quite a bit, and it’s for such a long period of time. It’s a long period of time to make the right choices, you know, to do things, or to not do things that would be wrong, in your parents’ eyes. And even for adults—you’re in the workplace, you find yourself listening to a joke that you know you shouldn’t listen to, and then, not even calling the person out, “Hey, that’s completely inappropriate.” So it’s not specific to age; it’s just one of those across-the-board type of things that is just a people thing. And it takes practice, to make those right decisions and stand firm in what you believe. That takes practice.

      Claudia felt that the temptation to think and behave in ways that are morally wrong was not exclusive to children, but she believed that children have the added disadvantage of not having enough practice in making “right decisions.” Claudia saw homeschooling as a way to prevent her children’s thoughts and behaviors from going in the “wrong,” or morally unacceptable, direction.

      For the most part, these parents frame children’s gender and sexuality in terms of behavior, rather than identity. Their goal is not necessarily to shape who their children are, but to shape how they act. They aim to influence their children’s gender and sexual expression by focusing on who they should be—what some referred to as their “character”—which the parents see as being defined primarily by how people behave. They see it as their duty to protect their children from certain influences, and to guide them toward, or lay a strong foundation for, “correct” gendered and sexual expression.

      How to lay this foundation for “correct” behavior by guiding children’s character development was the topic of many talks that I attended at the Christian homeschooling conferences. In fact, a frequently repeated message at these conferences was that, while the “school stuff”—like learning to read and write and do math—is important, the most important lessons you teach your children through homeschooling are those focused on their character. A talk that reality-television star Michelle Duggar, perhaps the most famous homeschooling mom in the United States, gave at one of these conferences was centered on character development, which she argued is the most important task in raising children.12 She described how her family has charts of various positive and negative character traits posted around their house, and that her children learn from a very young age to name and define these character traits, as well as to identify their opposite. As part of her talk, she listed what she believes are the top three character traits to develop in children: attentiveness (as opposed to unconcern), obedience (as opposed to willfulness), and self-control (as opposed to self-indulgence). She defined attentiveness as “showing the worth of a person by giving undivided concentration to his words and emotions,” and explained that this trait is especially important for homeschooling children if they are going to learn from their parents at home. She defined obedience as “the freedom to be creative under God-given authority.” She emphasized that obedience from children did not just mean they do as they are told, but that they do so instantly, cheerfully, thoroughly, and unconditionally. Finally, she defined self-control as “instant obedience to the initial prompting of God’s spirit.” To illustrate how her children learn these character traits, Michelle showed a video of Josie—child number 19—reciting the definition of “self-control” over and over again, with great enthusiasm (and more than a little bit of hamming it up for the camera). Michelle explained that Josie was learning self-control as she was being potty trained.

      Perhaps unsurprisingly, much of the talk about training children and guiding their character development was gender specific. A few speakers gave two separate talks on the same subject (e.g., etiquette, the most important homeschooling lessons, learning styles) that were separated by gender. Interestingly, these talks often contained very similar content, but they were always framed as being different, based on gender. For example, one of the Texas Homeschool Coalition keynote speakers, Todd СКАЧАТЬ