When people ask about socialization they are usually wondering about “horizontal socialization.” How much time are your kids interacting with children of their own age. It is like some think that we cage our kids up and never let them be around other children.
If you wonder about this type of socialization, let me ask you a question…
If you stick a 6th grade boy with a bunch of 6th graders what is he going to learn to become? Who will he be best equipped to interact with?
He will learn to be a “better 6th grader.” He’ll be comfortable interacting with kids his own age. How does that prepare him for life? When else in life will he ever be faced with the same type of homogeneous age groupings?
Never.
You see my kids are socialized – “vertical socialization.” My wife and I are the primary influencers, not their peer group. Does anybody want to dispute that as not being a good thing? You see my kids, and other homeschoolers don’t mold to the groupthink that says, “adults in general and parents in particular aren’t cool to talk to.”
Most homeschoolers naturally can carry on conversations with adults and are comfortable doing so. I’ve gotten positive feedback from numerous adults about how my kids interact with them (as well as their behavior). I’ve noticed that with other homeschooled children as well, you can easily carry on a conversation with them. Why?
Because they are spending a lot of time with parents, other adults, older children, and younger children. They are rarely in social settings where it is entirely kids of their own age. I think this is a good thing, that’s life! The homogenous age groupings you see in schools (which usually gets reinforced in church) isn’t real life, and does little to prepare a kid for the real world.
I wish that somehow parents were able to opt out of the public school system and get a voucher so that parents could use that money to purchase whatever education they think is a appropriate for their children, including homeschooling. I think that getting kids into the habit of interacting with adults is a good thing.
The article talks about how the power of the state is bounded by 1) traditional religion and 2) parental authority in the family.
Excerpt:
The second most powerful obstacle to the state and government assuming primary authority is parents.
It was no meaningless phrase when baby boomers on the left declared, “Never trust anyone over 30.” Who was over 30? First and foremost, their parents.
As with religion, the further left the state or ideology, the more it seeks to undermine parental authority. In the Soviet Union, Komsomol, the Soviet Youth League substituted for parents. Mao, too, did what he could to destroy the family’s authority. Although no way comparable to Stalin or Mao, the American and European left also seek to undermine parental authority.
The battle over parental notification in the case of abortion is primarily about parental authority.
The battle over sex education in schools is largely about that, too — who gets to teach youth about sexuality and homosexuality? Parents or schools (i.e., the state)?
The battle over school vouchers is in large measure also a battle over governmental authority versus parental authority. Who gets to choose where one’s child attends school — the state or the parent? The battle over who gets to actually educate our children has already been lost to the state in the vast majority of cases. It is why the left is so uncomfortable with home schooling — parents, not the state, get to teach children.
As the late James O. Freedman, former president of Dartmouth University, said in a commencement address in 2002, the purpose of a college education is “to question your father’s values.”
Just as the left has substituted the authority of the state for the authority of God, it has substituted the authority of the state for that of parents. And just as God has been reduced to a non-judging, non-disciplining pal, so, too, the left wants parents to become non-judging, non-disciplining pals of their children.
In a nutshell, the left wants to have ever-expanding authority over people’s lives through ever-expanding governmental powers. It does so because it regards itself as more enlightened than others. Others are either enemies (the right) or unenlightened masses. It is elected by demonizing its enemies and doling out money and jobs to the masses.
I find that the expanding intrusion of the secular state into the family (via the schools) is very frustrating. I am concerned that the state will turn my children against me using my tax dollars. And the worst part is that if my children reject Judeo-Christian values, then they would actually be hurting themselves, and imposing social costs (e.g. – health care costs, etc.), on the rest of society. I think it would hurt me a lot to take so much trouble to have and raise children and then to see them become immoral, self-destructive and ungrateful to their parents.
Because I’m so busy working and writing the blog, I almost never have time to read books any more. Right now I am reading Jay Richards’ “Money, Greed and God” and Jennifer Roback Morse’s “Smart Sex”. I read Smart Sex on Saturday when I go to lunch.
I found a wonderful series of passages on marriage and child development in Smart Sex, and I’m going to type the whole thing in for you, because I think it’s so important.
Excerpt from p. 41-43. Dr. J writes:
I believe the real issue driving the “marriage debate” is the question of what we owe to children. Do we owe them material resources, provided by society at large? Or do we owe them personal relationships, provided for them by the particular people who brought them into existence? If children truly need a two-parent, married-couple family, this would place obligations upon the adults to get married and stay married. Many adults are reluctant to accept these particular obligations. So they, along with their allies in high policy-making places, try to minimize the importance of the evidence or to reinterpret it to mean that children really need more material support from government and business.
From this perspective, the questions are: What is the minimal set of human relationships that a child can have and still turn out tolerably well? What is the least adults have to do in relationship terms for their kids to get by? How much money does society have to pump in from outisde the family to make up for the loss of relationship, so that I won’t have to give up my belief that parents are entitled to any lifestyle choices they want?
This minimalist mentality shows up in the conclusions people draw from these studies. For instance, people reinterpret the studies showing that a stepfather who spends enough time with this stepchildren can ward off some of the problems often seen in divorced families. A one level, this is undeniable. Of course children benefit from more time and attention from their fathers and stepfathers. But we are not justified in drawing the conclusion that there is no reason to be concerned about family structure as long as stepfathers spend enough time with their stepchildren. The very same study also shows that stepfathers, on average, spend much less time with their wives’ children than do biological fathers.
Many people seem to beleive it is unreasonable to expect or even encourage people to get married and stay married. But asking stepfathers to behave like biological fathers may be every bit as unreasonable . Stepfathers behave systematically differently from biological fathers. It is unrealistic to expect men to work as hard to on a relationship with another man’s child as he would with his own child. It is more straightforward, as well as more sensible, to expect men and women to work together to maintain their marriages in the first place.
Some people argue that the children of single and divorced parents would do fine if only society would increase the resources available to the children. The government should provide some combination of subsidized day care, housing allowances, and income supplements to increase the standard of living of the children of single-parent households. This postition is unpersuasive because most studies show that problems remain even after accounting for differences in economic resources. The resources that two parents can provide are not likely to ever be fully replaced by a single parent, no matter how heavily subsidized.
I bellieve that children are harmed by the loss of relationship itself, not simply by the loss of resources. The primary business of parenthood is relational. Parenthood is much more than a process transferring resources from Big People to Little People. If that were true, resources from outside the family could possibly make up the losses that children experience from the loss of a parent.
The primary responsibility of parents is to build relationships with their children and prepare their children to build relationships on their own when they mature. The whole attachment process, upon which conscience development depends, is a relationship-building process. Replacing a father with a paycheck is not a service either to the child, who misses out on the father’s love, or to the father, who becomes reduced to a combination sperm donor and wallet.
I propose that we confront these relationship issues with more generosity toward children. Instead of asking how little we have to do, we should ask what children need from their parents in order to thrive. Instead of asking how much money it takes to substitute for the presence of both parents, we could ask what parents can do to keep growing in love and regard for each other. We should not embrace a collective responsibility for financial support for children when we could embrace the personal obligation to nurture and cultivate loving relationships between spouses. We should be asking how we adults can support each other in maintaining our marriages.
The reason why I am chaste is because I need to court effectively so I can choose a wife who believes what Dr. Morse wrote – that parenting is an important purpose in marriage, that both parents matter and that the government is not a subsitute for mothers and fathers. I can test if a woman is qualified to parent annoying, aggressive, insolent little child monsters letting her try to nurture me during the courtship. If she can develop my Chrsitian worldview, then should be able to handle the children.
I think my single male readers should think the same way. Stop thinking with your hormones and start thinking about what women can do for God in relationships. We all need to realize that the time to address marital problems is during the courtship phase of the relationship. Therefore, choose wisely. And we should stop trying to grow a secular government to replace the parents. If a secular government is responsible for the children, then those children will never form relationships with God in Christ.
On the contrary, Christian parents must jealously guard their children from a secular government. And that means we should favor limited government and a free market, with unregulated, low-taxed small businesses creating plenty of jobs so that we have lots of pay left over after taxes to spend on stay-at-home moms, private schools, and apologetics training materials. We can spend our own money better than any secular government can to buy anything that our children may need. It’s our responsibility.
WINTERY KNIGHT 