Empowered Homeschooling

For the last year, I have been in the habit of rising early for a period of quiet introspection. I have been trying to formulate a cohesive place for all of my selves: mother, wife, daughter, homeschooler, and friend. Yet somehow I was forgetting that in all of those roles, the most undervalued was my authentic self as woman.

Woman as a label borders on swearing in most places. This is especially so for young girls. If this wasn’t true, than why is “You’re a girl” one of the worst slurs a boy can be called on the playground? We live in a culture where the predominant religions all comfortably subordinate half the population to secondary status BY their design.

I think this is one of the least talked about, yet most important reasons to homeschool. We have the power to reject common prejudices against our female offspring. We can not only utter “you can be anything you want” but we can show them the way void of underlying bias of sex-inherent weaknesses and the flippant “girls aren’t good at math” nonsense.

It is sometimes mentioned that it appears I am more focused on Girlie’s education than Scout’s. That is true to the degree that she and I work well together, and those stories are fun to share. But I realize that I share her stories more often because subconsciously, I understand that she is up against so many more biases than Scout will ever be. I do not want her to ever be reduced to “just a girl” or worse.

Already, Scout has absorbed a lot of the “boys are better than girls” arrogance so prevelant around us. I have seen it especially in the last three years, as he struggles to even respect me as a teacher. It is culturally difficult for him to accept that I, a woman, (and even lower, a mother) has more knowledge than he possess on academics. This is in no way conscious, and we have had many heart-to-hearts about it. But something in him that even he does not understand makes him feel so threatened that he may never be a smart as a housewife. (I don’t think I am brilliant by any means, but I do have a few legs up on a 9th grader!)

So, I try to focus more on her to remind them both that her female opinions and experiences are just as important as his male . My aim is that they will both start to see equality as a truth on a personal level. I want her to be a strong woman and him to be strong enough to love that strength in woman.
I want to, if even just for my children, bring an awareness to a centuries old lie.

Some would say that my choice in homeschooling is hypocritical to empowerment, but I disagree. Where else can I have more power than in shaping the minds of the next generation? Where else can I have a more direct on the future of my own family?

I hate to admit that even I have to remind myself to fight the indoctrination of my youth and not hold different expectations based on sex. I have heard myself stress aloud to Scout that he needs to develop focus for he will be responsible for a family someday. I have never said that to my daughter.

With Girlie’s dyslexia, I obviously had to use different techniques and had differing benchmarks. When something is particularly challenging for her, a little voice from the depths of my brain will whisper, “It might not matter if she doesn’t understand _____ (fill in the blank) as she won’t need a career.” As strongly as I believe in equality, I still hold a cultural bias against my own sex. It saddens me beyond measure to admit how hard I have to work to suppress it, yet I know from where it springs.

I can still vividly remember the mixed messages I got as a child. When in second grade I had standardized testing that showed my reading comprehension at grade 12+, only my teacher thought it was wonderful. She told my family about all these special programs for children with my abilities. My parents acted embarrassed instead of proud. My mother told me not to tell my grandparents because “girls are supposed to be pretty, not smart.” I was given more dance lessons instead of the writer’s workshops I wanted to take. I was made to feel that being smart and a girl was not a positive thing.

Starting middle school, my mother encouraged me to not take an all gifted schedule and instead try out for cheerleadering. THe message was clear. Being popular was much more useful than brains if you were female.

Year after year, I moved further away from the goals of a smart girl. I might not of even gone to college except that we were told that college educated men are better providers . We were pushed to get a degree “just in case,” for it was illogical to think we would actually WANT a career. Being raised in the church only compounded our second-class stature as something we must just accept as fact.

So I headed off to campus, with my long blonde hair and a hot little body. Yes, I knew how to bat my eyes and get most any boy, and that was a powerful feeling. But what I didn’t know at 18 was that I didn’t really want that boy, but I was craving power over something. When I look back now I realize how many of my friends had been reduced to the same sad state.

Luckily, I had enrolled in a life changing psych class with a woman prof who challenged us to examine the role of women in this male dominated world. I am so indebted to her, and thankful that she reached inside me and shook that little girl who loved to write and asked her to look around. She validated me: female, girl, woman. She taught me to validate myself.

I have grown that little girl up since when I found her again at twenty. She made mistakes in those early years, but fought her way through by never compromising her true self for long. She allowed herself to finally stop enjoy food and stop obsessing about exercise. She unified her desire to be a mother with the power of choice by choosing to stay home and raise her children. She took the challenge of homeschooling instead of the easier road back to career. She listened to her inner truth and rejected the secondary-stature preached by the church, and found a sprituality far more beautiful and true by just striving for the same virtues of Christ while rejecting the woman-hating dogma of Paul and others.

I have been proudly forty for the better part of a year now, and I see that the changes that occured when I was twenty have morphed into a woman who embraces her authentic self. My own journey still continues. My greatest wish is that I am able to raise my children to be their authentic selves all along.