"Why I Homeschool"

From August 2 to 4, 1996, Our Lady of the Rosary Home School Center in Bardstown, Kentucky held its annual conference and graduation. Speakers at the conference were Cardinal Gagnon, Father David Przedweicki and Dr. William Marra.

Cardinal Gagnon administered Confirmation on Sunday and father Przedweicki celebrated a Latin Tridentine Mass for the Saturday graduation exercises.

Catholic Family News took this opportunity to interview parents in order to hear from their own lips why they homeschool. Some of the responses were predictable, some heart-wrenching, some surprising.

Sex-education in the schools along with the heretical and / or insipid catechism courses seem to be the most common reasons for parents to take upon themselves the enormous responsibility of home-schooling. There were other reasons as well.

• Mary Liz Friemont from Southern Missouri has been homeschooling for six years. She said she was the only Catholic she knew who homeschooled. However, in the past year she has come into contact with other families who educate their children at home. One of these families initiated homeschooling because of the scandalous Benzinger sex-education that was imposed upon their children, another pulled their child out of Catholic school because the perverted In God's Image sex-education course was in use.
  
  
• There was a family who homeschools its hearing impaired child. There were also mothers who were disillusioned with the present school system and felt duty bound to insure that their children receive not only sound religious education, but also a strong Catholic formation.

It was not unusual to meet parents who started homeschooling because the local schools were usurping the parent's rights.

• One father related that the Catholic school in which they sent their son was not teaching the Catholic Faith, but a Protestantized religion. The final straw was when their son was forced to receive Communion in the Hand at First Communion against the wishes of the parents. The son is now homeschooled.
  
  
• A mother from Bowling Green, KY relates that after she had homeschooled their four children for a number of years, she decided to send them back to the "regular" schools. After one year, she is returning to homeschooling. When asked why, she said, "After my children spent some time in the institutional schools, they changed. though they learned a lot, I saw a quick deterioration of the respect they had for each other. They started arguing and became aggressive. They were harder to discipline. I also noticed that there was a lessening of the respect that they showed to elders."

  She also related a particular problem that scandalized her and her daughters. "In the Catholic School where I sent my girls, there was a young woman teaching religion who had become pregnant our-of-wedlock. The school allowed her to retain her position as teacher. Then, when the unwed mother finally married, she didn't even marry the father of the child." She continued, "Teachers are not just teachers, but role models. And children are not so much influenced by what you say, but how you live. I thought it was highly inappropriate to have an unmarried, pregnant woman teaching religion to my daughters."
  
  

• The following account is an example of the parents being unaware of the sad state of the Catholic schools until it was too late. A mother related that she lost her son to the "born-again Christians" after the son had spent 12 years in a Catholic school. He was not taught his Faith at all, and as a result, had no idea of how to withstand the attack on his religion that came from his fundamentalist girlfriend. The mother said, "I'm not going to let that happen again with my other children."
  
  
• Jeanie Spears had been teaching catechism before her children were old enough for school. When she first heard about homeschooling from lectures out of a cassette lending library, she thought it was absurd. She continued to investigate and, over time, felt that it was a course worth pursuing. She had also noted problems in the CCD curriculum while she was teaching Confirmation. Her children have always been educated at home.

  One couple from St. Paul, Minnesota started exercising their right to homeschool when they saw the negative peer pressure their children were subject to while in the local schools. This family (and others) contend that homeschool children are less in danger of the bad example and habits of the more crude and ill-mannered schoolmates rubbing off on them.
  
  

• A mother from Winfield, Illinois pointed to the poor quality of both secular and Catholic schools as their motive for homeschooling. She said, "I was teaching in a Catholic school that had values clarification and Outcome Based Education. I found that more and more, we had to report to the state. In the name of 'freedom', our schools are becoming more and more state controlled. She continues, "it is our duty to make sure that our children's souls are saved, and it can't be done in the local schools.
  
  
• When a Wisconsin couple was asked what made them start to homeschool, they answered, "The election of Bill Clinton". They explained, "When Clinton was elected, we listened to everything he was talking about regarding education. We were horrified. We said, 'That's it!', and pulled out children out of the schools to teach them at home."
  
  
• One New Jersey mother said, "All I had to hear was my young daughter say to me, 'if you hit me, my teacher says I can take you to court', and I started homeschooling from that moment on." She continued, "Why would any mother or father send their children to a place that turns children against the parents?"

The speakers at the conference reiterated that it is the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church that parents are the primary educators of their children. Schools are meant to be helpmates of the parents and must respect the parents wishes regarding the education of their children. Now the reverse has taken place, and the educational "experts" will dictate what the child learns and whether the parents approve or not.

Some of the speakers quoted a recent Vatican document that reinforces parental rights. But sadly, when the speakers were asked if the Vatican intends to inaugurate any disciplinary measures against bishops and chancery offices that ignore or betray parents rights, the answer was that there are none.

Therefore, homeschool parents are still very much without meaningful support. They have an uphill battle on their hands since their stand will usually put them in opposition to local diocesan centers. However, most homeschooling parents possess the grace and courage to be undaunted in the face of this. One Kentucky mother, calm and smiling, neatly summed up why she makes the great sacrifices that homeschooling requires: "I do it to keep my kids Catholic." Enough said.