So.. How many ex-homeschooling fundamentalists are on this site? 

I’m a woman who woke up this year from a bad dream where I homeschooled my children in a dreamy “Madonna-land”, where the women are silent, serve their husbands hot family dinners every night, teach their children at home because there is more time to focus on character and create fully devoted followers of Christ, and God always answers prayer ..  Oh, wait ... That wasn’t a dream ... That was my life.

Actually, I’m still homeschooling until the end of this year and I actually still like having family dinners each night.  I’m just beginning to explore the alternative philosophies to life and have been a secret rebel via nightly Kindle reading. I’m in the middle of Dawkin’s “Greatest Show on Earth” and the kids and I are reading “The Beak of the Finch” together during homeschool.  My background is in Mathematics and Physics and it has taken well into my forties for my rational, scientific nature to override the deeply imbedded christian fundamental tapes of my childhood. What a relief to release my fear of hell and guilt of imperfection to the cosmic winds. 

I know when I fully emerge into my rational life it will result in shunning by my family and 90% of my friends.  Right now they are still allowing for my doubtful questions, praying for me and sending me Josh McDowell books.  My plan is to get a support system in line before I break it to the that I’m a hopeless case.  So far it’s nearly disrupted my last five years of life and I’m expecting worse on the horizon.

Center for Inquiry podcast have been a great lifeline. All of the brave authors that kept me from thinking I was going crazy because I didn’t believe anymore have my undying appreciation:  Robert Price (40 Days of Reason), Michael David Jeffers (Fundamental Questions), Betty Brogaard (the Homemade Atheist), Robert Ingersoll, Edward Carpenter (Pagan and Christian Creeds), Kenneth Daniels (Why I Believed), M.M. Mangasarian (The Truth About Jesus), Melodie Beattie (Codependent No More - just left off the higher power stuff), James Randi (The Faith Healers and his YouTube video on homeopathic medicine), Dale McGowan (Raising Freethinkers), Vincent Bugliosi (The Divinity if Doubt), Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason), Frank Schaeffer (Crazy for God), John Loftus (the Christian Delusion), Dan Barker (Godless), Charles Darwin (Origin), and Richard Dawkins (greatest Show).

It may seem like a lot of reading but I found it critical to record over my 40 years of biblical devotions with rational devotions.  I’m looking forward to reading all of your thoughts online.

Penelope Pretergnostic

Welcome Penelope

I’m sure you’ll find kindred spirits (minds) here….....

Penelope Pretergnosrtic - 06 December 2011 01:58 AM

My background is in Mathematics and Physics and it has taken well into my forties for my rational, scientific nature to override the deeply imbedded christian fundamental tapes of my childhood. What a relief to release my fear of hell and guilt of imperfection to the cosmic winds.

This is the precise reason I equate religious indoctrination with child abuse. I went through the same things myself, but fortunately a good friend helped me see the light in my early twenties. He is the same person who taught me to appreciate single-malt Scotch, but I digress.

Welcome Penelope. Getting way from brainwashing is difficult. When I renounced religion it felt like I regained my sanity. Good luck.

Hi and Welcome, Penelope.  It’s good to hear about your conversion to freethinking, congrats.  You will find many topics of interest here, and you’re not alone in being a recent escapee of fundementalism.

Hello Penelope,

Here there be freethinkers of all types willing to share ideas and yes, challenge you as well. I congratulate you on breaking out and into the world of free thought. Welcome and best of luck. You’ve definitely come to the right place!!

Cap’t Jack

Welocme.

Good to have you join us, Penelope.  I sympathize with the pain you will probably have to go through from your family and possibly your husband for your apostasy.  I have to admire your courage and clear thinking to be able to analyze what you’ve been taught since childhood, to recognize the fallacies, and to change your beliefs.

Since I’ve attended only public schools from 1st grade to post-graduate, I chose that.  However, most of the choices have some advantages and possible or real disadvantages.  One on one tutoring is probably the most effective teaching method, and is similar to homeschooling if the parent has a broad knowledge base.  A problem I see with all the choices is if the teacher has a bias that’s being fed to the kids it can be destructive in the long-run.  An advantage public or private schooling has is that it helps the kids learn how to deal with each other and with society. 

Are there any other members of your family who will support your change, and what does or will your husband’s response be?

Occam

Welcome Penelope   In answer to your question, as a good skeptic i would have to say “it depends”. Kids are such individual beings that there could never be a one size fits all “best” approach to teaching them. Even within my own family, my three kids learn differently and benefited from different approaches. I suppose you could use that argument to say that public schooling would be the worst approach but there again it depends. It depends on where you live and what the philosophy of the school is and where your child fits on the spectrum of social and learning skills. All three of my children went to the local public schools. My wife and I are both products of the public schools and are big supporters of strong public school system. We have the advantage however of living in an area that has some of the best public schools in the country. If I lived in the city and my kids didn’t qualify for one of the best schools in the system I’m sure we would have taken a very different path.

There aren’t as many people who home school their kids in this part of the country as there are in some other areas, but i guess my biggest concern about home schooling is that the kids might get a very one sided view of everything. They are our kids of course and we have the right to raise them as we think is best but they are also citizens of a larger community and because of that I think we as parents have a responsibility to expose our kids to other points of view and other ideas so they learn to think for themselves and can become a tolerant individual in that diverse community. I know several home schooling families locally and they certainly make an effort to get their kids involved with other kids and in local sports but I wonder if thats true of the majority of home schooled children.

Welcome.  I said public schools is best, but I also think indoctrinating children is a form of child abuse.  I see I’m not the only one here who thinks that either.

Welcome Penelope;

On the schooling issue.  I am in favor of all children attending public schools.  And no I am not a public school teacher.  Schools do much more than teach the 3Rs. Children need to gain experience in dealing with and respecting people with different backgrounds from themselves.  Public schools, IMO, are much better at teaching this than private schools that tend to be elitist and homescholling that doesn’t deal with this in any systematic way at all.

Our kids’ peers will leave an imprint on our children’s personalities for the rest of their lives. That’s what my wife and I take into a serious consideration when deciding on a school for our boys.