Bad in Good Company

Okay, so now I have reassurance from total strangers that no, I am not in fact the winner of the coveted Worst Homeschooling Parent Ever award.

From something one fantastically funny entrant said, I'm worrying that I came across too strong with the whole "don't make the kids look bad" thing. So let me quickly redefine.

A great friend of mine confessed the other day that she'd brought her six-year-old daughter to some reading/writing tutoring program offered free at her local library. The tutors are volunteers, great with the kids, and everybody has a good time.

So the tutor who'd been working with this woman's daughter thought it would be fun to teach her how to write her full name.

"What's your last name?" he asked the little girl.

"I don't know," the little girl answered.

"I was mortified," the mom said. "Oh, my God, I am a complete and total failure."

To me, this isn't a story that makes the kid look bad, because the mom's attitude was: Here I was living my life thinking that I was doing okay as a homeschooler, and it turns out I'm ruining my child's life.

If someone else told me a similar story, they might take another attitude. Something like: Isn't it hilarious what an idiot my kid is?

I would accept the first telling of the story as an entry; I'd reject the second one. Just because of the attitude of the reporter. To me, that's the real distinction.

My friend's story is an official Horrifying Homeschooling Moment, because although her dear good friends may temporarily lose bladder control on hearing it, we're not laughing (or being asked to laugh) at her kid. We're deeply relieved that we're not the ones it happened to; or we're admitting that we've had scarily similar incidents in our own lives. Or both. Probably both.

(Incidentally, I saw this same friend the next day and mentioned that I'd been thinking about the incident. "Oh, God," she said. "No, listen," I said, and proceeded to remind her that: 1. She and her husband don't have the same last name, so it isn't as if the child is a member of the "Jones" family -- there isn't a unifying last name that the little girl considers herself a part of, and there's nothing wrong with that; and 2. The daughter in question has an unusual first name, and is usually referred to by a particularly cute nickname. I'm changing her name completely here, but let's say she's usually called "Lee-Lee." And when her mom has to be particularly impressive -- if she really needs to get the kid's attention, since said kid is wandering into traffic or about to tumble into a well or something -- she just hauls out her whole first name: "Annaliese!" Which is enough of a change of pace to stop the kid dead in her tracks. Whereas I generally have to haul out two middle names, a last name, and a Roman numeral to get my kid's attention. My friend seemed convinced and relieved by all this.)

So. Hope this helps clarify what I bungled in expressing the first time. Basically, just send in anything that would tell us you got a low-twenties (or better yet, low teens) score on the Overachieving Homeschooler's Quiz. Which, if you need to take it again, can be found here:

http://www.secular-homeschooling.com/003/quiz.php