Most of the time when we rant, our intended audience is other homeschoolers. Sometimes we forget or sometimes we don’t care that the audience is potentially larger than what is intended. It is like a very public private conversation and I think mostly we would do well if everyone recognized that in blogs, especially in blogs they are not familiar with.

People strike a very different tone when their goal is to actually try to persuade someone with a different opinion. Even most discussions on blogs don’t qualify as that sort of discourse. Mostly when bloggers respond to disagreement, they are actually writing for those who agree with them, hence the sarcasm, the bitterness, the lack of an attempt to find any sort of common ground. That and we aren’t really dealing with people, just snippets of information. It takes effort to remember there is a person on the other side of the Internet.

It is one thing for me to say to you over a cup of coffee that I’m tired of uniformed journalists and hypocritical social service workers casting aspersions on all homeschoolers because of some abuse case. By the nature of relationship between two people having coffee together, you would know that my heart went out to the abused child, that these things sicken me, and likely that I left working with the foster care system in part because it just affected me too much to read the files on these kids.

But when the article is published and 102 of the 110 comments are from homeschoolers ranting rather than expressing sympathy, it does not come across the same way because that relationship is not there with the total stranger. Instead, it comes across as looking a little insensitive and the assertion of “rights” appears out of place.

Balancing my right not to have a state official enter my home to check on my children against the horrific situation described in the article seems like a major disconnect. And it is no wonder so many people respond with “children have rights, too.” But while I think the issue of rights is important, and perhaps even central, it isn’t the first thing that should be dragged out in the comment box of an article like this. “Sorry the kid died, but I have rights!” is what it sounds like even though it is most probably not the actual attitude of the person writing the comment.

I think I just went off on my own tangent, but these issues frustrate me.

Confirm thy SOUL in self-control,
Thy LIBERTY in law.

Homeschoolers can get so worked up over “liberty in law” that we lose self-control, stop confirming our soul.

I mean by that the soul of homeschooling, which is no more external or legalistic than our individual souls. But we see loss of soul absent self-control too, in every homeschool blogger upset enough about some external political threat or enemy, to stop reasoning and start ranting, smearing, listening only to her own echo chamber. Even on an issue such as this — maybe especially on a issue such as this.

This isn’t true of the Paddock’s, but imagine cases like the Jacks case. How do you have four children dead in their rooms in an apartment for what is beginning to look like months without anyone noticing? Residents thought it was a mouse? No one noticed they hadn’t seen the children in ages?

No government program can compensate for that kind of failure. And that is where I get particularly frustrated. Liberty is only possible with responsibility. Our system of government is not possible with widespread complacency.

After all, the federal government would have never gotten involved with education if the system were working. But it isn’t failing due to lack of state oversight. It is struggling due to problems in the home. The government can do some things, but it cannot replace the key people in a child’s life that make education attainable.

I think it’s like Dave Ramsey’s advice about paying off your smallest debt first, no matter if that interest rate is more favorable than some other debt. The point isn’t only the logic and numbers of it; it’s the psychology of it, what makes us feel like we’re making progress in the right direction, instead of just throwing up our hands.

Child abuse is something that has always been around, but something we are only relatively recently truly aware of. But with almost all child abuse statistics we have, there is a sort of shadowy figure reported next to it…the number of cases that go unreported.

I always question how we know that. How do we “know” that the rate of abuse is three times higher than the reported cases? And if that is the case, why do use the same multiplier of three when child abuse statistic climb? Isn’t it more reasonable to think that perhaps reporting is increasing?

We used to have neighbors that I worried about a little. Not anything that would be reportable, but just a general feeling. Rather than calling CPS, however, we got involved with the family. Invited them over, told them we’d love to have their kids over any time and did what little we could to offer them support.

If everyone reached out to struggling families and drew them into their communities, I think perhaps we would see both better reporting and, more importantly, less abuse.