Homeschool Mothers, Shaping A Cult of Domesticity?

Have you seen this August 6, 2009 article about homeschoolers here?

Here’s one reader response to it that has a little kick…

…I see many women who have lived wild lives themselves come into the homeschool fold. I also know a couple who have taken their child no further than his 8th grade year and he is ignorant and lazy.

I agree that peer pressure in today's society, the drugs, and the bullying are enormous. But I think more universal educational standards need to be imparted on homeschoolers wherever they are. We as a society shouldn't be making it easy for parents to teach at home; we should be holding them to as high a standard as we do our educators. Yes, that system is flawed but I believe that studies will prove in the future that many of these homeschooled children of today are too sheltered from the world to be able to function well within it.

The mothers need to get a clue, deal with the fact that education is just that, and let their children help shape their own lives. In every case (except for a few women that were just lazy), homeschooling mothers whom I have met are in charge of their husbands, their families, and even speak for their children. It is a situation where they are shaping a new "cult of domesticity" and you'd think the 1970s Feminism is long gone. Forget the coastal influences, this is the reality of the American heartland and these people vote and they are increasing in number with their "babies for Jesus". Rather scary, don't you think?

This last thought: Mothers...shaping...a cult of domesticity….hmm. Two comments.

1) I have been aware of the susceptibility on the part of Christian homes to have a practice of a cultish-expression about the family. It’s idolatry of the family. This is when patriarchy of the home collides with the eldership of the local church. Why a collision? I believe because my generation of evangelical pastors has upheld the Word over the Sacraments. Rather than Word and Sacraments, it’s been Word over Sacraments. When we reduce the understanding of the faithful purpose and practice of the sacrament of infant baptism, when we reduce the importance of it or do away with it altogether, we lose sight of the role, support and mutually complementary function of the church and home. The practice of infant baptism keeps children before us; and it also keeps the mandate of their godly nurture before us. Lose infant baptism, and both the home and the local church lose. We lose and draw swords on the matter of the responsibility of the child's nurture. Conversely, when we practice infant baptism and take hold of its import, and the family and the local church take up and seize the covenantal context of a mutually beneficial role and function of each sphere, then we can keep working out the saving call of nurturing our children with fear and trembling. Infant baptism helps to draw the lines for the two spheres of the home and church and helps to advance the discussion and practice of nurture. Without infant baptism and it's reminder of our roles, it’s a free for all.

2) Fathers, reflect on this woman’s commentary above. There’s the on-going danger about our passivity or abdication regarding our charge to be shepherds in the home. Genesis 3 reminds us of our susceptibility to neglect the Lord's will about this. When God asked, “Adam, where are you?,” He addressed the man about his locality and proximity. As Steve Farrar reminded us years ago in his Point Man, we have to be creative with our faithful presence in the home. It might be early hours or late, a lunch hour, a Saturday morning, a Sunday evening, or maybe, it’s one morning a week you go to work late, or we take a child with us to work for a half-day, etc., etc. Men, we cannot be everywhere at the same time; we are limited by our finitude. We need a sound theology and practice of delegation, but we also need an intentional practice of domestic shepherding, of being there. We have to plan for it. Some weeks, we’ll hit homeruns and do well; and other weeks not so. Keep working at your kingly role, right alongside of your queen. Admit to her that you struggle with being torn between work outside of the home and your work within. Sort out your strengths, and harness them, to emphasize them. Make adjustments, ask for prayer and stay at it. Mothers are gifted nurturers, but they are not the head of the home. Praise God for faithful wives and mothers—they do have an eternally significant role in the lives of our children; they are builders for righteousness in the home. Let the world deride or pity the role of faithful Homeschool Moms, as this response above colors things. But men, we need to be there; we need to be present around our children as much as strength and schedule will allow. It starts with re-kindling vision.

G. Mark Sumpter