Uncle CHiN
Dear Uncle CHiN,
The other day while driving with my children, we were joking and laughing, really whooping it up. I realized that I truly love their company. In fact, I prefer their company to anyone else’s. I don’t know many other parents like this. Most other parents I know say they are happy that their children go to school so they can get them out of the house. Is there something wrong with me for preferring the company of my children?
Signed, Abby Normal
Dear Abby,
I thought I might someday write a letter that began, "Dear Abby," but I never
imagined I would be the one giving the advice.
You wonder why you are content in the company of your own children. Uncle CHiN
is sad that anyone feels the need to question her enjoyment of people of any age
or status. The estrangement of mothers from their own children is especially sad.
In our lifetimes, mothers numbering in the millions have left home to join the
workforce. Economic pressure drove many of them out. Have they prospered? When you
look at measures like real income over recent decades, you find that American families
are barely staying in place economically, despite two parents working. Somehow, more is
less.
Somebody at the top of the food chain has profited from pulling millions of women
into the workforce. Overall, most families have not gained enough monetarily to justify
the sacrifice, and all families are poorer for the lack of time: to breathe, to listen,
to be heard, to know each other, to cuddle, to be cuddled. Serenity is the most precious
commodity of our times.
In the long run, society may be the loser, too. The costs of housing children in day
care and schools are staggering. We’re not just talking dollars here—we’re talking about
the costs of dealing with generations of children who are fragmented and lost. For some,
homelessness is a state of mind that begins in infancy.
Whoever profits from tapping the women’s labor force got a great assist from the
misguided radicals of the women’s movement. Feminists set up the most self-defeating
conundrum of all time. They said, "Women are too intelligent and too creative to waste
their time raising their own children so they should hand the children over to . . . uh . . .
the care of unintelligent and uncreative people . . . ? Oh . . . no, no . . . Uhm . . . Hand
them over to . . . uh . . ." I’m still waiting for feminists to tell us just who is fit to
raise our children if we, as parents, are too almighty important for the job.
Uncle CHiN regrets that society saturates us with the message that we don’t like our
children. The message serves economic and political purposes at the expense of our families.
Once we buy into the message even a little, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because of
the estrangement it causes. The less time we spend with our children, the less we know them
and the less we have influence over them. Not surprisingly, we find the child who spent ten
hours in daycare (eight of them his best waking hours) a strange and annoying creature when
we have just spent our ten best waking hours at a desk, a cash register, or a forklift.
Today’s family must somehow keep bread on the table and love around the table. If your
family has found a way to keep one parent at home, cherish the opportunity and never apologize
for it. Tell everyone you can that it simply isn’t true that children are ghastly little
creatures. Children are wonderful people. They are fun and they are fascinating. The most
interesting people you will ever know are your own children. Part of our mission as homeschoolers
is to reawaken society to this fact.
Love, Your Uncle CHiN
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About Testing
Deducting Homeschooling Expenses
Homeschooling through the Summer
On Doing "Nothing"
On Loving Your Children's Company
Over Eager Mom
Private Time for Mom
Sibling Rivalry
Teaching Children at Different Grade Levels
The Many Ways to Homeschool
Uncle CHiN on ADHD
Unit Studies
What About the Prom?
Winning over a Skeptical Grandma
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