All and Everything

One of the things that has begun to bother me more and more the older I get is the idea that ALL children should be straight A students, attend college, and excel at EVERYTHING they take their hand to. In order to make this happen parents spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and even more hours pursuing the ALL and EVERYTHING dream. Once upon a time a student could pursue career goals outside of college in fields such as woodworking, car mechanics, and other trades during his high school years. Most of those programs are now defunked so that dollars could be extended to academic subjects. The only thing superseding the academics is the athletic department where every child is being trained for the Olympics, NFL, and NBA.

Schools are overwhelmed with the needs of its students so parents have begun outsourcing. When they realize that their student is not performing at grade level they hire tutors and spend endless evening hours agonizing over home work. When those efforts do not produce the desired grades, they will mortgage their house to a private company to perform tests and fix the problem. The same outsourcing has occurred in sports. While playing sports for your school is great, you will still need to spend hundreds of dollars on private trainers and camps. As parents we believe that if we just spend enough money and time then our child can and will have ALL and EVERYTHING. This is not reserve for the public school and secular peoples however, it is more and more the view of home schooling parents.

When the home school movement began it was based on a desire for families to raise Godly children with solid Christian world views. They felt called by God to home school and HE was the center of their home school. There were many criticisms of the home school movement. Children would not be socialized. How could a mother with out a teaching degree possibly educate her children at home? As it turns out, the proof was indeed in the pudding and today we find that neither of the issues were valid concerns. Home school children are more likely to serve their communities, be involved in politics and their churches than there public school peers. Home school students win national spelling bees, get accepted to Harvard, and generally out perform their peers on standardized tests. The focus was so intent on proving society wrong that while we have won that battle, we have caved into and bought the worldly standard for education and outside activities. The pressure is immense, not just on us as moms who home school but on our children as well.

The reality is that not all kids are wired to be a superstar valedictorians. Some kids are wired to be average. When did average become bad? Have we forgotten who wired our children in the first place? Why are we not seeking God's face for our children's future instead of running from one thing to the next trying to be "good" enough. The ALL and EVERYTHING for our children should be JESUS! HE certainly did not meet the worldly standard for a King of Kings!