Homeschoolers who give the rest of us a bad name.

Hot Topic Alert: This may piss you off so proceed at your own risk.

The local library used to run a reading group for early readers. It was set up for homeschoolers. The librarian would read a short children's story then they'd talk about it and do a craft. I wanted Baseball Boy to go but since his only experience with reading in a group setting came in kindergarten he wasn't exactly excited about going. But I got it stuck in my head that he was going whether he liked it or not. So I signed him up and dragged him to the library. He begged me to sit in with him. The deal was I'd sit in the back for as long as he needed me but he had to pay attention to the librarian, not keep looking at me. So the librarian reads the story. I forget which one it was but it was a typical kid story. Totally secular. So then she moves on to the Q&A part. There is this little girl and little boy sitting right up front. Every question she asks they are waving frantically. Each time they are called on they answer the question by saying "Jesus would do this" or "Jesus made this happen", on and on with everything relating back to Jesus. Even when another kid would answer they would just burst out with their Jesus account. Baseball Boy was beside himself. He's never even heard of this guy Jesus, except maybe in passing and now these kids are totally interjecting him into the story. The librarian is trying to steer the questioning back to center but it was futile. Finally, she gave up and just redirected the kids to the tables to do the craft. When it was over Baseball Ball wanted to stay to talk to the librarian. I gotta tell you, I was a little nervous about it. I had been unnerved by the whole experience and really just wanted to get out of there. So Baseball Boy patiently waits for everyone to leave and asks the librarian if there was a part of the story that he missed because he listened to the whole thing and doesn't remember Jesus being talked about. The librarian, who probably felt like she was crossing a minefield, just told him that "No, there was nobody named Jesus in the story but the two kids probably knew a story that reminded them of this one with him." He was okay with that but we talked about it several times throughout the day and he never really got comfortable with what had happened. He didn't want to go back and I didn't make him. I get very tired of people who raise their children to believe that their way is the only way. It's not the American way. It breeds hate and ignorance. Sure we all want to believe that we've got all the answers but the truth is we don't really know, whether you want to hear it or not it's the truth. When I was 10 years old my best friends mother (a devout Catholic) asked me if I was afraid of going to Hell because I didn't believe Jesus was our messiah. I said I didn't believe that would happen because G-d wouldn't send his children to hell. She said, "What if your wrong." Well I guess I'm going to hell then, what do you want me to say. Of course she was drunk at the time, not uncommon for her, but it taught me a valuable lesson in ignorance. Nobody knows..you won't know until you're dead. I don't worry about when I'm dead. I worry about what's happening now, trying to be the best person I can be now.