The Parent-Child Bond

I have often struggled in my attempts to share with people how homeschooling created a bond and strengthened relationship with my children that I never thought possible.  I don’t want to make it appear as if the bond my friends have isn’t good enough or that their relationship isn’t strong.  Before I home schooled, I thought my relationship with my children was strong and nobody could have convinced me otherwise.  So, I understand most audiences cannot be convinced.  But having home schooled for several years I can see firsthand the incredible bond and strength in my relationship with my children.  It has strengthened beyond what it used to be.  It is literally indescribable.  

A mother falls in love with her new-born baby and falls in love with him again every time he does something adorable & each time she looks at her gorgeous eyes and precious hair.  Mothers love their babies even when he throws mustard and peas at the kitchen wall or she systematically empties all the draws full of freshly folded laundry. It is no secret that Mothers feel love and have affections for our children. 

And children receive it with open arms! Toddler’s love, respect and admire their parents above all else! How many times have you heard a toddler say, “My daddy is the BEST! He can do anything” or “My mommy is my favorite”.  It comes so easy to them. 

We know that toddlers admire their parents as heroes and don’t shy away from expressing their feelings.  Let’s skip forward a few years.  They have been going to public school now for several years. When they are age 8-17 how many times have you heard, “No mom, my teacher said to do it this way” or “I will get in trouble if I don’t do it just like Ms. Trunchbull said” or, “Mom, you don’t know what you’re talking about”

There is a theory of WHY this drastic change in allegiance from parent to school teacher happens within our children, America is not the 1^st nation to experience this.  In Sparta, children were taken early from their fathers and mothers, and educated in Spartan public educational institutions called Agoge. The Spartan State kept close supervision and control over the younger years of childhood so that children could fulfill their purpose of growing into good and able warriors.  Their training was a practice of obedience.  The State was the final arbiter in defining what was proper. 

This was done that they might know no other parents, and consequently no other tie but to the public.  This was intentional! It was because the leaders didn’t want any affections to detract from or weaken the love of country, but rather allow the country (or government) to absorb all attachments.  The effect of this type of education amongst the Spartans was that they became fierce and savage, rather than generous and compassionate.   

We can only assume this Spartan way of educating their young was particularly calculated to prevent these affections with their mother and father.  We see an intrusive State with a very visible “long arms” akin to our modern child education.

America is not the only state to re-adopt this Spartan way of educating.  Prussia and France have also used it.  In America, school is compulsory at age 5, and there is proposed legislation to take kids as early as age 3. 

I am hoping that as you look at the Spartans way of educating their young, you will see that it is intentional to remove children at a young age from their home, keep them for 7 hours a day, for 13 years.  In these Spartan-esk ways of educating our youth, the government desires to replace the affection for the parents with themselves.  In this way they can create very devoted social justice warriors, students who will faithfully repeat exactly what they are told to repeat and feel a sense of pride in doing so. 

Sam Sorbo is a home school mother and author of 3 books on home education and wife to Kevin Sorbo.  She said that we often think that homeschooling is a great sacrifice.  Because we sacrifice so much to be able to home school our children. We quit jobs, or cut hours, we pay fees and purchase our own curriculum, and so much more.  But in reality, we sacrifice so much more when we send them to public school. 

As a teacher in the public arena for the last 22 years, I can tell you that teachers go through extensive training to teach us how to artificially create a bond of trust with our students.  This bond already occurs naturally between a parent and child.  And so, a parent is the most natural and effective teacher because nobody loves and wants your child to succeed more than you do. 

I have often struggled in my attempts to share with people how homeschooling created a bond and strengthened my relationship with my children more than I ever thought possible.  When I studied the Spartan’s way of educating their children, and more importantly, WHY they did it that way – Then I can see why my relationship with my children is so much stronger when I home school. Since our current education program is patterned after the Spartans, I have concluded that the apparent intention of public education is to remove the child’s affection from me and place that affection on the State.  And so, when I remove them from that program, they have nothing to divide their affection from me.  And so, it naturally grows into a stronger bond and devotion then it would otherwise be.