Today, I found another article in The N Y Times about education and achievement, "When Should a Kid Start Kindergarten?" By ELIZABETH WEIL Ms. Weil points out that economically advantaged children who are also held back a year in school have a double advantage over kids who come to our school system from poverty. This is easy to see. A thing we all felt plainly enough in school ourselves. The kids with rich parents, the kids with a loving home, and the older kids all had advantage.

But a quote about parental motivation for keeping children home even one extra year grabbed my attention because it underlines a common homeschooling myth, that children are homeschooled so they may be sheltered from challenge and pain. "Fred Morrison, ...who has studied the impact of falling on one side or the other of the birthday cutoff, sees the endless “graying of kindergarten,” as it’s sometimes called, as coming from a parental obsession not with their children’s academic accomplishment but with their social maturity. “You couldn't find a kid who skips a grade these days,” Morrison told me. “We used to revere individual accomplishment. Now we revere self-esteem, and the reverence has snowballed in unconscious ways — into parents always wanting their children to feel good, wanting everything to be pleasant.” So parents wait an extra year in the hope that when their children enter school their age or maturity will shield them from social and emotional hurt."

This staggers me a bit. First of all, every parent wishes to shelter their children from pain. Those of us who don't are well considered monstrous. I have yet to meet a homeschooled child who is sheltered from struggle and pain. In fact I would like to meet the parent who devises a home so insulated and soft that the fundamental dichotomy of pleasure and pain can't penetrate. What did Farm Boy say to Princess Buttercup? "Life is pain, Highness." And so it is. There is no escape from "the Dark Side". But there are children well equipped to meet the challenge of pain. And I think a disproportionate number of them learn this skill at home.

Rather than setting out to shield their children from pain, the homeschooling parents I know all place a huge emphasis on harmony and good old fashioned manners. For those of you so subsumed by the academic psyche that you can no longer see straight across the dinner table, let me remind you what manners are. Manners are but tools to set the people in your company above yourself, if temporarily.

Now consider the bully. True, the bully is indeed a victim of parental neglect but ironically this neglect often comes in the form of an inability to teach a child manners. So often the child who can not effectively be made to understand the concept of "NO" becomes a narcissistic nightmare. The very worst kind of bully, the kind that thrives in our competitive educational system, the kind of bully that will ultimately seek and wield power; often abusing power in a subconscious attempt to fill themselves. And no wonder, many of these are children scrapped off onto "caregivers" and preschools and finally the school system with huge guilt and relief by parents who can not stand to say "NO". Their children are not forced to listen. They are placed in an environment which favors dominance. They become horrible company, even to their parents. And a vicious circle is created there that plays out again and again: "My mom can't stand me and for some reason it feels so good to kick your ass."

Did you all see the national spelling bee that was televised last week? I watched with more fascination than I ever could have believed. It was an excellent, healthy, and intense competition. The last two kids standing were precious and I wanted both to win. The winner was a 13 year old homeschooled boy. I noticed two things about him. 1) At the break he went to sit on his mothers lap. I admit right here that I cringed a tad. "Oh, look at that weak dependent little LapDog," it did go through my mind. 2) That kid has stone huevoes! After he won on national television in front of a million viewers this kid was interviewed. We learned from our commentator that LapDog prefers math, "I like the way the numbers fit together" and music, "I like to experiment with note combinations" more than spelling which he said, "was boring, not much more than memorisation".

Standing there with an (imbecilic) adult literally looming over LapDog's head, in front of God and everyone watching TV that night, he was pressed: "What do you think of spelling bees now?" The kid looks confused. Clearly he has made his position obvious. He is pressed further, commentator is starting to sweat: "What do you think of spelling bees now? (KID! You just won a $30,000 scholarship from us now make us look good.) LapDog is seriously perplexed and says, "Do you want me to say I like spelling because I won?" Oh how I cheered inside. Go Kid! Not one to be bullied. I guess he hasn't learned that adults, everyone taller, anyone with a microphone, or really just any one who flashes authority own his soul. I guess he has learned some moxie and some fortitude while sitting in the loving shelter of his mother's shadow.

It is not at all difficult for me to imagine that fortitude and moxie just may have been an intention of this kid's mother. Go Ms. LapDog!