Not Dead But Dreaming

Sorry for the long break. Life interrupted cyberlife and life doesn't play fair.

Let me tell you something about homeschooling. It sounds like a good idea on paper. What parent doesn't want to teach their kids and protect them from the corrupting influences they'll find in public schools? You build a relationship with their kids, keep them from drugs and crime, protect them from school shootings, all that. Sounds great, huh?

In practice, this is a terrible, terrible idea. Your kids need to experience other kids. They need to learn how to socialize and build friendships. If their only friends are mom and dad, who are they going to turn to with their problems? Everyone likes to romanticize their relationship with their kids by saying their kids can come to them with anything. Ask yourself two questions; First, are you going to be able to be there for your kids? And secondly, are they going to want to tell you about their problems?

Everyone likes to think that they will always be there for their kids. But when you're tired from working to put food on the table, most parents will come home, have dinner, and get some Me Time in front of the TV. They seem to assume that their kids will voice in their concerns, but you're both hypnotized by the talking heads in the glowing box in front of you. You watch American Idol or some such rubbish, call it bonding, and call it a night. This isn't bonding at all, it's coexisting. How can a teenager learn the subtle nuances of communication from this? Do you really think that they'll talk about their personal problems in this situation? You're not their friend. You're an authority figure and a distant one at that.

People adore the idea of being friends with their kids, to reclaim that closeness they think people had back in the day...but they're not willing to put forth any effort to fulfill this. Relationships require work that nobody seems to have time for these days. We live in a state of misery and loneliness only an industrialized society brings. In no other part of human history have so many people occupied the same rooms and been so distant. Close families and friendships are a wonderful thing, but are we capable of this? We show each other bite-sized bursts of love during every other commercial break and dive back into the quagmire of distraction. Those dollar menu social scenes are only broken down further if everybody is buried in their phones, Liking each other's statuses on Facebook and reading what some dickbag on Twitter is saying. The good times are gone, but are they lost forever?

In all probability, yes. With nobody wanting to make a change, nothing will change. It's easy to say you want change yet you won't turn off that fucking TV.

Source

My original point, before I got distracted like a monkey with a taser, was the problem with homeschooling I haven't addressed: It doesn't mean a goddamn thing. The State no longer recognizes homeschool diplomas, so, for all intents and purposes, you're forcing them to drop out. I fell out of the blogosphere because I was trying to go back to college. I put two years into community college once upon a time and I'd like to finish that up...unfortunately, all that school time was for nothing because I have to get a bloody GED to go back. 

Being poor (again, college dropout in the hizzy), I couldn't afford the $50 for the test, so I had to put thirty hours into the class to prep for the GED. Surrounded by broken hopes and broken minds, I realized one thing very quickly: I was massively overqualified for this class. Somehow they managed to find me thirty hours of work that wouldn't put me to sleep and I'm now off to get my GED...eight years after I graduated from high school. The gods are real and they're damn lunatics.

But everybody, I'm here to tell you that you can do away with that headstone you were lovingly carving out of gold for me. You can take my picture off the milk carton with offers of a million dollar reward. I'm not dead, I'm not missing, I've just let shit get in the way. I hope to once again regal you with obvious wisdom, with all the subtlety of a drunken, raging Sean Connery.

SourceI Googled "drunken raging Sean Connery"
and this is what I got.
Hey Google. That's rough.
Just the way you're mama likes it.

I'll be here, hope to see you here too.