Having three sons, I was reading an article which piqued my interest called Wimps and Barbarians yesterday. My worst fear is my sons becoming either barbarians or wimps. My aim in homeschooling them has always been to bring them up as real men whom I will truly be proud of. I found myself agreeing with many points the author made on how today's boys have an appalling lack of male leadership combined with our societies tolerance of males who disrespect women and dishonouring men with thumos. Reading this also caused me to pause as I then wondered... what of my daughter? She is but a year old yet I have already started to prepare for her adolescence and teen years. My dream is that she may leave the fold a virtuous and discerning woman who will be able to make the right choice for a husband despite society's pressures to give away her virtue in the guise of protection through an out-of-marriage attachment. If you have a daughter, the accompaniment to the above article is Heather's Compromise.

A young man about 12 stopped by our house to sell chocolates for his school. I of course obliged, chocolate is most certainly a food group, right? I then started thinking about schools sending children out to raise funds for their programs. Sure, it is often extra-curricular programs, though sometimes funds are raised for an additional aid, computers or specific curricula. It made me question why on earth they would need to send small children out to raise money within the community when so much of our tax dollar is going to education. I then thought of the money our government allocated to homeschool parents to teach their children and fund their independent school boards... and how ironic that I would NEVER ask my friends or family to fund our homeschool efforts. I see teaching our children as a family responsibility and the few dollars the government provides us for curriculum a small fraction of what we spend on training our children. Hmm, come to think of it, how ironic to know that what we spend on municipal taxes specifically for education is far more than we receive back to educate our children at home! And we are indeed blessed in Alberta as our province is the only one which provides funding for homeschool education at all. Thank you for sharing with me one of the ironies that befell me today.