Autumn - mom post

The question we are most often asked about homeschooling is not the one I would ask.  I would ask what I consider the weightiest question all homeschooling families face: "What math curriculum do you use?"  The next most pressing question being: "What exactly is an adverbial phrase??  Does it go before or after the predicate? When it comes before the subject, does it require a comma???"

The question most earnest inquirers ask is: "Aren't you worried about their socialization?"  Followed quickly by, "Aren't you concerned about how they will adjust to the Real World?"  This week, along with a myriad of activities that involved children their own ages, my kids picked tomatoes with their loving and long-suffering grandparents, had tea with the neighbour's kids aged 6, 9 and 13 (and their mom, aged, never you mind), split wood with their father and our benevolent neighbour who loaned us the splitter, and had piano lessons with the nicest young lady in the world.  

I had a very short career, granted, but I never worked with another 38 year-old-women.  Never.  68 year old chemical lab technicians, yes.  22 year old co-op students, unfortunately, yes.   40 something year-old-bosses, yes.   Come to think of it, I never worked with another lady at all!  

All this is to say, I am not sure the mono-age, mono-gender socialization model is really relevant in this "etherial" real world.... where is this place where everyone is 13 years old? Or 4 years old?  Or 38 years old?

Titus 2 implies a multi-generational existence:

"Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.  Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. 7 In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness 8 and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us."

So, speaking of teaching the young ladies to do stuff... if anyone has ideas about green tomatoes and what to do with them: send them this way.