So I decided to take some pictures of my daughter and her friends playing in the park. I got them to build a human pyramid, climb on the playground equipment, jump, swing, run and just about every other thing that a kid could do. And then I thought, "I could build a geocities website for these kids and we could add the things that they do in school and the like." So I told them. They were thrilled.

Well the kids went home and told their parents and while I was sitting on the bench in the park thinking to myself a thoughtful thought (as people in parks will do) the parents of one of the kids came out with their kids and their neighbor. Now I've not seen them at the park before, so I should have guessed at what was to happen before it happened, but no not me. They introduced themselves and asked me if I was really planning to put up a website and then asked me if I could leave their child off of it. Perhaps I could blot out his face, they suggested. I Told them that I had been thinking that some parents might not agree and was planning on not going thu with it. Better to make everyone happy then to piss off neighbors, thought I. But since then I have thought differently.

You see, this child is not the ordinary child. This child is destined to have no High School Diploma. He is destined to be shut away and isolated from children his age. He is destined to be kept apart from all of those that may be just a bit different from him. And he is one of those that needs these things the most. He's to be homeschooled.

It isn't the teacher in me that had to rant. It isn't the parent in me. Or the college student who had to deal with these people once they get out into the real world and havn't a clue. No, it is the human in me that felt the urge to blow off steam and scream to the world. (Or at least to those that wanted to read.)

"This is the first year" she said. As I asked her about it nicely, thinking "and if you do it right it will be the last year I suspect." It is hard work. "We prayed hard and long about it" she continued. "Oh" I though, "that explains much more then I really wanted to know." I wondered later what the prayers where. "Should we isolate our child?" "Should we guarantee him a mediocre education?" or perhaps "How do we convince him that what we believe is the truth when there is so much conflicting evidence out there?"

Those who are afraid of the truth have hidden themselves, and those that they control, away for centuries. That is how they get control initially. That is how they keep control for the long term. That is how the world has been for many, many years. In the country that we live in it is getting harder and harder to do so, but there is still a bastion of freedom that allows them work. The control parents have over their children. Until they are 18 my children will be not only my responsiblity, but my followers. My little cult. And what I believe, what I say, what I do, where I go, when I go there and everything in between will be their life.

And so this fifth grade boy down the street, who would be entering a new school year with my daughter, will be kept at home. He will not be taught the theory of evolution, or the truth about some religions, and who knows what else. He will be taught the twisted version of the world that his mother and father have come up with.

But I have the hope that he will somehow make it past all of this and see the world for what it is. You see, he has a handycap. Not a large one by some means, not a small one either. But a handycap that he has had since birth. And he has learned to overcome it. Without four fingers on his right hand he climbs the monkey bars just as any other child, he bats a ball, he plays nintendo, he does everything that a normal child would do. I also can't help but think that the special education teachers in public schools had much to do with this.

And a final note. The other two home school kids that I know I met in college. (And you can laugh here.) They were both pagans and living with their boyfriends. You can bet that their parents weren't to happy about that. Perhaps it isn't so bad to lock your kids away most of their lives after all?