(btw, as ever, my tongue is in my cheek, a little)

You sound like you’re in the early stages of a form of madness that I have had for some years now. It starts by feeling a little bit like moral indignation, slowly builds in intensity to a kind of righteous outrage before finally causing your mind to snap which sucks all the enjoyment out of life and replaces it with paranoia.

No, you’re not on drugs (although I usually am). You’re ***a minority***. Worse still, you’re intelligent. Even worser stiller (and the main reason you’re suffering), you read the news.

Because you are an intelligent member of a minority group, you are particularly susceptible to the tricky emotive methods used by media and government to get people to behave in a particular way.

In my case, as a person who wishes to use mind-altering substances, I get caught by the constant stories about how people’s lives are being destroyed by drugs, what a great job the police are doing in seizing drugs, drug users and drug traffickers and how they desperately need *more power* to do the job even better thus making society a better and safer place for us and *our children* by eliminating the drug threat.

Obviously, I can’t read your mind but but you seem to be getting caught by the news stories of government requiring *more power* to invade your private family life to make sure that you are not abusing or disadvantaging your children in any way, thus making society a better and safer place etc. etc.

In both our cases, any attempt to criticize the progress of legislation is met by charges that we don’t care about society or the children. In both our cases, we believe that we are intelligent and responsible enough to know that our activities are not, in fact, harmful to society in any way. Certainly in your case (I’m a druggie remember), you may actually be doing society a great deed by turning out children who have actually been educated by someone who cares more about the children and less about the system.

I’m drifting a little, but my point is this; stop reading the news and instead concentrate on continuing, quietly, the courageous path you have chosen for your family. You’ll go mad otherwise by continually questioning yourself, your motives, your ability to perform the task you have chosen and all sorts of other things simply because of the rubbish the media and government hacks publish to get the attention of *other people* than you. Why are you wasting precious time on them? They don’t deserve it.

You’re in a minority. You have to accept that. It’s hard work anyway but so easy to make even harder. So, if you’re going to reject the system, DO IT! If you think you can do better, DO IT! Forget the system. Don’t pay attention to the news or the government. Don’t care one hoot about anything they say they might do or are doing because that will detract from the time you can spend considering and contributing to the most important things in your life; yourself and your family.

You’re better off dealing with the men in black when they arrive rather than try to modify your lifestyle to avoid their gaze.

Libertus

Libertus, I’ve been pondering on how to respond. I know we have the right in law to home educate, but we also have the right to a private family life, and that is most definitely being eroded. Free nursery places for two year olds, research trying to persuade ppl that the earlier they get into education the better, taking DNA on the street and keeping it, a database that will log every child, (and therefore every adult), do I really need to go on?

I don’t think you have anything to worry about Jax. For every committed home educator there are a hundred far more scary parents the Govt will need to deal with first. You know… the ones who feed their kids a balanced diet of McDonalds, TV and Playstation but can’t understand why they turn out fat and stupid.