GUESS WHAT? YOU STILL DON’T
It takes real talent to expose one’s ignorance and parental shortcomings so vividly in so few words:
I never thought the day would arrive when I would understand the impulse to home school.
The idea of removing children from the real world and educating them in the cloister of your basement rec room — in essence to deprive your children of any knowledge but that which you spoon-feed them — has always struck me as problematic, if not wrongheaded.
Until last Tuesday.
That was when my daughter asked a question I’d presumed to be still years away.
“Mommy, can I have lip gloss?”
She’s not yet 4. We were eating breakfast.
“No, you may not have lip gloss,” I responded.
Then, I wondered: How does she know about lip gloss? Who is giving her lip gloss?
And so I conceived the first component of my personal home-school curriculum: It would provide a 100 percent lip gloss-free environment for children under 6. In fact, the entire industry of cosmetics for 4-year-olds would not be allowed in my home school.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m no fan of lip gloss for any age group. But if you think putting your hands over your child’s eyes counts as helping her navigate the shoals of consumer culture …