{"id":88,"date":"2012-09-24T16:53:23","date_gmt":"2012-09-24T16:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/?p=88"},"modified":"2012-09-24T16:54:15","modified_gmt":"2012-09-24T16:54:15","slug":"homeschoolers-behavior-and-maternal-deviance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/?p=88","title":{"rendered":"EMOTIONALLY LAYERED ACCOUNTS: How Homeschooling Mothers Justify Their Actions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Record<\/strong>: \u00a0 Jennifer Lois, \u201cEmotionally Layered Accounts: Homeschoolers\u2019 Justifications for Maternal Deviance\u201d in Deviant Behavior<\/em> 30, no. 2 (February 2009): 201-234<\/p>\n

Summary<\/strong>:\u00a0 Lois<\/a>, a sociology professor at Western Washington University, here investigates how homeschooling mothers deal with criticisms of their actions.<\/p>\n

Lois begins by explaining\u00a0that previous research has dealt mostly with criticisms and defenses of homeschooling by movement leaders and political opponents.\u00a0 She wanted to know more about how actual homeschooling moms dealt with the threat to their status as \u201cgood mothers\u201d by critics, often close friends and family members, who worry that their homeschooling choice may be a sign of \u201creal emotional problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

A second context for her study is the literatures on maternal deviance and on emotions.\u00a0 Lois notes that the deviance literature has tended to ignore deviant feelings in its focus on deviant behaviors, and the emotion literature has tended to ignore first person accounts of dealing with dissident emotions.<\/p>\n

Though not a homeschooling mother herself, upon moving to Washington State Lois was drawn to the homeschooling world and spent four years attending\u00a0 PATH, \u201cParents Association for Teaching at Home\u201d [throughout her study Lois uses pseudonyms.\u00a0 This organization’s real name is the Teaching Parents Association<\/a>, or TPA].\u00a0 During those four years she also conducted 24 in-depth interviews with homeschooling mothers, attended conventions, and immersed herself in homeschooling literature.<\/p>\n

Though \u201cPATH\u201d isn\u2019t exclusively Christian, most of its members are, and Lois\u2019 interview sample reflects standard homeschooler demographics.\u00a0 14 out of 24 were conservative protestant, 21 were white, all were female, 3.2 children on average, and mostly middle class.<\/p>\n

Lois\u2019 research revealed four specific charges raised against homeschooling mothers, to which four responses by these mothers were offered.\u00a0 First, homeschooling mothers were commonly charged with feeling academically arrogant<\/strong>: \u201cThey were cast as smug, irresponsible mothers who thought they could do a better job teaching their children than credentialed teachers in conventional schools.\u201d\u00a0 (210)<\/p>\n

Homeschooling mothers countered this charge by appealing to a value most Americans agree with:\u00a0 mothers know their children better than anyone else.\u00a0 Certified teachers may be experts at curriculum or classroom management, but mothers are experts on their own children.<\/p>\n

A second criticism commonly voiced is that homeschooling mothers are socially overprotective<\/strong>.\u00a0 Homeschoolers are \u201cirresponsible mothers who, because of their uncontrollable overprotectiveness, were failing their children by sheltering them from reality.\u201d (214)<\/p>\n

Homeschooling mothers respond again by appealing to commonly accepted sentiments.\u00a0 They note how schools can be brutal places where bullies humiliate, where academic talent is lampooned, where rigid social hierarchy is enforced, where peer obsession\u00a0with fashion and mass culture takes over, where school bureaucracy (especially standardized testing) trumps the needs of individual students.\u00a0\u00a0Mothers also voice their desire to spare their children from receiving the pejorative \u201clabels\u201d given them by well-intentioned special educators or teachers.\u00a0 \u201cResponsible mothers should<\/em> protect their children\u201d from such things.<\/p>\n

Third, homeschooling mothers are accused of feeling morally self righteous and extreme<\/strong>, be it the self-righteousness of the hippie counterculture or the fundamentalist theocrat.<\/p>\n

Homeschoolers responded to this charge in a more complex way.\u00a0 Some mothers denied they were extremists and justified their homeschooling by appealing to common American values.\u00a0 One mother, for example, said, \u201cI just want my children to have successful lives, to be good community members, pay their taxes, have good jobs\u2026\u201d\u00a0 These mothers are just trying to keep faith with the American dream even though the public school no longer works.<\/p>\n

Other homeschooling mothers acknowledged their radical views but denied that they were bad.\u00a0 They defended their \u201cGod given\u201d right to raise their children and hold up the family over the state as the key institution responsible for raising children.\u00a0 Such mothers are adamant in their rejection of the authority of the State to impose its views of evolution, gay rights, religious tolerance, and so on on their children.\u00a0 Their religious beliefs give them emotional confidence in their decision to protect their children from worldliness.<\/p>\n

Finally, homeschooling mothers are accused of being relationally hyperengaged<\/strong>, of having an \u201cabnormally strong desire to be emotionally and physically close to their children,\u201d which caused them to be \u201cexcessively involved with every aspect of their lives.\u201d (221)\u00a0 Such mothers are seen as sacrificing their child\u2019s individuality to their own pathological emotional\u00a0needs.<\/p>\n

Mothers tended to respond to this charge by admitting the emotional bond but denying that it was pathological.\u00a0 They reverse the charge and see the broader culture as the unhealthy party in its rush to separate the child from the mother.\u00a0 One mother describes sending her child off to preschool, \u201cAll the kids were crying when they left their mothers.\u00a0 But we\u2019re told they need to do this for their social development.\u201d\u00a0 This mother, like most other homeschooling moms, rejected this view and celebrated the positive outcomes of strong mother-child bonds.\u00a0 In a culture that believes strongly in intensive mothering already, these moms argue that homeschooling is<\/em> good mothering.\u00a0 They remind their critics of how so many Americans look back on their children\u2019s early lives and regret that they didn\u2019t spend enough time with them.\u00a0 Homeschooling mothers have no such regrets.<\/p>\n

Lois\u2019 scholarly point in all of this is to emphasize that people accused of deviance are not only accused of wrong behaviors but of wrong feelings<\/em>.\u00a0 When confronted with such charges, individuals seeking to save face often respond by explaining how their feelings in fact are perfectly in line with societal norms.\u00a0 This was the strategy homeschooling mothers used in most cases.\u00a0 Unlike mothers struggling with postpartum depression, homeschooling mothers are not accused of having the wrong <\/em>emotions (resentment, detachment, disappointment, etc.) but of too much of the right<\/em> emotions.\u00a0 They are deviant because their mothering is deemed too intense.\u00a0 Homeschooling moms respond, often incredulously, by appealing to the very notion of good mothering that dominates middle class culture and explaining their attitudes in terms most Americans understand and accept.<\/p>\n

Appraisal<\/strong>:\u00a0 Those familiar with homeschoolers will find little here that is new or surprising, but Lois\u2019 four categories nicely summarize the various criticisms of homeschooling, and her focus on maternal feelings ably expresses how intensely personal the issue is for mothers who homeschool.\u00a0 To critique homeschooling is not only to critique a political movement or a pedagogical practice but to critique these mothers\u2019 very identities.\u00a0 The practice taps into the deepest of maternal sentiments and thus motivates homeschoolers to action when they feel threatened by opponents.\u00a0 Lois’ nuanced description captures well the reason for the intensity of movement activism.<\/p>\n

Milton Gaither, Messiah College<\/p>\n

Disclaimer:\u00a0<\/strong> The views expressed in reviews are not the official views of ICHER or of its members.\u00a0 For more information about ICHER\u2019s Reviews, please see the \u00ab\u00a0About these Reviews \u00bb Section.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Record: \u00a0 Jennifer Lois, \u201cEmotionally Layered Accounts: Homeschoolers\u2019 Justifications for Maternal Deviance\u201d in Deviant Behavior 30, no. 2 (February 2009): 201-234 Summary:\u00a0 Lois, a sociology professor at Western Washington University, here investigates how homeschooling mothers deal with criticisms of their … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[56,55,98,99,100,97],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parental-motivation","tag-deviant-behavior","tag-jennifer-lois","tag-maternal-deviance","tag-teaching-parents-association","tag-tpa","tag-western-washington-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions\/182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}