Identity parenting and spiritual greenwashing
Thoughts and observations from a second-generation homeschooler
I went to my first ever homeschool conference twenty-five years ago, the summer before I was a freshman in high school. My mom had been homeschooling my sisters and I from the beginning, but wanted some input and ideas as she embarked into the then-untamed wilderness that was homeschooling high school. Growing up extremely rurally, where we were some of the very few homeschoolers in the area, I was amazed that all these hundreds of people were also weirdos like us.
In the coming years, I went to more homeschool conferences. When I was 20 and working as a mother’s helper for a young family in Florida. When I was newly homeschooling myself, and I wanted to see how the landscape had changed now that I was the teacher and not the student. (Spoiler: it changed drastically!) A couple of years ago, when my oldest daughter was really struggling with reading and I wanted to find some good dyslexia resources for her. And…several weeks ago.
This year, I only wanted to check out the Exhibit Hall at the Rocky Mountain Homeschool Conference as one of my favorite curriculum vendors, Simply Charlotte Mason, had released some new language arts resources and I wanted to see them in person before deciding what to get for our coming year. And though I was only there for a couple of hours, I realized…some things never change. Even over the course of twenty-five years, from coast to coast (Colorado, Florida, California, and Idaho) certain mindsets and ideas have been prevalent at every single homeschool conference I’ve been to, no matter where or when it was.
Now, before I get into the nitty-gritty of my observations over the years, a couple of caveats. I’m going to be giving specific examples of things as I abhor vagueness. I feel like ambiguity means that we can more easily brush things under the rug when they need to be brought into the light and examined. If I mention something you like in a possibly negative light, that doesn’t mean that I think you’re a bad homeschool mom, etc. I will probably step on some toes, but I trust that, as adults, we can take criticism of ideas or items we like and decide for ourselves if it’s valid or not. If you decide that a certain curriculum or mindset serves what you want for your family, good for you! What I’m speaking out against is blind acceptance of the status quo. Just because something has been done for years doesn’t mean it’s what is best. End caveats.
Over the years, the amount of homeschool curriculum available has grown exponentially (shout-out to Rainbow Resource and their incredible free catalog for helping make the hundreds of options accessible!), but one of the first things I noticed walking into the Exhibit Hall this year was that the marketing tactics of certain curriculum vendors haven’t changed in literal decades. Especially with this crowd (the RMHC is an overtly Christian homeschool conference, whereas others don’t have an explicitly religious focus), if you slap a “Biblical worldview” sticker on something, many people will buy it without a second thought. And honestly, I find that sad and concerning. What happened to being “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16)? People homeschool for many reasons, and giving their children a Christian education is often one of them. I have no problem with that, as that’s one of the reasons for us as well, but let’s not forget the actual “education” part of it too.
I’m just going to say it: if you’re teaching your child math from a curriculum that claims it’s going to do so with a “Biblical worldview”, I would question if it’s actually a solid math curriculum. In my opinion, personal experience, and decades-long observations, giving your child a solid foundation in Christ is not accomplished through making sure that every resource you use has a Christian worldview. If anything, that hyper-focus can weaken the strength of the foundation you’re trying to build because it never has to push back against anything. I have seen and experienced that helping your child form their own relationship with Jesus and facilitating encouragement for that in your home, and then being by their side as they encounter worldviews of all kinds is what actually yields a groundwork that can stand strong in the world.
After I got home from the conference, I was venting about that phenomenon to Aaron, and as he was also homeschooled for his entire education, it’s one he’s very aware of as well. He labeled it “spiritual greenwashing” and I found that term very apropos. If you’re not aware, the dictionary definition of “greenwashing” is “the act or practice of making a product, policy, activity, etc. appear to be more environmentally friendly or less environmentally damaging than it really is”. And in this case, the spiritual greenwashing is happening when a product or resource is marketed to be more helpful to your family’s spiritual growth than it might actually be.
Having known many, many different Christian homeschooling families over the years, for the sake of preparing our children to be competent and well-educated adults, we have to evaluate our curriculum choices and educational methods on much more than whether or not it claims to teach things from a “Biblical worldview”. Is it actually giving the child what they need to know in math, language arts, science, history, etc.? As the parents, if we choose to homeschool, we are the ones responsible for our children’s education, and we owe it to them to make sure that it’s a quality one, not just one that makes us feel good about ourselves.
Which segues nicely into the next mindset I’ve observed (which was also labeled by my good-with-words husband): identity parenting. Over the years, Aaron and I have seen dozens and dozens of Christian homeschool families do this, to the detriment of their children. (This is something that literally anyone can fall into, but right now I’m talking to homeschooling families so that’s who I’m referencing.) These families choose some specific behavior or idea that sounds really nice and makes them feel good about themselves, and make that a huge part of their family identity, without actually thinking about how this might affect their children big picture, as they’re growing into adulthood and all of its demands.
Having grown up in the nineties and aughts, when this was at its peak in Christian homeschooling circles, Aaron and I have a little bit of an unique perspective, as we’re now seeing it surge again among our first-generation homeschooling peers. So many things we hear that families we know now are pursuing, are ideas that we saw our peers’ families doing twenty years ago, and it rarely ended well. I know that most of these are coming from a place of wanting positive things for their families, but the far-reaching implications are rarely considered, and that needs to change.
I’ll give some examples:
“Our family is going to do everything together in order to strengthen our family unit, so that means we don’t do anything unless we can do it as a family.” (This one is super common, and yes, that even includes birthday parties and extracurricular activities.) I truly know of no family who followed this and had it yield positive results in the end. In a situation like this, the children reach adulthood and they are either counting down the days until they can be away from everyone and do things on their own, or else they are so anxious and insecure about navigating the world without their family by their side, that they don’t go out and do anything. In both situations the now-adult children are woefully unprepared for handling life on their own.
“The epitome of family togetherness is having a family business, and we need to grow good little entrepreneurs so we’re going to do everything possible to make this happen.” I have absolutely nothing against entrepreneurship, and when wielded healthily, it’s a great thing. However, this mindset almost inevitably turns into one that is against all employment opportunities outside of businesses that you run on your own, and if your child doesn’t want to be an entrepreneur, that doesn’t give them a lot of options.
“Small-town or country living is always the best for families, so we’re going to make sure to pursue that at all costs.” I’ve already written about this some, but I’m going to again mention the fact that country/small-town living isn’t for everyone. If you want to give your children a variety of opportunities to help them figure out what they want to do with their lives, purposely constraining them to only what is available in the country or small town is extremely limiting. I’m not saying that everyone should live in or near a city, but I think that the limitations of more rural areas have to be looked at truthfully, especially as your children get older. I grew up more rurally than most people who claim to be “country folk”, and I’ll be honest that many times I desperately wished that we lived in a place that had more opportunities outside of cattle ranching or working for the Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management. Those things are obviously not inherently bad, but only appealed to a different type of personality than mine.
I could go on, but those are some of the main ones that we’ve encountered over the years. As homeschool parents, I think we need to take a good, hard look at why so many kids that were homeschooled twenty years ago decided to not pursue that for their children. Yes, many of those homeschooled went on to do the same for their families *raises hand*, but there is a large percentage that didn’t and we need to take that seriously. Coming from someone who dearly loves homeschooling, as with anything, it has some big pitfalls that cannot be ignored.
So many of us say that we chose homeschooling because we want what’s best for our kids. Let’s make sure we’re being honest with ourselves about it then. We owe that to our children.
“[Jesus said] ‘But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.’” (Matthew 18:6)