Opus 2026-332: The Long Haul

Genuine home schooling parents are committed to the longview of educating their children.  My oldest grandchild is only eight and my daughter is already squeezing me on books and authors that she thinks I would recommend for when they get to high school age.  It’s hard to remember books that have made any lasting imprint.  Many of the ones that might be worth reading are no longer on the shelves and many of them are not even in print.

What is a parent to do?  We discussed reading certain classics such as Plato and Augustine.  The general consensus at least among us laymen is that much of that is a waste of time.  When Plato was alive and Socrates was writing down what he had to say he was original and the first one to come up with a lot of this.  Nowadays, most of what they have to say is something we have been either embracing or rejecting for all of our lives and so it’s not as exciting as it might be for an ancient Greek teenager listening to Plato.

Our hope is that the children will be readers and not just button pushers.  We read to them.  My daughter’s older child is old enough now that she’s starting to read to us.  She got her first library card this week and had to sign her name on the back.  That was an exciting moment for her and an exciting moment for her parents and her grandparents.  Children need an example set and they also need expectation set.

I can remember as a child, but my father in the evening would be reading much of the time.  We did have certain television programs we watched, but we didn’t just sit down at the TV and watch whatever came in front of us.  He subscribed to several magazines.  One of our favorites was the Readers Digest back when it was actually a readers digest.  He also subscribed to their edited books, the ones that came with all the extra fluff cut out.

My father was a blue-collar worker all of his life.  He worked with his hands.  He worked outside in the sun.  He struggled with polio from his childhood.  And yet he set an example of reading for his children that has endured to this day.

Set the example.  Turn off the TV.  Turn off the computer.  Put away your iPad.  Find a good book.  I may change your children’s lives.

homo unius libri