Oh, So Conventional....No, Really.

‘Everyone’s a critic’- so they say….whomever they are….they’re right.

It’s no Sunday picnic when you’re riding the weirdsmobile. Less fun if you’re driving it. When there’s no charted course for the unorthodox journey you embark upon, explanation to concerned bystanders is almost fruitless given that parts of said journey are yet to be writ.

How can you relieve the worries of a populace whose thinking has been so badly damaged by conventional wisdom (which isn’t very wisdom-y (note: I make up new words)) that we have abandoned the truly innate knowledge of the Creator. But for the learned scholar, an intellectual, a psychologist, or the university study recently published, we don’t dare depart from the road most traveled which incidentally is the same widely trodden path that the former mentioned authorities walk, so we can conclude their information is merely recycled twentieth century humanism -the religion of man.

Hey! Who said you could make decisions on your own? There are highly trained and paid experts to tell you what will improve your life. Don’t look to Granny- it’s a wonder her kids survived or that she endured her husband. Common sense was once actually common knowledge.

From the top- ‘parts of said journey are yet to be writ’- funny thing, what we do as a family has been documented triumphantly for generations too numerous to count, yet for the masses it is no more than risky business.

Part I- Some Simple Deductions
Our expedition begins in 1991 when my husband and I were first married and living in a two bedroom apartment with commercial grade, moss green, looped carpet. I was standing by the dresser, Mike near the closet. The subject: the educating of our not yet conceived offspring. Public or private school? No agreement. What next? No children.
Jump ahead nearly nine years and the same couple is now blessed with a child (heavenly chorus, please); a daughter born seven weeks too soon. But she turns out to be quite bright. None of the physical ills she was expected to developed plague her. Quite the reverse, she was gently leafing through the pages of books by twelve months and humming measures of recognizable tunes by fifteen. Wow! She hasn’t even been to play-group. The baby hangs out primarily with an intimate circle of family and dear friends. The parents realize the value in the development of her budding gray matter. Everyday is a day of discovery, research, scholarship and baby becomes pre-schooler.
Now…
three years down- and the looming black cloud of kindergarten haunts us when girl number two emerges to the stage.
Silly second born delightfully different! Not so much the academic achiever her predecessor but at nine months she knows a first-rate punch line and apperently understands the concept of playing dressup and what to do with a baby doll (she introduced these things to her decorous older sister). She is physically aware of her space and her body. She observes things our-now-three-year-old would never have seen. Baby seems equipped with a baloney-detector. Yah, she perceives drivel and I see her little eyebrow shift and sense her leeriness. A whole new style of learning, of understanding, of intelligence, and of needs. Ugh. And yet, Ahhh.
The parents have discovered just what could be accomplished at home and likewise what never need be. Parents have been arranging their childrens education for years. History encourages us that with common sense, generational experience, and the teaching of the Holy Spirit, our 'unconventional' road is rather the opposite.

Part II......hmm. The last scene took months to ponder. Stay tuned for the next installment.