Why are so many sociologists, educators, policymakers, and others getting upset at Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant? He said something about both parents working outside the home and the negative effects he thinks it might have on children's lives.

Experience, research, and scriptural principles[1] show that children benefit tremendously from daily, integral, intentional, authoritative, and kind parental involvement in their lives.

Hard, cold real-world experience shows that it can be nearly impossible for a mother to be involved with her child in consistent, meaningful, and relaxed ways if she is exhausted from work outside the home, her mind and heart are set on trying to please her boss rather than nurture her child, and she is focused on her career advancement rather than nurturing her child and helping her child be adult/parent-oriented rather than peer-dependent. (And it is really hard on children if both mom and dad are in the same preceding boat.)

Finally, if one parent, such as a mother, not working outside the home is so bad for, or not beneficial to, children, why do myriad studies over the course of the past 30 years continue to show positive things associated with homeschooling?[2] In the vast majority of these homes, the mother does not work outside the home. The median income of these families is just like that of American families in general, and the parents have a wide-variety background of education level.

Is parent-led home-based education (a.k.a., homeschooling) such a backward, brainless, and busted idea as some last week would have you think? Why does Sen. Deborah Dawkins, D-Miss., think that Governor Bryant and homeschooling families are "... so out of touch with the real world"[3] when just over 2 million home-educated children today and many millions before 1900 in America are and were homeschooled? Has she met them, walked in their shoes, learned about their family relationships, work habits, involvement in community sports and learning co-operatives, academic achievement, success in adulthood, and levels of civic engagement as adults? Does she think that the millions of home-educated Americans (i.e., the majority) that preceded mass State-school institutionalization were not a part of a good "real-world" reality and that having about 87% of all children in State-run public institutional schools for the past half century or so with more and more of their moms working outside the home all day is bringing the United States closer to nirvana. I wonder where her empirical research basis for this view lies.

Or, could it be some kind of unspoken worldview-based conception of "the good collective" is driving her criticisms of Governor Bryant and the views of others like her? It is likely time will tell.

--Brian D. Ray, Ph.D.

National Home Education Research Institute
http://nheri.org/
 
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Notes:

[1] Despite the myth that says a researcher or scholar should not admit that all persons, including all researchers, have a worldview (religion) that affects how they think about everything, it is freely admitted that biblical scripture affects this author.

[2] See, e.g.: Ray, Brian D. (2009). Home education reason and research: Common questions and research-based answers. Salem, OR: National Home Education Research Institute, www.nheri.org.

[3] Retrieved June 14, 2013 from http://www.worldmag.com/2013/06/mississippi_governor_refuses_to_wear_dunce_cap_over_education_comments.