Grandparents of Homeschoolers…Let’s Have a Chat

Today’s post is going to be a little different than the norm. While I’m usually addressing homeschool parents (or at least, parents, in general) here on my blog or on my YouTube channel, I’m searching for a different audience just this once, an audience you won’t find much content for:

Grandparents of Homeschoolers.

And it’s long overdue.

Over this past decade of homeschooling (wow, has it really been that long??), I’ve both met and heard about various types of homeschool grandparents.

Some are absolutely thrilled that their grandchildren are learning at home, and they do everything they can to be a part of it.

Some really don’t care one way or the other. They trust their children’s instincts but don’t make much of an effort to get involved. Apathy is the name of the game.

And then there are those who are appalled that their grandchildren will not go to school, and take every opportunity to let the world know what they think.

You might be thinking that this post is going to be directed at this last group of grandparents. You would be mistaken, although don’t you worry; that post is a-comin’.

You might be thinking I’ll be addressing the first group, but, alas, tis not the case. While this group certainly deserves some accolades and a heartfelt tribute, I will save that for another day.

My friends, today I need to chat with those grandparents who are neither cold nor hot, because I’m guessing there are some things we need to clear up.

I think there may be a misunderstanding. In this day and age, multi-generational learning is something that’s almost unheard of. Like homeschool parents, homeschool grandparents have also been fed the lie that education is best left to the “experts.”

This mistruth has had a far worse effect than many people imagine. Currently, we have generations of people who have been cut from all ties to not only basic life skills, but to their heritage. Their culture. Their traditions.

This is where you come in, grandma and grandpa.

Your wisdom and experience can be such a boon to your grandchildren. We need you to step up to the plate and get involved. You don’t need to be a math whiz. You don’t need to have “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” memorized. There are so many skills you likely know that you don’t give a second thought to, but are, in reality, becoming a lost art.

Skills like:

• cooking and baking from scratch (They don’t call it “Grandma’s Cooking” for nothing!)
• canning
• gardening
• hand sewing
• using a sewing machine
• woodworking
• landscaping
• automotive repair
• homeopathy (aka, home remedies)
• making clothing
• crocheting/knitting
• quilting
• cross stitching
• basic home repair
• hospitality

Beyond hands-on skills, your grandchildren can learn so much from you just by you TALKING to them. Tell them old family stories. Share some traditions and folk tales. Let them in on a time that smart phones never existed!

But why can’t the parents do this?

That’s easy. Many of us parents never learned those skills from our parents. The reason behind this can vary from family to family, but I’ll tell you a very likely reason beyond the public education system: the Women’s Lib movement.

I know I probably just made some enemies, but I’m all about truth. Let me begin by sharing something with you that most people don’t know:

The Rockefellers were behind the feminist movement.

If you know your history, you’ll already be aware that the Rockefellers also played a huge role in the inception of compulsory schooling. Here’s the thing: both compulsory schooling and feminism were designed to (at least in part) destroy the family unit. After all, if both parents in every home worked, that would mean almost twice the number of taxpayers. Money talks.

Sadly, their plan worked beautifully.

It’s no small wonder that most adults today have no connection to the past and no connection to the concept of self-sufficiency. We were never taught. Women were convinced that the role of housewife and homemaker was unimportant and unworthy of being passed along. They were coaxed out of their homes by the false notion that they weren’t valued and that their call to motherhood wasn’t enough. And let us not forget that the public education system provided the perfect means for this to succeed – free government day care indoctrination schooling.

Adults today are suffering from the ill-effects of this mentality. Handicrafts, skills, and traditions that were once vital to who we are as human beings were written off as being unimportant, thus they were never passed along. Why teach something that doesn’t matter anymore?

But it does matter. An idea for a blog post that originally started out as a plea for grandparents to get involved has become so much more.

This is my new plea:

We are losing our history. We are losing our traditions, and our children are suffering for it. We need you to help us bring it back.

Will you?