Briefly

Most parents have been brainwashed to believe that the only responsible way to educate their children is to put them into the hands of “professionals.” These are most commonly government employees who are teaching a curriculum dictated by politicians, but the people from whom children learn the most in traditional schools are their peers. As the culture becomes more dysfunctional and increasingly leads children down dangerous paths, parents are in denial, believing “that happens in other schools” — that their children are safe and well-served in their schools. And let’s be honest. Most parents simply have no interest in putting in the sort of work that would be necessary to give their children a first-rate education that’s less regimented, more personalized and more empowering. It used to be that learning at home was reserved for “religious nuts” and dysfunctional people, but that’s no longer the case. Various forms of non-traditional learning are becoming more accepted. In this eye-opening article, the Foundation for Economic Education lists 100 reasons you should consider teaching your kids at home — and each reason has documentation to back it up. Your children deserve more than any government-run “warehouse for kids” can possibly give them.

I was raised in a very polite culture. We were nice to everybody, even the ones we didn’t like. I carried this attitude into my adult life and even into social media. But I’m increasingly unwilling to put up with people who annoy me. A part of me feels guilty for saying that, but life is too short to put up with people who constantly annoy me. I have a choice. I can decline to associate with such people — without judging their worth as human beings — and there’s no reason for me to feel guilty about it. In some parts of my life, I don’t always have an immediate choice about who crosses my path. But I’m responsible for choosing who I associate with in my personal life and on social media. My new rule of thumb is that if every comment someone makes causes me to scream, “You are a moron,” inside my head, he has to go. I don’t mind people disagreeing with me because of differing values or reasoning, but there’s no reason to tolerate those who constantly annoy us. We have to right and the power to choose who we associate with.

Every now and then, a trip to a gas station reminds me how much I miss being married. My ex-wife hated putting gasoline into her car. She didn’t complain about it and she never asked me to do it for her, but as soon as I realized how much she disliked it, I made it a point to keep her car’s tank filled when I could. One of the things I miss most about being married is having someone to take care of. With another woman, pumping gas might not be one of those things. It could be a million different things instead, depending on what matters to her. The point is that two people who love each other and want to make life better for each other find little ways to help one another. Sometimes, taking care of someone is being there when there are big things wrong. Sometimes, it’s just pumping someone’s gas or doing something else she doesn’t like. Those are the little things which say, “I love you,” every day in concrete ways. I miss having a woman to take care of, even in such little ways.