Some people shouldn't be allowed to have children

[Kudistos Megistos]

I don't think homeschooling equates to social awkwardness.
As long as your kids are involved in community sports, groups, etc they will still have ample interaction with peers.
There are also network homeschooling options. You can have a group of parents working together, with designated subjects. You can print curricula for coursework covered each year, and create your lesson plans following regulated standards.
When being homeschooled, kids are never held up by "slow learners" in the class. And if they have trouble grasping something, they are provided individual attention.

Obviously it's not for everyone. I doubt I'd have time or money to stay at home and teach my own children, if I had them. But it's not necessarily a life-debilitating decision.
If you're smart, but live somewhere without good education options. Rather than send your kids off to sub-par schools, you can ensure a good education.

Geez, people sure love picking fault with the thing used as an example rather than addressing the point itself.

If people are so butthurt about homeschooling being brought into disrepute, then I shan't use it as an example any more. That doesn't change the point. If these children are being sheltered from society and kept ignorant of social norms, they won't be able to fit in when they grow up.

It would seem that they are being homeschooled, but their homseschooling is unlikely to be the idealised homeschooling that people are talking about here. They're not being raised by normal parents (or parents who pass for normal where they live) and their homeschooling isn't going to teach them what behaviour is considered acceptable by people outside of the homeschool. Quite the opposite.

 

[Jenova's Witness]

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[Opine]

If these children are being sheltered from society and kept ignorant of social norms, they won't be able to fit in when they grow up.

I definitely agree with this point, and the point about making it harder to find a mate. Plenty of people who were reared in normal society are still awkward and can't find partners, or even friends.

Setting your kid up to fail at interacting with others (letting him dress like a girl without explaining that others will think he's a girl) is going to make it hard for him to identify with and interact with peers.

The part of the article that made me angry is where they ask Jazz if it hurts his feelings when others think he's a girl, and they talk about how he didn't like being picked on for looking like a girl at school so they pulled him out.

I definitely agree with you there, that this kid will have a hard time interacting with others when he grows up. Puberty is hard enough. Keeping your kid away from others his age is probably going to make it worse.

We are arguably herd animals. We want to feel part of a group (this is due to safety in numbers). Exclusion from a group in the wild, would mean certain death. We still have that horrible feeling when we are excluded nowadays. It's ingrained in us. Yes, sometimes to the detriment of society. But in general, letting your kid feel somewhat normal isn't bad.

So I agree with your point in general.

Actually, that achievement belongs to the Amish. 

Oh geeze, don't get me started on the Amish 
Now there is a group that really grinds my gears.

 

[Jenova's Witness]

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[Opine]

Please share your stories.

lol, it's not really stories. It's mostly what you were saying about inbreeding. I saw this thing on 60 Minutes about Gottes Wille. It made me so angry to think that they were continuing to cause their children to be born with such disorders, and calling it "God's Will". Maybe it's God's way of telling you to stop inbreeding!

That and puppy mills.

I actually saw a billboard on my last venture through Amish town. It was a graphic of an Amish woman holding a dead dog saying, "Welcome to the Puppy Mill Capitol!"
I was very glad to see some awareness.

I just feel like their selfish disdain for the lives of others (both of other species and their own offspring) is the antithesis of what you'd think they stand for.

 

[Kudistos Megistos]

So yeah, you can around Middlefield, Ohio, and see Mennonites in their headscarves dropping off thier mulitcolored broods (they adopt a lot), and, by all accounts, the kids get along fine and grow into normal, functioning, contributing members of society.  They function best in their own subset of society, but there are plenty of kids going to college and graduating without devolving into drunken slobs, obsessive-compulisive maniacs, or complete sluts.

Your argument is sound, but your assumption that society is this giant mononlithic High School is not.  Your defined norms are too broad.  Are you speaking of the norms of suburb dwellers, where every young man feels that no one takes them seriously?  Are you refering to the norms of some other group of people?  Does a group of people have the right to decide what individuals of the group can and can't do?  What will a person do when they grow up believing that the rights of the group eclipse their own rights in all matters of taste and preference, and everythign in which they have a choice?

Here's a FUN FACT:

Western society is of a Judeo-Christian nature. The differences between the Mennonites and "normal" people, from what you've told me about them, seem to be far more superficial than the differences between the values of these parents and "normal" people. Gender roles are far more fundamental than clothing and use of technology.

And you're talking about Mennonites in the US, no? Americans are very "understanding" and "tolerant" of any lifestyle differences that arise from relijun; they even tolerate Scientologists FFS.

Canada may be full of people with wacky left-wing opinions, but I doubt that these poor children's peers will be as "understanding" of their different values.

 

[Jaitsu]

part of being different is dealing with the way society treats you.


being different is not easy, but i for one would much rather be different (i am) then just another drone in society.


you can live in society and not become its pawn.

its learning to live with how different you are, and dealing with the issues that come up, that is the key, mind you i am not saying you should shelter a child who is different, in fact, you should nurture them and allow them to learn how to deal with being different in any way in a society which targets the anomaly in the chain.

take me for example; i was born with clubbed foot on both legs, i have never been able to get up faster then a brisk walk and have never been able to play sports because of it. i didn't sulk and i didn't withdraw from society, i changed my perspective. Because i couldn't have fun the same way all the other kids did, i took up drawing and storytelling. i became a wrestling fan when it was hated, another thing that made people target me, but i didn't withdraw, i learned to deal with it.


If the child is different, the parents should help the child not change, and not hide, but to adapt.

 

[Kudistos Megistos]

If the child is different, the parents should help the child not change, and not hide, but to adapt.

But this isn't what's happening here.

The parents aren't helping a child who is different. They're making the child different. Very different. They seem to be doing their best to make it as hard as they can for their children to fit in and integrate into society.

 

[Jaitsu]

But this isn't what's happening here.

The parents aren't helping a child who is different. They're making the child different. Very different. They seem to be doing their best to make it as hard as they can for their children to fit in and integrate into society.

oh crap i just realized i sounded like i was defending these idiots. i know they're not, these parents are just plain fucked in the head.


my apologies, i didn't mean to sound like i was defending these... these psychotics.

 

[Auraplatonic]

I tend to feel that even though those parents are crazy they have the right to raise their children however they want.   I don't want to say that should be the case 100% of the time however if anyone thinks we will always agree on how parents raise their kids we will be having that conversation forever.   No matter what happens there are going to be some crazy people in this world.  No matter how they are raised some people will just be incompatible with others.   Again this is not a 100% fail-safe theory but can you really regulate something like this?  I feel it would be much more logical to let people live their lives.  I am more concerned with how the government acts in certain situations because they are established and should be held to a certain standard.

If we would try to force someone to do something a certain way that is a really slippery slope.  We are already slowly getting enough of our freedom taken away as it is.

 

[Mako]

They seem to be doing their best to make it as hard as they can for their children to fit in and integrate into society.

Cause they believe their child should be accepted by society not matter how they turn out... Not justifying it, I have some friends who are "the gay" parents. They seem to think Society should conform to them, and could care less what we "normal" people think.

 

[Kudistos Megistos]

Cause they believe their child should be accepted by society not matter how they turn out... Not justifying it, I have some friends who are "the gay" parents. They seem to think Society should conform to them, and could care less what we "normal" people think.

So, since they believe that society should accept them, they act as if society will accept them. Fuck reality!

What's next? Nudist parents sending their children to school naked? After all, people should accept nudity.