The Dumbest Thing YOU Ever Heard, Part 1
 By Mike Farris

 My recent column requesting "dumb statements" people had made regarding home schooling yielded a bumper crop of lols (laugh out loud) and a few rofls (rolling on the floor laughing). I got a great number of wonderful entries -- far too many to publish. Today's column is the first of two. Here are half of the top entries, this week's winners, and my comments interspersed. Here come the comments.

From Kara Becker: Our realtor learned we were home schooling. She commented about the lack of social development that would result, but tried to still be positive by adding, "Even though they couldn't be realtors, thank goodness that there are lot of jobs out there which don't require people skills."

From the Austin family: A stranger said, "Don't you think your children are being deprived of the thrill of buying school supplies at Wal-Mart when everyone else does?"

From Angela Blackman: A friend who is a paralegal at a very busy law firm said, "How can you ever think you can keep up with having four kids at home? Don't they just run you off your feet? I'd be exhausted by the end of the day."

 From Pamela Minerd: My father asked, "Will I have to bail you out of jail for this?"

From MDT: My neighbor was picking my brain about getting the public school to challenge her first grader. She was concerned because my first grader was already reading while her son of the same age was just learning the sounds of letters. Nonetheless she challenged my homeschooling saying my son would still miss out. "It's important for him socially too. He needs to be offered drugs so he can turn them down."

From Marci Zinn: A family member said, "You are just doing this for yourself so you won't have to buy the kids any school clothes."

From MDT: A friend asked, "Do you use books?"

From Rose Mary Coffey: When my husband told his mother that we were going to home school, she replied, "What makes Rose Mary think she has the right to teach my grandchildren?"
Mike: It's in the same clause of the Constitution which gives grandmas the right to feed cookies and candy to the grandkids an hour before being sent home for dinner.

From the Karoutsos Family: My six year old son was very fidgety in the dentist's chair. Afterwards the dentist spoke to me and told me of his fidgetiness and said, "Your son did not sit still. It is possibly due to the fact that you home school him."
Mike: I guess he thought that dentistry was so boring he would branch out into child psychology.

From Pam Hynes: I told an old friend from high school how my son was able to progress in each subject at his own rate. She earnestly replied, "What if he learns it all before he finishes high school?"

>From the Austin family: A female public school teacher said, "Your son will turn out to be much too feminine or gay because you home school him. Being with his mother so much is not good for boys."
Mike: I guess that spending ages 5 through 12 with female public school teachers would be better.

>From Laurie Winkelmann: I took my daughter to a podiatrist who specialized in treating plantar warts. I asked how children contracted these warts. He told me that they often come from locker rooms or swimming pools. When I told him that since we home school it wouldn't be a locker room, but we do take a swimming class, he replied, "Yup, home schooling, that certainly explains it."

 THIS WEEK'S WINNER >From Dawn Howey: A Christian friend, "God didn't homeschool Jesus, He sent Him away to school." Mike: I think the friend needs to be sent away to Sunday School.

The Dumbest Thing YOU Ever Heard
 Part 2

 From Susan Shay: "Won't they miss out on learning a lot of important stuff? I mean, how will they ever learn to stand in line?"

From Tracy Pina: An acquaintance said, "Every kid has to get beat up a few times in public school or they won't be able to cope in the real world."

From Clarence and Barbara Hawkins: A home school family in our town took their school days off in the middle of the week to match the father's job schedule. Some nosey neighbors had the family investigated for home schooling on Saturday!
Mike: Reminds me of the social services case I had in Alabama where a mother was hotlined for allowing her children to read books in the back of the van while she drove around town.

From MDT: A friend said, "MY child is being a light in a dark place, but I guess SOME children are not able to do that."
 Mike: With that much condescension that lady probably fogs up her own glasses.

From Michelle Nichols: A woman asked a home school friend of mine, "If you don't send your children to school, who is going to teach them their morals?"
Mike: Yeah, like the moral necessity of beating up other kids on the playground if we are to believe another comment we read.

From Barb Palmer: Our girls' friends from the neighborhood ask, "If you are home schooled, who teaches you?"

From the Austin family: A friend said, "Won't your children miss the experience of the goods and bads of dating people from other cultural and religious backgrounds?"

From Char Brady: A mother from my daughter's former public school class said, "If you were more involved in your child's education, then you wouldn't have to homeschool."

From MDT: An acquaintance asked, "How can you possibly give them enough one-on-one time?"
Mike (stolen from MDT): I guess the kids would get more one-on-one time in a classroom of 30.

From "Ozchick": A friend asked me what we were going to do during a public school snow day. I replied that we were going ahead with school. The friend replied, That's silly. Why make your kids work since no one will be around to grade their papers?"

Not to be outdone, that same friend heard me describe how I was teaching my children baking from the Colonial period. A recent project was making a cake from scratch. She replied, "Where can I buy a box of scratch, I've never heard of it?"

From a 5th grade geography textbook, "Maps are smaller than the areas they represent."

From Dana Estes: A friend said, "I could NEVER home school my children. I can't imagine spending that much time with them." She is a public school teacher.

 AND THIS WEEK'S WINNER: From Cherie Oliver: My daughter was born three months early and had severe brain damage. We were told to put her in a home and forget about her. At the age of three the state said that "special" children needed to be sent to the public school system so that they could get the classes they needed. When I told them I was going to home school my daughter, the school worker came unglued. She said, "But the state can make her into a better, more dependent entity." My daughter is now a first grader who reads, writes, and does all the other first grader things. She is the most independent six year-old I know. Mike: Incredible. Truly incredible. "A child is a Gift of Life and Love!

   "Socialization"

  "21 Reasons to Homeschool"