Innocence vs. Ignorance

     These children do not know what it means to be "cool" because nobody has taught them. What other children think about them has little meaning. What their parents and their God think of them is what they have come to value, as it has been what has been held up to them as the appropriate standard.
     The boys crochet and are not afraid to be artistic. The girls have no conflicts with seeing their stay at home mother as their model, and they love their father as the only man in their life.

     All of the children understand what love is, and they experience it continually, both from their parents and from each other. Sibling fights are nonexistent. "Tattling" on one another just to gain some favor from a parent or someone else would never cross their minds. Most often, what one does, the others do too, unless it is a private project, such as making a gift, in which case one or more siblings may be complicit in keeping the secret.

     Age differences have no significance to them. The youngest is special because he is youngest and the oldest because she is oldest, but no superiority or inferiority applies to either position because of age. Everybody jumps in to help with the youngest, and he never lacks for companionship.

     All of the children help with the household chores. Doing dishes, setting the table, fixing meals, cleaning bathrooms, folding laundry, sweeping floors, etc., are responsibilities shared by all, while some chores, like taking out the trash, are considered masculine and fall to the boys. Nothing is beneath anyone, however.

     These children do not know that they are "supposed" to act differently or to have age-related problems and responses based on becoming "teenagers," "adolescents," or now, "tweens." They would probably find such a concept laughable if they were exposed to it, which thankfully, they are not. Nor are they receptive to marketing campaigns aimed at influencing them to buy certain products or to whine at and cajole their parents until they give in and buy what they want.

     Not that they are missing out on anything. No, they play in traditional ways, finding roles to fulfill that come natural. The boys make bows and arrows and play Davy Crocket or whatever historical figure they are learning about, while the girls naturally play out the feminine counterparts to those roles. They are enjoying childhood while learning from the example of their parents (and from other worthy examples that their parents choose to place in front of them) what adult roles to aspire to.

     These are children who will never lack for something creative and productive to do. They will not reach an age at which certain responsibilities are thrust upon them and say, "Now what?" Neither will they sit around and wait for someone else to tell them what to do. Leadership will come naturally to them, not because they are accustomed to taking it by force on the playground, but because they, having become accustomed to acting in an adult fashion, will know their way around in an adult world where others will not, so others will follow. They will not be easily led by the "prettiest" or the "biggest" or the "strongest" unless they also see in that person legitimate authority to act responsibly and to do the right thing.

     If it has not been deduced yet, these children are homeschooled, taught everything that they need to know by their parents. They are not disadvantaged by forced association with groups that others choose for them or artificially segregated by age or apparent ability.

     And these children are innocent in the spirit of Romans 16:19. They are not ignorant, unless such ignorance is necessary for their innocence, but neither are they exposed to all manner of "realities" that exist in the "real world." They, therefore, will always have the ability to think outside of that box.

     Now, how many reformers are as blessed? Most try to clean up the sty where they live without stopping to ask why they are living in a sty. They do not know how to think outside of the box because they do not understand that they are living in a box. They are, thus, truly ignorant, and that is not the same thing as innocent. In matters schooling, for example, most cannot think in terms that exclude government schools entirely, having been conditioned to believe that government responsibility for education is appropriate or at least necessary for many. Whether the issue is taxes, or money, or debt, or government, or health, or privacy, or education, most of us live inside of the box and are scared to look outside. Let me challenge you to do otherwise.

Ben Graydon - published in The Times Examiner, 9-18-02