If parents continue sacrificing children on the altar of government schools, the future looks bleak indeed. But if they take back the role of guardians, a glorious future of restoration and healing is possible.

Frederick Douglass once said, “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” Reading is vitally important to a child’s imagination and education. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) notes, "At all three grades, students who more frequently read for fun on their own time had higher average proficiencies."

In 2022, research found that almost 1 in 5 Gen Z-ers were willing to quit their job to be an "influencer" on social media. 12% would quit college. So, whatever an influencer is, it sure seems important to this generation. Is that for good or for ill? While there are rarely clear answers to questions like these, here are some thoughts that might offer a sound perspective on the newfangled industry of "influencing."

I trust you’ll recall the source of this verbal gaffe. It came from our esteemed former president, George W. Bush. It was his attempt to define when someone undervalues or underestimates something. It was a malaprop we all understood. 

I chuckled as I read the subject line of a news release sent out by Bill Donohue of the Catholic League yesterday: "Meet Our Bratty Revolutionaries." That sentiment has certainly crossed my mind a few times recently. Our culture is soft, spoiled, and easily misled by deceitful agents of change -- be they “news” anchors or college professors.

Online games and videos are popular in today’s day and age, and many of these games are marketed towards children. YouTube Kids, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and the PlayStation 5 are common platforms that children use to access online games and entertainment.

On Friday morning, the Biden administration finalized sweeping changes to Title IX, expanding federal legal protection against sex and gender discrimination in schools. The rule would also purport to overturn state laws banning males in girls’ sports.

One of the commonly heard complaints of college students in the last several years is that the institutions of higher education they attend have failed to provide “safe spaces” for them. Students have complained that they feel unsafe because the professors or fellow students or administrators fail to acknowledge their chosen pronouns or that students of color feel unsafe in classes or dorms with white students.

Everywhere I look I see thriving homeschool families. Everywhere. Every conversation I have with my homeschool friends is complete with a panoramic view of God’s handiwork.

More than one in four students enrolled in government schools nationwide are now considered “chronically absent,” up from just 15 percent before the tyrannical response to COVID, revealed an analysis of data from almost 40 states.

Despair and disdain over the cultural moment grow more common with every passing day. Listening to news outlets brings a fog of disbelief and discouragement. Has the world gone insane? Much of the babble billowing across the airwaves invokes words, such as charlatan, libertine, racist, bigot, reprobate, deplorable, ingrate, selfishness and envy, as apt descriptions of the proponents and their propositions.

What are we doing to our children? Today, children are told—starting at 3 or 4 years old—that we don’t really know if they are a boy or a girl. The doctor just guessed based on their appearance when they were born. Over the next few years, they are told, it is up to the child to discover if they are a boy, a girl, non-binary, fluid, or something else altogether.

All around us the dark clouds seem to be descending on our society and on our culture. It is clear that our children and grandchildren will grow up, live and work in a world vastly different from our own. It is a world that we can hardly recognize when compared to our own youth or childhood of play, church dinners, afternoon ball games, and family gatherings. 

We ended the last piece in the middle of our discussion of the biblical benefits of homeschooling. Jesus tells us that every student, when he is trained fully, will be like his master (Luke 6:40), which prompts us to ask: what kind of masters are my children being trained by? We discussed the godless ideas permeating the public school classroom, but education is more than just ideas. It also involves people. So let's also consider more than just the lessons being taught; what about the people teaching them?

In a recent piece together, we explored one of the major benefits of homeschooling that greatly impacted me as a student: the freedom that my parents had to tailor my education to my needs. I know many other homeschool families have reaped this benefit from homeschooling as well. Homeschooling parents are able to educate their children according to their individual needs and aptitudes, which often results in a more rigorous and productive education than the standard fare in the public school system.