We have to be better than all the rest

Don't know about you, but I see a pattern developing in the Home Education Review Select Committee commentary.

I see the same old problem pattern. It's one we women should be draggingly familiar with. One we've been raised with, our mothers and grandmothers have struggled to correct, and one that we see raising its butt-ugly head again.

Are you better than your comparative male, woman? Are you twice the man that a man is? Can you cope with twice as much stress, do twice as much work, give everything to everyone and come up smiling and being pleasant? (And create and look after children, and a household too)

Well, now, we might hire you. Just for a trial. Until someone better comes along, of course. Someone male.

Here it is again. Home educators must be twice as good as teachers, twice as good as students in school. A child failing in school, once home educated, should be up-to-scratch before a year has turned and outperforming all his peers. Under new recommendations, all the matters that school has not addressed or helped will have to be sorted within months of home education beginning (and that is a generous estimate of the time the local authority will kindly allow you as you strain to erase the bad habits that school may have inculcated).

You might arrive at the situation, like many parents do, where school bullying has totally demoralised your child; then the local authority begins on you and on your young one, bullying again. Before you've found your feet, the tsunami will sweep you away.

It's like cutting a person's legs off then expecting them to not only run in a race, but to win it too, AND in half the length of time it takes for all the competing runners to cross the finish line.

Schooled children can fail. Yeah, well, the school tried everything, didn't it, to 'encourage' them and 'support' them. Schooled children can flunk out of courses, make Gs in their GCSEs and snort with laughter at higher education. But not home educating children. THEY have NOT to be NEET. They don't have the leisure to be people or to be themselves. They have to run full tilt, scramble over hurdles that would faze others, dash to the finish, end up with the biggest, shiniest trophy or it's "Oh, they home educate, you know. Huh, they get no education. Hang about all day. Don't do anything. It's an excuse to avoid truancy and shouldn't be allowed, I say".

So, home educate your children, that way your children's attainment will be spelt out to you. Be the best. Not the best you can be. Just BE THE BEST. OR ELSE.

OR ELSE we'll send you BACK to the FUNSHACK which failed you the first time and where you can enjoy being yourself just like all the others.