Tim Ellsworth

Here’s an email I got from a woman in New York City, in reference to my recent column about young athletes whose parents are choosing to home school them:

“Hello,

I just read your article about young athletes’ families deciding on home schooling.

I am appalled that you think ‘liberals’ are against home schooling.
I do believe in a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body and I am also a home schooling parent who pulled my child out of the public school system here in NYC. He was not in an over-crowded room with disciplinary problems. He was in a gifted program with only 16 kids and two full time teachers in the classroom, learning in a dual language program(not bilingual). Still, with all of the unusual and quite amazing circumnstance, I too felt the socialization etc did not jive with our family values. I consider myself a liberal and rather Left of center, a concerned citizen, trying to live a compassionate and generous life with high standards for my own and my childrens’ conduct and I am totally offended by your narrow judgemental viewpoints - as if you the morally righteous - have cornered the market on living an upstanding lifestyle. How dare you belittle anyones’ commitment to their childrens’ wellbeing just because they may have different reasons than the Church for doing so.
Signed,
Disgusted, in NYC”

Here’s my response:

“Dear Disgusted:

‘Appalled,’ ‘offended,’ ‘judgemental’ (sic), ‘How dare you’ … blah, blah, blah. Spare me.

You know as well as I do that the vast majority of parents who homeschool their kids are more conservative than liberal — and the reasons for that go right along with those I listed. You simply are the exception, rather than the rule. Good for you for not being like the wacko from Stanford I quoted, but please don’t try to sell me the notion that liberals on the whole are just like you. There are a host of left-winged legislators and educators out there who prove otherwise.

Thanks for reading and for writing,

Tim Ellsworth”