from John Mark Reynolds at The Scriptorium

My favorite parts:

[snip] home school mothers. These women represent something new. They are not feminists, a phrase they most often reject with scorn. Most live in very traditional households where the husband is the head of the family. [snip]They are very strong and fiercely opinionated. They are incredibly well read, devouring more books a year, than most U.C. students read in four years. [snip]

They did not worry about their body image, because they were secure in the love of their strong men[snip]

Sometimes their brutal schedules may make them tired, but they are up for more in the morning. When I talk to them I quickly realize, they care more about idea than rhetoric. These women solve problems every day. They educated their children in highly creative ways, inventing curriculum, programs, and social events out of nothing but their talent. They are neither dowdy nor fashion conscience. Their dress is most often sensible, but feminine. They innovate, but within the bounds of tradition. What are they? God bless us, they are ladies, a group many thought had gone extinct around the time of the sinking of Titanic.

In one sense, their lives are a bloodless martyrdom. The media mostly forgets them except for the occasional condescending piece in the Times. They fit no stereotypes, being too numerous and too interesting, so they are ignored. They sacrifice for the well fare of their children.

Talents that could vitalize a corporate board room are turned to teaching children to read. Their children, of course, take such sacrifice for granted. Their mothers make it safe for them to be blissfully unaware of their blessings. So these strong women sacrifice everything our culture deems important. They have no resume inflating career. Yet they give new life and meaning to all the Victorian platitudes lodged, because they are true, in the back of all our minds. “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.”

These are kitchen table Socrates. They don’t trust the government schools that spend billions to produce cookie cutter children. These women use cookie cutters on cookies not children. Like Socrates, they despise uniformity in education and people who teach for money and not love of students . There children are producing reems of stories, hours of music, original plays, and a whole new civilization. If our boys are overseas defending the West, these women are home renewing it.

Home school mothers are the heart of a traditionalist revolution that is driving life back into the homes. To these women, and the men blessed to be married to them, homes are no longer assets or places to share a microwave dinner at the end of an exhausting day of separation. Spreading like some beneficial virus, men and women are returning basic educational, economic, and social functions to home where they have always belonged.

There are now millions of these strong, independent, God fearing women in the United States. They ask nothing of government, but to be left alone.

These women are not impressed with stardom and glamor, many do not even own televisions. Their men work long hours in their own, often not very glamorous, businesses so that their wives can save the West. The men they admire get things done with decency and honor. They are often quiet men, but as sound as the state credit used to be. Their wives chose them for their virtues, not their muscles. Home school mothers are fiercely liberated and proudly traditional.

The land, every corner of it, are filled with such gentle souls . . fair flowers of Christ’s kingdom doing God’s work for God’s pay.

Wow. Just WOW. I post this not because it’s about me (though a lot of it applies, yes, especially the cookie cutter stuff) but because this is what I see in the homechooling mothers who inspired me to get started on our own journey and who continue to inspire me and motivate me and lift me up. They are awesome women doing awesome work.

From Dr. Reynolds’ website:

Dr. Reynolds is involved in education at many different levels. At the University level, he is the director of the Torrey Honors Institute, a unique Christian classics program which he founded (link to Torrey). He also teaches classes for Talbot’s MA Philosophy program, and the MA in Apologetics program.

Thanks to Jen who posted it at the 4Real forum.