The Lazy Mother's Guide to Home Education
by Mary Pride

Of course, you're not really lazy. Really, you're tired. And sensible. And that's why you don't want to work any harder at teaching, or make your children struggle any harder with learning, than absolutely necessary.
Good for you!

First of all, Lazy Mothers understand the education game. Our devoutly-wished-for goal is to see our children totally independent learners--as they will have to be someday soon, when they leave the nest.

Of course, you can't just throw a pile of textbooks at a four-year-old and say, "Study these!" But I am convinced that a lot of home schooling families burnt out unnecessarily because they fail to recognize the two stages of teaching.

WITCHES AND HOUSEWORK
Strong stuff from the pen of Alida Gookin

In ancient Rome, spinning so symbolized feminine devotion to the home that in the Roman marriage ceremony, the bride carried a spindle and distaff. Girls in ancient Rome, as well as in other cultures until the Industrial Revolution, were taught to spin and weave. Hebrew and Christian cultures saw the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31 as one who "stretches out her hands to the distaff and her hands grasp the spindle."

Not all women accepted spinning as dutifully. Some women, notably witches and prostitutes (both of whom the Bible explicitly calls "rebellious") sought to be "liberated" from childbearing and women's work.

Since spinning was an important symbol of the good wife we see it attacked frequently in literature of old.

The Brothers Grimm told a tale of "The Three Spinners." In this story an idle girl refuses to be taught spinning by her mother. When she gets a chance to be wed to the prince by spinning an impossible amount of flax, she employs three spinners who win for her the prince. The three spinners each had an enormous physical deformity which had evolved from such spinning. When the prince discovers that spinning causes such malformations he orders that his new bride never spin. Thus, the rebellious and lazy girl was "liberated" from women's work and those who did women's work were assumed to be or become "homely".

The tale of the Three Spinners is still told by feminists today in an updated form. Feminists warn that women who bear children will lose their Jane Fonda figures and thus be "deformed". They also propagandize that smart women aren't fulltime homemakers; only ignorant and stupid women are.

The witch in "Sleeping Beauty" was another women's liberationist. This anti-baby female put a curse on the newborn princess and thus tricked the king into making a law that every spinning wheel in the land be burned. She didn't want other women to do "women's work" either. Today's feminists perform the same political stunts, lobbying for bills, such as parental leave and state-sponsored daycare, which penalize the families with fulltime mothers.

Historically, witches and prostitutes did not want children. If they did become pregnant, abortion or infanticide often followed. In some cases they may have even eaten their babies. Such cannibalism is mentioned in the Bible (Deut. 28:57, Lamentations 4:10) and some old stories like "Hansel and Gretel" portray witches as child-eaters. (Watch for cannibalism to be the next evil promoted on TV.)

Witches sometimes raised a child which they trained in witchcraft. One modern witch, Zsuzsanna Budapest, who heads Susan B. Anthony Coven No. 1, says she is a descendant of witches going back at least 700 years. (Susan B. Anthony is the feminist who led women's suffrage movement in America.) In 1971, Ms. Budapest found acceptance in the women's movement. She says, "The goddess movement is perfect for women, restoring to them the dignity that patriarchy stripped from them."

The animosity of witches and prostitutes to the family and children has exerted considerable influence over the mind of every American woman, including "Bible believing" Christians. It starts early in life as idle girls refuse to learn culinary arts and other home-related duties. Rather they idolize immoral television stars and want to be "sexy". Away from parents at college they can consummate that attitude if they haven't already. They must prepare for a career because they are convinced that every woman must be something other than a mother. If she marries, It's certainly not assumed for life. If she is a Christian she may bear the socially-prescribed two children, but those two are such a burden (since she has her sights on doing something "greater" or easier when they go off to school) that she does almost any unnatural thing available to keep from having more. She hates housework and cooking, but she loves "socializing", or as the Apostle Paul puts it, "to be idle, wandering about from place to place; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things when they ought not."

The Bible tells women to reject witches and their lifestyle; "bear children, guide the house" lest one be "turned aside after Satan." (1 Timothy 5:13-15)

No, feminism is not new. It's been here ever since Eve decided she'd rather socialize with a serpent than work on her garden.

THE CHILD ABUSE INDUSTRY ABROAD
Jean van der Linden, Glen Waverley, Victoria, Australia

You may be interested to know that our government is getting increasingly into the child abuse industry. Our Department of Social Services minister, Carolyn Hogg, asked for a report on the child abuse problem in our state. She asked Lesley Hewitt (a feminist) to prepare it for her. The report has been published and states the reasons for child abuse in Australia as these:

1. The imbalance of power between parent and child.
2. The imbalance of power between men and women.
3. The patriarchal structure of the family.

My husband took up the cudgel, and wrote a letter to our leading newspaper here in Melbourne. He entitled it, "The Real Reasons of Child Abuse." It was not published! I enclose a copy of it, and you will notice he quotes from your book. We sent a copy to our local members of parliament. Are you interested in receiving information from other countries?

YES, PLEASE!!!

OVERWORKED WIVES
Jean van der Linden, Australia

Women working outside the home is also a problem in this country, and in the church. I challenged one of my dear friends who is working at night, twice a week, as a nurse, concerning her working. Of particular concern is the women who work at night when their husbands are cozily sleeping in bed! The Lord reminded me of that Scripture "work while it is day, the night comes when no man can work" - I do not believe I am taking this out of context, as there is a principle involved here of working in the day! The night is for sleeping! My friend understood what I was sharing with her, but her husband has the dollar signs in his eyes as he wants to buy land in the country so he can retire there in five years! It is so sad. There needs to be some straight teaching to the men also!

BM,Tennessee

My husband and I have long believed all you share in your book about children and families but have also felt silenced many times as even some good friends of ours would think we are off the wall. (Even with scripture back-up, etc.) Also our backgrounds are Catholic, so many people have said, "Oh, it's just your 'Catholic beliefs.'" But when we would say, "No, it's our Christian conviction," people would look at us cross-eyed.

One request we have of you - and your husband!? We need a book like this written by a man to couples that talks about the same topics basically, but written basically toward men. In my church about seventy percent of the women are home with their children, but families are being cut short or stopped more as a result of husbands who don't want more children as opposed to wives who want to work outside the home. . .

DOCTOR DISAGREES ON STERILIZATION
Jim Brown, FPO Seattle, Washington

I am a surgeon, and previously did vasectomies and tubal ligations as a routine part of my practice. I never felt good about doing either procedure, but was never able to work through why. It was not like taking out a bad appendix or a life-threatening malignancy. But I believed that responsible people had the right to make these choices for themselves, and I felt an obligation as a physician to meet their expectations in this regard. I was bothered by the number of people I saw who regretted being sterilized. After reading The Way Home, I stopped doing sterilization procedures except in very rare occasions, and began to tell my patients why. It has led to some very rich and meaningful discussions, and a change of heart in several patients. I have also bourn the indignant wrath of those who felt I was infringing on their rights to be sterilized. I cannot relate to you the deep relief I have felt by resolving not to yield to the pressure to participate in sterilization procedures.

Since reading The Way Home I have performed two vasectomies on the husbands of women with medical conditions in which pregnancy literally threatened their lives. One was a 30 year old mother of two with an end-stage cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure. The other was a 28 year old mother of five who had recurrent deep vein thromboses associated with pregnancy and a pulmonary embolism after delivery from which she almost died. I believe there is a place for sterilization procedures, but it is extremely rare. In these cases my motivation in agreeing to perform the surgery was the preservation of life rather than preventing it.

As a physician (and hopefully not a defensive one), two issues bothered me in your recent edition of HELP. The first has to do with letters from M.P. and Alida Gookin under Children and Birth on page 9. M.P. writes that Bill Gothard says sterilization "... is no different than abortion - as it is killing off a godly seed." Although both procedures have the similarity of decreasing the number of children born, it is not true to say that they are the same thing. One prevents life from starting, the other kills a living human being. Alida Gookin says that, "forty percent of women with tubal ligations have gynecological problems (excessive bleeding, etc.)." What does she mean by problems? About one hundred percent of women have some type of gynecological problem from time to time whether they have had a tubal ligation or not. The vast majority of gynecological "problems" are unrelated to tubal ligation. She says that one half of these problems are so serious as to lead to the need for hysterectomy. If she is saying that tubal ligation leads to a need for hysterectomy in twenty percent of the women that have them, this simply is not true. I know of no frequent complication related to tubal ligation except for those that can occur in the peri-operative period of any surgical procedure. I am not saying that no complications ever occur, or are insignificant when they do occur, but I am saying we must be careful to say what is really true or we ruin our credibility with those who know better. The major complications associated with tubal ligation have to do with the loss of fertility, and, as you well know, these are very common and often heart-breaking cases. Hormonal balance is not altered by tubal ligation, contrary to what Alida implies. But by far the most outrageous statement of all is the association she makes of vasectomy with AIDS. It is true that sperm are highly antigenic cells that incite a local immune response when released from the vas deferens into the adjacent tissue. But that has nothing to do with AIDS. Unfounded, sensation-seeking untruths like these belong more in The National Inquirer than in HELP. They undermine the validity of the liberating truths you have helped so many of us see. As an editor, I encourage you to publish articles and letters that are true, not merely sensational.

One more issue, if you will bear with me - home deliveries. I understand and appreciate the motivation for this trend. The hospital environment robs families of the beauty and richness of this event. But home birthing is not without some risk that could be avoided by a hospital delivery, and people need to know that. I have witnessed three of my five children have respiratory arrests requiring intubation and ventilation in the delivery room, and need subsequent neonatal ICU care that saved their lives. Granted, all three cases were for prematurity, and any woman in premature labor should go to the hospital. But I have participated in several cases where a healthy baby was expected, but not delivered. Life-saving intervention was necessary immediately, often with a good outcome that would not have occurred outside the hospital. There are risks to the mother as well. My major point is that home deliveries must be done selectively in order to prevent the loss of life rather than the gain of life. People must be made aware that there are risks to having a home delivery that can be avoided in the hospital. Perhaps my judgment is clouded by my experience, but I personally would not be willing to subject my wife and child to these risks.

HELP is a forum. We pass on what we are sent and assume that our correspondents are sincere in what they write. It is of course possible to be sincerely wrong, in which case, I rely on you others out there to respond. This is your newsletter!

I hope Alida will answer on her own behalf. In the meantime, do let me say that, as I read her last letter, I did not see her saying that vasectomy causes AIDS, but rather that it does "incite a local immune response," just as you said. Obviously, with the increasing notoriety of auto-immune deficiency disease such as cancer (never mind AIDS), modern men will think twice before insulting their immune system unnecessarily. This is a good point worth expressing.

Regarding home birth, our own experience has been good. Our home births were attended by a certified nurse midwife, whose training and experience make her an expert on normal delivery. She has only had to refer two people to her backup doctor in all her years of practice and has had no problems otherwise. Of course, we would not recommend any practice based on just one person's experience (even ours). Risks do need to be weighed. However, what most people (including medical doctors) are unaware of are the risks associated with the unnecessarily interventionist hospital birth. In many cases, babies the doctors "saved" were only in trouble because of a doctor's intervention in the first place. Example: fetal distress caused by oxygen deprivation due to the mother lying flat on her back in order to accommodate the fetal monitor.

If any reader desires further information on the subject of homebirth, the best source is NAPSAC, the International Association of Parents and Professionals for Safe Alternatives in Childbirth. NAPSAC's mail-order bookstore carries a full line of books on both hospital birth and childbirth. Taken together, NAPSAC's materials prove homebirth is superior for the normal mother and child. Send large SASE to:

NAPSAC
P.O. Box 429
Marble Hill, MO 63764

THEY DIDN'T GET STERILIZED
AE, California

A year ago, a little longer actually, after our 3rd child was born, me and my husband were talking about him getting a vasectomy, and I was agreeing reluctantly, but I asked him to let me check around and find out if its really right. I wrote to people who were Christians and asked their views. I read Christian books and all pointed out that basically it was O.K. I still didn't feel comfortable because I wanted something really solid and I'd feel at ease about. Then I ran across your book, "The Way Home". I read it, then read it to my husband. He was all ready to dispute, but he found he couldn't and then he decided against the vasectomy and finally I felt at peace inside.

Then recently he was seriously considering it again because of other people's advice. Then I just received my first issue of HELP and read the report you had on the long range risks and both of us praised God you had this in at this time and he did not make the mistake of having a vasectomy.