My sister sends me a yearly subscription to a national family/women's magazine which I could just as well live without but it does help me keep up with what's going on in the rest of America.  More often than not, it is not good news, at least to me.  Case in point ...

In one of the advice columns of the magazine, a woman writes that her 12 year old son is pleading with her to teach him at home.  The first thing she says is that he has friends in the neighborhood and is active in sports, so he won't have the issue of socialization (though she doesn't use that catch word specifically).  She doesn't know what to do and, in her words, wants to know what the advice columnist thinks. 

Now, the first thing that comes to my mind is, "Lady, YOU are the parent!  YOU need to decide what is best for your son, you and your family.  NOT some disinterested writer who may or may not be "qualified" to guide people as to how they should raise their kids.  This is not a decision that should be made outside of the family or perhaps other people who know and respect the family.  It's just sad to me to see this kind of thing.  She was directly asking this columnist if homeschooling her child was the right thing.  The columnist, of course, said that the mom should try to learn why her son wants to be homeschooled to see if she can help work things out so he can stay at school.  In addition, if the mom does decide to homeschool, the columnist said she'd need more info and gave a web site address for help.

It just seems to me that in this day and age, homeschooling should seem more mainstream, not bizarre or out of the ordinary or to be avoided if possible.  Perhaps I'm too sheltered.  Maybe I'm just overreacting here.  Maybe I should ask my sister to subscribe to a different magazine for my Christmas gift!

I suppose this mom had no one else to ask for an opinion.  I'm not critizing her.  It's just sad that she felt that writing to this columnist was the way to help in this decision.  Such an important decision, not to be taken lightly and not to be made by someone who is out of the picture.  I should pray for her, now there's an idea!

Something else I saw in this magazine:  They listed fun places to visit and one of the listings was Cape Meares in Netarts, Oregon, a place I have been to.  Unfortunately, they spelled Netarts "Netrats"  I had a good laugh over that one and shared it with my family.  I really can't let that one lie, can I?  Perhaps a letter to the editor, gently pointing out the error.  I don't think the fine people of Netarts would like their little town referred to as Net-rats!

I just noticed today's date - today would have been my father's birthday.  My son, Alec, asked to build one of my father's model airplanes yesterday (I have about 6) and I let him.  Though they never met, they share that common interest.  Isn't that cool?