Over the years that I've been homeschooling, (this is my 14th year now) homeschooling has changed; not just as a popular alternative, but the families who are presented to us in ads, magazines, and blogs.

It used to be that the only families we would see were what has been termed as, "the perfect homeschoolers". Everyone is wearing a clean, modest, matching outfit, they all have a quiet countenance, in the background you see a clean and tidy house. There have been a lot of complaints about this "look". Many feel it is intimidating, it puts them off, it's not real.

The, "it's not real," take, applies to books as well. Louisa May Alcott wrote a wonderful story called, Jack and Jill, in which the main characters are sweet, kind, and innocent. My Dear Father-in-Law read the book and felt that it just wasn't real. He's right of course, it's not, but was that the author's intent? I don't think so. She may have been idealistic, but she was looking to instill something in her readers. You are not going to be challenged to be a better person by reading Judy Blume. Sure, she's real, a little too real, but (back when I read her books) they didn't encourage me in anyway. They just made me feel like I could keep right on being the same idiot me. Why not? Everyone else was an idiot too and we could all be happy idiots together.

I have a differnt outlook on the "perfect" homeschooler look. They encouraged me and proved to me that there was a totally different life to live. To me the daughters of some of those families are more beautiful than Angelina Jolie could ever dream of being.

Quite frankly, those families were very real to me, not the families who were in my daughter's preschool, or my neighbors. I looked up to those perfect homeschooling families as something to strive for in the same way I look up to Christ.  I'll never be there myself, but  that's the standard I'm striving for.

I also know that those families had put their best foot forward, they are real. Just because they don't tell you about the bad days doesn't mean they don't happen. I'm not looking to have all of my children dress in matching outfits, I can't even sew. I'm just striving for that family unity in Christ.

That unity is what I see in those perfect families, it's one reason why I homeschool because the perfect famililes that went before showed me life could be different then the families that public schools say is "normal". Normal means in good health. Bad attitudes from your teen is not "normal". That's sin and it's not healthy.

This doesn't mean that I don't think people can't be real like having dirty dishes in the sink or dirty laundry spilling all over the floor. To be honest, my house looks like that a lot. However, it doesn't encourage me. It doesn't make me feel better to know that you are like me. I don't understand why anyone would want to feel like that. I'm a sinner. No, I don't think that dirty laundry is a sin, I'm just saying, why should I feel better knowing you are caught in my same traps? Somehow, that's just wrong.

The answer here is showing the solution. Take a real family, a real situation, and show how to overcome the pitfalls. I want to see a family that has learned how to get past their laziness, selfishness, and rude behavior. I at least want to see someone trying to get past that. I don't want to see a family that is a reflection of me. What honor does that bring to Christ? How would that make anyone want to do better?

While I can understand how someone could be caught in the same traps as me, it doesn't make me feel better about myself. Many Bible devotions today are along the same vein. They want to encourage you by letting you know that Samson, David, and Rahab were all sinners, just like you and me, yet the Lord used them. Isn't it glorious? Well, what else does the Lord have to work with? The Bible lets us know that we are all sinners. That fact alone does not make me feel better. The Lord can certainly use pitiful me, but that doesn't mean He wants me to remain pitiful. What does make me feel better is Christ's example, His teaching and admonishments. I want to be like Him, not like David.

 Many of us know the saying, "Never judge a book by its cover."  Which is to say, "Don't judge someone by their appearance or by first impressions."  I have to say though, that if I am looking through a stack of books and come across one with a scantily dressed woman clinging to the leg of a scantily dressed man with long flowing hair, I am going to keep moving on.  The cover told me plenty about what was inside the book.  Could I be wrong?  I may be wrong about what wound up actually being inside the book but I wouldn't be wrong about the author's or publisher's values for choosing that cover in order to draw in people's attention. 

What I am about to say now is going to make some people mad and probably make them think I am elitist. 

                        The same principle can be applied to people. 

If I see a scantily dressed girl with her hand in her boyfriends back pocket, and he can't seem to keep his hands off of her, right away I know something about these two people.  They are shameless in their public displays of affection, the girl believes she can dress however she wants and if a guy lusts after her that's his fault, (although she probably dressed that way with her boyfriend in mind and is displaying the fruit of her efforts), and the boy has pretty much got one thing on his mind and it isn't about mowing his elderly neighbor's yard. 

Does this mean that they aren't nice people?  No.  Does it mean that the boy doesn't ever mow his elderly neighbor's yard?  No.  However, it does say something about a few of their morals.  Then I have to ask myself, "Is this a book I want my children reading?"  No. 

Does that make me elitist?  It would only make me so if I believed I was any better than they were.  I am not.  I have many, many failings.  If I want to overcome those failings or if I want my children to overcome their own, I am not going to put myself or my children in the paths of books or people that will not raise us up or edify the Lord. 

As a closing thought, why is it always the same people who holler that you can't judge a book by it's cover who adamantly declare that they believe in love at first sight?