Poverty Builds Character

Money problems have invaded my normally philosophical mind and taken over as of late. It seems like I worry about money all the time. Now, adding a new expense into the mix, we just sent our oldest son off to college. An already tight family budget has shrunk to ridiculous proportions.

For me, struggles with money can be especially acute because I grew up in fairly affluent circumstances. I often wish that I could provide for my own children a similar lifestyle that I took for granted growing up. As a youth, I went skiing in the Alps and the Rockies, and I never questioned whether my parents would pay for college. Now, as an adult, trips to Alabama and Ohio are budget-busters, and I'm beginning to see parents paying for college as just another mistake coming out of the sixties.

My wife and I have had more than a few arguments about paying for college over the years. She sees college as the student's responsibility, and I have seen college as largely the parents'. Like usual, I have resisted her viewpoint and learned the hard way that she was right. Aptly, our eldest son seems to have settled on a mid-ground between my wife's position and mine. To his credit, he has earned several academic scholarships through his university. But, partly due to his expectation that we would help, he didn't apply for additional scholarships or awards. For us, the bottom line is as follows: according to student aid, with six kids on a mental health income our total expected family contribution is $0.00. (Who am I to question the Federal Government?) Reality check! I am not my father. I do not make a six-figure income. I cannot afford elaborate ski trips, and I cannot afford to send my children to college. We will manage, somehow. But from this point forward, if my kids want to go to college, they have to hit the books and study, research educational institutions and opportunities, and apply for independent scholarships. Otherwise, they will be forced to accrue excessive student loans that an undergraduate education scarcely justifies. Or they can join the military. Or they can get a job.

Coming from my background, this perspective on paying for college is somewhere between heresy and high-treason. My mother and siblings believe that one should not have more children than one is able to send to college. (Eh Gads! My mother and her other children actually think Margaret Sanger was right!) Often, being a Christian, especially a traditional Catholic, can put a person at odds with parents and siblings. For me, this struggle has been at times quite painful. My family has made some very cold remarks about my large family and small income. Their most frequent criticism is this: "How are you going to afford to send them all to college?"

But, really, what's so wrong with expecting young adults to pay for their university education? Perhaps there is something inherently flawed with seeing higher education as a parental obligation. Financial responsibility begets personal responsibility. If the student is footing the bill—either through scholarships or loans or cash—he or she will be more apt to study hard and to learn something. But if Mom and Dad are paying the tab, the student will be more prone to partying and goofing off. Too many parents today see college as a transition period into adulthood. In reality, most college students are technically adults, 18 years or older. For those who approach college life seriously, college is just another variant—like the military or the workforce—of early adult life.

Unfortunately, very few students coming from public high school will have developed this level of serious scholarship, and if they do, they inevitably miss the most important aspect—the love of learning for the sake of learning. Today, most of the serious students are too busy chasing after grades or careers, and they denigrate the study of wisdom or general knowledge. Instead, they quickly jump on the merry-go-round of technological training and external reward. Whereas in high-school, their reward was good grades, in college their reward is looking forward to a lucrative career. Of course, there is nothing wrong in-itself with a profitable career, but when money is the only goal, there's a problem. The world really doesn't need any more smart accountants, lawyers, doctors, or CEOs. What the world really does need, however, are smart accountants, lawyers, doctors, and CEOs who understand the importance of values and ethics. These future ethical leaders are not simply chasing a carrot and stick, they genuinely love learning about their fields simply for the sake of knowledge.

Lately, I've been really worried about our oldest as he goes off to college, not just the whole finances aspect. I'm especially concerned about whether he had the commitment and perspicacity. Then something happened that gave me tremendous hope. Looking at his dorm room he said, "It's not as small as I remember it." Then he said, "I can't believe I have a whole dresser to myself." Wow! What gratitude! It was rather humbling for me, but all the sudden I saw that all of our struggles have been worthwhile. I've been really hard on myself for now being able to provide a better life for my children, and yet that very lack has helped to shape their characters in a positive way. I compare my oldest to myself at his age, and he outshines me in so many ways. At that age, nothing was ever good enough for me; he's incredibly grateful for a small dorm room. I expected things to be handed to me with little effort on my part; he works harder than I did at this stage. And what I did earn, I quickly squandered on the next amusement; well, not everything is all that different. But he's making progress.

More Than NOT

"Did you sign [name omitted] up for the 'Voluntary Drug Testing' program?" she asked. (My child and her child were both entering 7^th grade.) The other parent was referring to a program that was new to the public school at the time, "Voluntary Drug Testing." Starting in 7^th grade, parents could sign their children up for random urine drug screens and be notified of the results.

"No," I immediately responded. "I'm not going to have my teens subjected to random drug tests or mandatory counseling."

Her chin dropped. "Why not?"

"I've worked as a drug and alcohol counselor," was the only answer I could muster. Sensing that anything I could say would fall on deaf ears, I simply walked away. But a myriad of thoughts occurred to me. "What if the results are positive?" I thought to myself. "Does that then allow the school system to mandate drug and alcohol treatment? And if so, do the parents get a choice in which treatment provider the children see?" Though I am concerned and quite vigilant about ensuring my children do not use drugs or alcohol, in many ways I'm even more frightened of the drug and alcohol treatment industry. Often, especially in relatively mild cases of substance abuse, the status quo of treatment in the United States does more harm than good. Confrontational counseling—now unequivocally debunked (Miller & Rollnick 1991)—continues to be all-too prevalent. Watered-down theology and new-age spirituality are mainstays, and genuine religious practice is discouraged (eg. Bradshaw). No, I'm not about to turn over the decision-making process regarding my children's lives to the school system, police, and treatment industry. For me, declining the "Voluntary Drug Testing" program was an easy decision.

Nonetheless, that other parent's remark did bother me enough to talk about it later with my wife. Her response was something like, "If our teenagers don't think we trust them, then they might as well be doing drugs or whatever else we suspect them of doing!" My wife sees trust as a two-way street. The children need to know that they can rely on us, but we also have to trust them. Of course, we are cautious not to provide too much freedom, and we try to make sure they are not abusing their liberty. For example, when they come home from being out with friends, we talk to them for a few minutes. Occasionally, we may even check their breath. Most importantly, we do this in a nonintrusive, non-accusatory manner. In the words of Ronald Reagan, "Trust, but verify."

Recently, during a break, I discussed this "Voluntary Drug Testing" program with my clinical supervisor, a psychologist who specializes in the behavioral treatment of children. He had a different take on the subject. He had two major concerns with a school program such as drug-testing of teens. First, parents who sign up for this program are relinquishing their parental role and allowing the school-system to pick up the responsibility. Second, these parents are assuming that the school-system is competent to take over the task adequately.

My clinical supervisor compared the "Voluntary Drug Testing" to an ecological study on Driver's Education (Robinson 1980). The gist of this study was that, back in the late 1970s, the state of Connecticut cut funding for school-based, Driver's Education. Some of the school districts dropped the program entirely, while other districts chose to continue funding Driver's Education from their own coffers. This led to a natural or ecological way of measuring the effectiveness of Driver's Education, by comparing the motor vehicle accident rates between these large populations of youths, with or without school-based Driver's Education. The results were interesting. The school districts that opted out of the Driver's Education actually had lower accident rates, and the school districts that continued to have Driver's Education had higher rates. Did this mean that the Driver's Education was somehow to blame for the higher accident rate? No, that wasn't the problem. Upon closer analysis, it turns out that the students without the Driver's Education class waited longer to get their licenses and that delay accounted for the change in the accident rate. My clinical supervisor interprets this difference as a change in parental involvement. The parents of students with Driver's Training assumed that their teens were ready to drive. They relinquished the decision of when to allow the teen to get a license over to the driving instructor. The parents of teens without Driver's Training had to make the decision themselves. With first-hand knowledge of their teens' driving performance, they were more apt to delay the licensure, resulting in fewer accidents.

In a similar way, his concern about a "Voluntary Drug Testing" program at the school was that parents would become prone to relinquishing their parental role. These parents might be less apt to keep a watchful eye and nose on their children, and more prone to trust that the school's drug-testing would pick up any misbehaviors. Anyone with a slight knowledge about drug and alcohol screenings knows that these tests can miss a lot. There is no substitute for parental mindfulness. Besides, if circumstances warrant, parents can now purchase these tests over-the-counter at the local pharmacy. At least then, the parents (and students) can decide for themselves how to proceed and not be at the mercy of the school, police, and treatment providers.

This discussion is timely. President Obama's Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, is now talking about expanding the role of public schools. With single parents and dual-career families, parents are time-strapped to provide the kind of activity, supervision, and assistance that many students appear to need. Amazingly (to me, at least), many parents are more than willing to allow the school-system to pick up the slack. Couple this with an elitist attitude toward the families of "at-risk-youth," and many of these programs are likely to get the green light.

Meanwhile, we traditional Catholics and conservative Christians are pulling our children out of the public school system by the droves. It occurs to me: This "Voluntary Drug Testing" program can be seen as a metaphor for public schooling in general. By dropping our children off at the doors of the public school, we parents relinquish control. We leave the education of our progeny to people we barely know. By allowing the school system to educate our children, we trust that they are competent to do so. Yet, in the back of our minds, we know that the United States has one of the worst-ranked educational systems in the civilized world.

As obvious as the homeschooling decision seems to me now, our family has only recently joined the trend of Christians fleeing from the public schools. Five weeks ago, we started homeschooling. As such, I'm still sorting out various aspects of the whole decision. Initially, for me, the decision had a lot to do with setting more rigorous academic standards. This is clearly the case. Our homeschooling program, one of the largest, substantially challenges our 4^th and 10^th graders, who were both superb students in the public schools. In certain skill areas, particularly reading comprehension, they are struggling to pick up the pace in homeschooling. My dear wife—who does the lion's share of the teaching—is finding that homeschooling is more work than we anticipated, but with even greater payoff.

Increasingly, though, I'm becoming aware that academics are not the main reason that we or most parents are homeschooling. Children can learn math, science, and reading all day long, but if they don't develop moral character, all that education is for naught. On the subject of values, however, the public schools are mostly silent. Public schools try to create a values-neutral type of environment, but this approach has three fatal flaws as follows: First, values are the most important thing, and any teacher who tries to be mute on values often leaves out the part that gives the lesson meaning. Second, the goal of being values-neutral is a lie; individual values always seep through. Third, increasingly the public schools do endorse a set of values, those of the liberal-progressive, elitist movement. The result is an education that lacks meaning (eg. few modern children can explain the significance of the Pilgrims), lacks integrity (eg. teens will always pick up on their Health teacher's individual belief about premarital sex) and lacks justice (eg. school boards are increasingly banning books that exert morally upright values while making others of reprehensible value required reading). This situation is extremely dire. There is no way to remain in the school system and work from the inside to make things better. The only solution for Christian parents who are serious about their children's moral education is to withdraw them from public school.

The root of the problem regarding values for public schools is they cannot speak positively about character education. For example, public schools cannot rightly espouse the virtues of faith, hope, and charity. These are positive values, and as such relate to a specific set of religious beliefs. The only things that public schools can talk about in regard to values are feelings and behaviors. All of these behaviors are expressed in the negative. Public schools frequently address the importance of NOT using drugs, NOT getting pregnant, NOT treating homosexuals unkindly, and NOT being bigoted towards other groups of people. Thus, the fruit of modern education is a student who is generally nice and gentle, but otherwise lacks real personality or character. These students know nothing of vice or virtue, but only of avoiding bad behavior and hurting other people's feelings. Morality to these young people is not objective or open to debate, but absolutely subjective. Do not challenge their point of view; their pleasant façade will turn vicious. The best that modern education has to offer—if all of these NOT lessons are heard succinctly—is a two-dimensional person, a paper cut-out. These students cannot develop real moral character, as that requires rigorous thought, self-criticism, and positive moral instruction.

And so, as a newly franchised homeschooling parent, I have little fear that my children will use drugs, get pregnant, treat people unkindly, or behave in bigoted ways. My bigger concern is what types of positive traits they will develop and nurture. I want to raise children of moral character. And that's why I think parents choose homeschooling.