Blattert, a chemical engineer, was jailed for over 11 years for strangling one of his children and beating her severely with glue sticks, a belt, and his hands – open palms and fists according to the testimony of his brave daughter. Her use of a mobile phone to capture part of the incident is likely the only reason the Blatterts have faced any legal repercussions for their actions. The Blatterts’ daughter also explained that her parents used videos from Vision Forum Ministries as part of their homeschooling programme. Shut down about a decade ago amid the founder, Doug Phillips’, admission to marital infidelity and allegations of sexual misconduct against him, Vision Forum pushed a patriarchal vision of Christianity in which fathers have absolute authority over their children, parents are expected to have as many children as “god gives them,” and homeschooling is prescribed.
At his sentencing, a completely unrepentant Scott Blattert explained why he and his wife refused plea deals by stating: “My wife heard a voice saying to fight for our children. I recognised that as the Holy spirit.”
The natural end result of allowing people to ascribe the voices in their head to a divine creator of the universe.
Other than abuse and right wing extremism, I’m also worried about the social impacts of this. Schools are where we meet people different from our parents, start to learn how to navigate communities and build relationships with our peers.
While I know of parents and children who’ve had great home schooling experiences, it’s A LOT of work on the parents not only from q teaching/academic role, but from making sure kids are socialized enough to support their emotional growth.
Taking your kids to church on Sundays and the library on Wednesdays is not enough for them to build strong relationships and learn and grow into well adjusted adults.
I was homeschooled and while I had a really good experience, I think that that is only because I was lucky enough to not have religious nutjobs for parents.
I’m scared for all the kids who will grow up physically and emotionally abused because their parents were afraid of some woke boogeyman in public schools.
Yep, these people are fucking crazy. At least it’s consistent though, I guess.
beating her severely with glue sticks
Okay, so this is at best tangential to the topic, but what? Are we talking about the little plastic tubes full of paste? How does that even work?
I’m thinking maybe glue sticks that are inserted into glue guns, that melt when heat is applied?
But with the rise of AI, what if it destroys our institutions of “knowledge” by removing the role of schools as a source of teaching not just charge them to glorified babysitter centers?
glorified babysitter centers
Or preemptive incarceration, like the Texas schools that fired their librarians and turned their school libraries into “behavior” centers.
