Crazy About Our Kids
“I believe that every child in America needs to be homeschooled,” said Kay Coles James when she addressed the National Leaders Conference of the Home School Legal Defense Association in October. Mrs. James is the president of the Heritage Foundation. According to the Heritage Foundation website, it is a conservative think tank dedicated to “free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.”
Mrs. James graduated from Hampton University, the alma mater of Booker T. Washington, in Virginia.
She founded the Gloucester Institute which trains and nurtures college-age students from the black community. Her resume is impressive and includes service in both the George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush administrations. But, first of all, Mrs. James is a devoted follower of Jesus Christ, a wife, a mother of three, and a grandmother of five.
Mrs. James’ lecture included a beautiful prayer for America. The lecture was part-lecture and part-sermon. The James’ own children went to public school, but she told us: “It is our responsibility to educate our children, even if they go to public school.” The James’ daughter’s junior high experience taught her that. She related a story about an incident that happened when their daughter was in junior high. Mrs. James went to school for a conference with her daughter’s teacher. She asked the teacher when she was going to teach grammar. “That is not in our curriculum this year,” the teacher replied.
“I thought you taught children, not curriculum,” Mrs. James told her. She informed the teacher that either she or her husband would teach their daughter or they would hire a private tutor. They would make sure that their daughter learned.
Mrs. James told the audience that children need someone who is crazy about them. She is right. Thank you for being crazy about yours.
Mrs. James encouraged Christian parents not to retreat into “our utopian Christian village,” but to train our children to be strong. Her views about that reflect one of the purposes we have for writing history. We want to help parents rear children who understand, children who know God’s word, children who know the past, children who have servant hearts, so they are prepared to live faithfully and boldly in the future.
God said:
You shall therefore impress these words of mine
on your heart and on your soul;
and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand,
and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.
You shall teach them to your sons,
talking of them when you sit in your house
and when you walk along the road
and when you lie down and when you rise up.
Deuteronomy 11:18-19