A Christian Pioneer of Home Schooling Looks to Its Future

[Conuly]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/19/us/a- ... uture.html

I don't know that there's all that much new to say, but I thought I'd post it anyway.

Back in 1993, when Mary Pride and her husband appeared with their eight children in the first issue of Wired magazine, it was hard to say what seemed strangest: that the Prides were Protestants who rejected birth control, that they home-schooled their children or that in home schooling they relied heavily on computer software. All those choices would have seemed bravely countercultural, or just weird.

Mrs. Pride’s beliefs on religion and family life are, to use her word, “old-fashionedâ€: in addition to opposing birth control, she believes the man should be the head of the household. Yet in her embrace of technology and the Internet, Mrs. Pride is a total Webhead, as befits the wife of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate whom she met when both were working “at the key-punch room in Raytheon,†the military technology company.

[Irishy]

Well she doesn't come across like your average thick-as-shit fundie wife. She seems to take education seriously. Given that they have become lax about attending church, I wonder is their fundamentalism slipping?

[GiggleOfGirls]

Wow, that's interesting. She really doesn't come across like most of the current homeschooling fundies do. She sounds a bit like my parents, actually, except they used birth control and are an odd mix between complementarian and egalitarian.

[AmyP]

I posted this a while ago, but it is relevant here so I posted it again. Mary Pride's opinion of the Christian patriarchy movement.

http://www.home-school.com/Articles/pat ... iarchy.php

[gustava]

I'm skeptical of her moving toward evil liberalism: "Mrs. Pride’s beliefs on religion and family life are, to use her word, “old-fashionedâ€: in addition to opposing birth control, she believes the man should be the head of the household." She may claim not to be strongly supportive of patriarchy, and she may be educated, but she talks the talk.....

[Irishy]

I posted this a while ago, but it is relevant here so I posted it again. Mary Pride's opinion of the Christian patriarchy movement.

http://www.home-school.com/Articles/pat ... iarchy.php

That's really interesting. She is not, in fact, the devil woman I'd thought as the 'grandmother' of quiverfull.

[GiggleOfGirls]

I do think that there's a difference between patriarchal and complementarian. Mrs. Pride is clearly complementarian, but she doesn't believe that women should be "all yes all the time" doormats, which seems to be the prevailing belief in the patriarchal circles.

I do agree that the Patriarchal groups have just taken Mrs. Pride's beliefs and taken them to their logical and frightening conclusion - they've moved towards an extreme from her starting place. I do believe her when she says that she didn't intend for things to go that far or that insane, but I'm sure that her writings helped to spur on the crazy, at least at the beginning.