An Open Letter to State Representative Stephanie Chang of Michigan

 Dear Representative Chang,

 I am writing regarding the proposed House Bill 4498 which you introduced in response to the brutal murder of two Detroit area children by their mother and their subsequent concealment in her freezer for two years.  

Like you, we were horrified by this story--grieved for the children, grieved for the fact that their family was so disconnected from the surrounding community that their absence went unnoticed for that long, grieved that they had fallen beyond the notice of their CPS workers, DHS, and the local school system they had attended, grieved that a mother could even be capable of such a thing.  

What I was not prepared for was your contention that part of the blame for this tragedy lies with the lack of homeschooling regulations in Michigan, and that the remedy is to immediately curtail the educational liberty that so many Michigan families have thrived under for so long.

It is with all due respect that I say,  "WHAAAT?!?!" 

As I understand them, the facts of the case are as follows:  

1.  Stoni and Stephen Blair were brutally tortured and murdered at the hands of the person who should have protected them with her own life--their own mother.  This was a breakdown of a basic human instinct on a catastrophic level.  

A horror.  

I struggle to even contemplate how this crime could have been prevented, legislatively speaking, since it is outside the scope of what most human beings can even imagine.   

Although come to think of it...as things now stand, we allow new, often inexperienced mothers and fathers to leave the hospital in possession of their own babies with little to no government oversight until the child reaches the age of five!   

So maybe a law that covers ALL parents/potential murderers would be in order if you are in the mood for drafting cumbersome, expensive, intrusive, insulting, and ineffective bills, but honestly I can't think of any legislation capable of stopping a person who is truly determined to do evil, so...

2.  Allegations had been made against their mother in the past, and she already had a record with CPS.  I suppose a case could be made for more careful follow up of children who have been victims of abuse by their parents, although I suspect there is no social worker on the planet who would be able to prevent every evil act conceived by the heart of a depraved individual, even with lifelong follow-up.  So I'm not sure more legislation would have helped there either.  

3.  The children had absent fathers, both of whom were too busy working on diverse and extensive criminal records and evading child support to wonder where their children had gone to for TWO YEARS.  

How about some legislation to encourage fathers to actually stick around and parent?  Like a bill making it so that low income families don't profit more from being without a dad than with one for starters?  

How about not making it so cumbersome for church and community groups to navigate the legal and government requirements to serve needy communities?  Many of these faith-based organizations long to create one-on-one, community-based mentorship and support mechanisms to help families stay together, but are tied up--or shut up--by red tape.

I know of one local charity that has to burn up valuable volunteer hours recording EVERY SINGLE DONATED ITEM on a government created spreadsheet, which is then submitted to some "circumlocution office" drone, even if the donated items are not usable or are expired and must be discarded.  The goal of this organization is to help create and maintain strong and healthy families in our community, but they are encumbered and distracted.  

By government. 

Hmmm.  Maybe we could draft a bill for THAT.

4.  The Martin Luther King Housing Complex, where the murdered children lived, is subsidized housing, which means that their mother had to have applied for it through DHS at some point in the past, obtaining it and keeping it via her income and number of children.  

These units are eagerly sought and dearly held.  Was there no verification of her occupancy claims by state agencies?  

Were there no neighbors willing to report (anonymously or otherwise) that she was keeping a unit with too few children?  

Was she on public assistance?  Is that not also based on means testing and family size?  Where is the oversight due the taxpayers?  They are paying for the housing and food of their needier neighbors.  Are they not at least owed the assurance that they are not subsidizing fraud and abuse?  

What about the truly needy?  Aren't they too owed the diligence of the state in these matters?

Maybe we could have a bill for that? 


5. As far I know, murder is already illegal in Michigan, as is child abuse and torture.  I believe Ms. Blair has already showed her disregard for the law on every level.  Are we so naive as to believe that the way to stop people like this is by adding another layer of legislation to the law abiding citizens of this state?

Do we really need another layer of bureaucracy for busy families to wade through?

How about another expense for the hard-working taxpayers of a struggling state...

...while at the same time saddling a large, generally decent segment of the population with the burden of proving their innocence in matters of child abuse?

This, Ms. Chang, is the thing I cannot let go.  Your bill would require a group of dedicated parents, who have shown their commitment to their children by their sacrifice of years, earnings, and extra effort, to prove that they are not guilty.  

I might remind you that in our constitutional republic, we citizens operate under the presumption of innocence in matters of law.  Or as the old Latin phrase goes (Latin being a popular subject in many homeschools), "Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat" -- "The burden of proof lies on he who declares, not on he who denies". 

Just legislation then, would seem to require that large swaths of the population not be singled out and forced to prove that they are not child abusers--especially when the state's evidence rests on a lunatic.  

This mother was never a homeschooler.  She was a murderer who needed a quick and plausible defense, and not one of the public servants she already had "connections" with thought to call her on it.  

Ms. Chang, I would not presume to demand an entrance into the private world of your family life based on the monstrous actions of someone else, utterly unconnected to and having nothing in common with YOU.  The logic (a subject many homeschoolers still actually study--along with Latin) does not hold.  

Unless YOU give me reason to think otherwise, I would presume you to be competent and caring in your family interactions.  

I am asking that you offer me and others in the homeschooling community the same courtesy by reconsidering your support for this bill.

If Joe Schmoe poses as a state representative and runs through the halls of the Capitol building waving a musket and yelling, "The British are coming!" I would not think of asking you and your colleagues to go to extraordinary lengths to somehow prove that you all are not dangerous anti-British revolutionaries.

If I am a lunatic, but I claim to be a pilot and I somehow take a jet through the roof of the local 7-Eleven, would you draft legislation which would require real, practicing pilots to prove they won't do the same? 

If this line of reasoning seems absurd, that's because it is.  You are not protecting anyone with this proposed legislation.  You are insulting us, wasting our time, and casting a dark cloud of suspicion over an entire group of well-meaning, hard-working, dedicated and loving parents.  

There are exceptions, as there are in EVERY SINGLE subset of the human population (including legislators) but studies indicate that homeschooling is a viable and profitable educational option for--not all--but many families across our nation, and that children are thriving because of their access to it. 

One would think that if a public servant truly had the best interests of children at heart, he or she would want to remove barriers and create access to successful educational models of all types, even those outside the government funded public school system.

And this is, I believe, the real heart of the matter.  

I will now try to explain why I think you are receiving such heated resistance from so many Michigan families over this bill, and it is not because we all have something to hide or because we are too lazy to comply with the proposed stipulations. 

Before shooting me a politely dismissive form letter, I ask you to please give the following your careful consideration.

In any free society there are going to be differing ideas about the way things ought to be.  One of the true beauties of the American experiment has been our ability to live tolerantly with one another, while at the same time remaining free to express dissent in our speech, in the press, and by the way we conduct our lives.  In this way we can observe the outcomes of various belief systems and either grow to embrace a different view or become secure in our own.  

There is, however, a segment of the population who is uncomfortable with diversity of ideas, frightened by unorthodox methods, and irritated by a perceived lack of control over outcomes.  They see the same problems we all do in humanity and look for cures from a little-g-savior (government) full of little-l-lords (legislators).  

When these individuals gravitate toward politics and attempt to alleviate social ills by means of more and bigger government, too often the rest of us feel the squeeze until we agree to march in lock-step. 

It is one thing when "lock step" affects just us grown ups.  Sometimes we can overlook it and find ways to run our businesses and spend our money and live our personal lives in compliance with yet another government mandate.  

It is another thing entirely when Washington or Lansing bureaucrats presume to come between us and our children, interfering with the decisions we make within our primary relationships and in the best interest of our families.  

Most parents within the homeschool community only want the freedom to help their children use their gifts, skills, passions, interests, and intellects to become the best possible leaders, thinkers, writers, speakers, citizens, artists, farmers, engineers, etc. 

We resent the implication that we need Lansing's oversight to achieve that goal, simply because we have chosen a different (legal!) option for our children's education.  

As you would if we offered the same "oversight" to you.

If you are comfortable leaving children in the care of their parents up until age five, entrusting them to make decisions regarding proper care, feeding, emotional nurturance and education, is it that much of a stretch to assume that those parents could continue to make those decisions for their own children beyond that point?  

Are you asserting that a group of legislators, social workers, or state approved professionals --basically paid strangers--knows better how to raise, nurture, and educate a child than do his parents?  

Why?  Do they love my child more than I do?  

Are they the ones putting the time, effort, and love into his life from birth until death?  

Are they the ones caring for him when he is sick, teaching him how to walk and talk, kissing his boo boos, helping him to navigate friendships, first jobs, and broken hearts?  

If so, then we are engaged in shared parenting and they all owe me for back child support.

If not, by what right do they claim oversight and jurisdiction over the primary relationship between a parent and a child?  Are we a nation of criminals and imbeciles, that we need to have paid professionals telling us how to manage our families from cradle to grave--what to feed them, how to dress them, how (and what and where) to teach them, what medications they must take, and (if you have your way) establishing a schedule by which we are forced to open our private residences to the prying eyes of government employees?

I am not diminishing the fact that there are serious problems in our society, and that many of them originate within the hearts of selfish and neglectful grown-ups. Many of them end up hurting children, but the solution is not to create a dragnet which casts suspicion upon and restricts the freedoms of  thousands of compliant, peaceful, industrious, law-abiding parent-educators in the wild hope that you will dredge up a few stinky fish.  

Unless that is not really your goal at all.  

Maybe you are just one of the many people who live in fear of people who hold opinions that are different from yours, who do things differently, and who won't stop sharing their zany ideas about God and freedom and basic human rights.  

Maybe you have identified homeschoolers as a pocket of people still trying to swim upstream in a culture which has largely abandoned its founding principles, and you want to put eyes on us.  

Homeschooling is ever and always a target  for well-meaning(?) individuals who are threatened by diversity of thought and practice.  Maybe this horrible case is just a smokescreen for an existing agenda.  That would only add a layer of duplicity to an already tragic situation. 

Whatever.  You know your own heart, but let me tell you a secret.

 No matter how many laws you write, you cannot eradicate evil.  It comes from hearts that have thrown off God and bowed down at the altar of their own selfishness--not from lack of good laws, good jobs, good food, good neighborhoods, or even good schools, but from the desire to become gods unto themselves. 

 Patrick Henry once said, "Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."

Similar sentiments were echoed by our second president, John Adams, when he wrote, "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion."

So, Ms. Chang, although you were right to lament the loss of Stoni and Stephen, you are looking in the wrong place for a solution.

And let me tell you another secret.

You want people like us around you.  

In fact, you ought to be cheering us on.  Many homeschoolers are people of faith, and our hope and goal is to raise a generation of children who will go into communities that are struggling with hopelessness, addiction, anger, and loneliness and live there, and love the people and offer them hope--the hope found in a relationship with the big-G-God.

We hope our children will grow into caring and committed citizens who live outside themselves and share their blessings with others and belong to communities filled with people who can learn to love one another and look out for each other...

...without being forced to... 

...in the hopes that you legislators can take a break from slapping random laws all over a broken and bleeding culture like a group of frantic deck hands pasting band-aids onto the Titanic.

Evil always affects the most vulnerable elements of our society first--the unborn, the children, the weak, the ill, and the elderly.  

It is right to grieve for them, to remember them, to celebrate the beauty of their lives, and to realize that at some point in our own journeys we will all BE members of that group.  

It is not right to exploit their memory by using this tragedy as an excuse to draft insulting laws aimed at innocent people.  

Please, Ms. Chang, reconsider your bill.  

Sincerely,
Sandra B., Michigan Homeschooler, Mother of Seven

Ode to Jude

Today Jude celebrated his eighth birthday.  As usual I was thrilled and sad at the same time.  I want my babies to live and thrive and grow.  And I also want them to be tiny and chubby and sticky forever.  

It is the lot of all mothers everywhere.  

So I was flipping through some of my "Jude stuff" tonight--drawings, mementos, pictures, etc. and came across an entry I wrote three years ago.  It reads:

"My baby just turned 5 years old and I was sitting here smiling over thoughts of him.  He has the quintessential '5th born' personality--so laid back and joyful.  He walks with a little spring, a little lifting off the toes, as if he is launching into the next moment of his life in great anticipation.  But he is by no means incautious about it.  His thumb is still his best friend and he sucks it with so much enthusiasm that I am surprised that there is still skin on it.

Some of my favorite things--

  The way he pushes his upper lip out into a 'V', like a tiny turtle.

  The way he smiles up  at me from underneath his ridiculously long eyelashes.

  The way he sleeps with his knees tucked up under him and his rump in the air.

  The way he runs to greet me when I am gone for even two minutes to take out the trash or get the mail.  He comes with his arms stretched out and says, 'Mommy!  You're here.  I'm so glad!'  Or (my favorite), 'Mommy!  I love your face!'

 The way he loves Keira.  He plays with her all morning, every day.  He greets her with joy each morning.  He feeds her her breakfast, whether she wants him to or not:)  He pushes her in the swing and pulls her in the wagon.  He tells her he loves her at random moments all through the day. 

 Tonight, I heard him singing to her in the garden--just four words.  'Keira, I love you, love you, L-O-O-O-O-O-VE  (on a high note) YOOOOOOU.'   And then with a flourish, 'Oh, Keeeeeira!'

She appears to think that this level of adoration is normal and to be expected in the life of every two year old, since she takes his declarations of love in stride, barely looking up from her play.  Or maybe that is just her way of playing it cool, because if Jude ever wanders off without her, she rushes over and inserts herself into whatever project he has started.  With a flourish.

He is a good friend.  He tolerates her penchant for stealing his toys.  He cries when she wrecks his train tracks and block towers--but not usually in anger.  More in the spirit of 'how could you?' than 'I'll GET you!'

I love the way he shares ALL his things with Kaiden.  They wear the same clothes.  They have the same interests in toys and books.  And although they have their share of normal squabbles, Jude is not proprietary with his stuff.  He heart is as big as the world.  Like his Papa."

********

And now he is eight, and no longer sucks his thumb (for which I am grateful), and he sleeps in an exhausted, big boy sprawl instead of tucked up like a toddler.  

He still loves his Mama and his sisters, but is a bit more reserved about it, choosing to slip up next to us for quiet hugs at random moments rather than screaming his devotion to the four winds.  

He has grown even closer to Kaiden, looking to him for approval, sharing every frog and joke and drawing with his little "twin" first.  They are full of plans for tomorrow and the next day and next year and forever, and I love that.  I don't think Jude remembers a time before Kaiden, although he told me today that he remembered that he was cold when he was born and wished the sun was out that day.  

I remember being cold when he was born too.  I delivered him in a metal-coated surgical suite under garish lights with a team of physicians standing by so he could be rushed off to fix the deformed artery in his little heart.  We knew it had to be so, but it hurt my heart to watch them take him away from me.

And they put him into the PICU with so many other little broken babies and I was one of so many worried parents praying over my tiny child.

And as we prayed, we waited for the blood flow to diminish through the defective aorta--the sign that he would soon need to have his chest opened, his tiny heart cut and the damaged artery pieced back together.

It should have diminished.  His anatomy was all wrong.  We had been told so for months.  
We had the pictures to prove it.  The surgical team kept waiting for the crisis to occur.

But it didn't.  His heart did what there was no medical explanation for.  It fixed itself. (Or rather Someone fixed it.)   And suddenly there were flurries of tests and puzzled expressions and specialists looking to other specialists for confirmation of this strange thing.

A healthy baby in the PICU with no need for their services and no protocol in place to let him leave.

"No babies are ever discharged right from the PICU," the nurse told me, as I finally nursed my little boy for the first time.  "We don't even know the procedure for releasing him to go home."

But they finally let us go, and like so many of the things that we have waited for, struggled for, and prayed for, the homecoming was all the sweeter for the pain.  

I will never forget the feeling of crossing the threshold of my house, weeks ahead of when I should have, with a healthy, pink baby boy--no follow ups, no medications, no precautions--and weeping with gratitude for such a gift.

For so you are, Jude!  Your sense of wonder is contagious.  Your smile irresistible.  Your passion for frogs is...apparently limitless.  I love how you LOVE--drawing, baseball, police cars, chicken Alfredo, Hank the Cowdog, Isaiah's jokes, numbers, Legos, flowers.  Your heart is full of the joy of life and your mouth is quick to bring praise to God.

Your very name means "praised", and from the beginning you have inspired praise.  You received a miracle at your birth and brought praise to your Maker.  May you always do so!

Happy Birthday, sweet boy.  We love you!