Four Hyperactive Parenting Trends and the Fight of the Shrinking Middle Class
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More and more parents of at-least-modest means are taking their children’s education into their own hands. Without further ado, four trends:
1. Homeschooling (a.k.a. “DIY Education”)
In Why Urban, Educated Parents Are Turning to DIY Education (Newsweek/Daily Beast, January 30, 2012), education writer Linda Perlstein interviews homeschooling moms – only moms – who answer the “why” of the article’s title in highly personal ways. None talks about finances. Linda (I know Linda, or I’d call her Perlstein) mentions that some homeschooling parents work full-time or take on part-time gigs. But I have a hunch you’ve got to have a pretty conventional family dynamic – married, with male parent winning the bread – to pull this off. Maybe I’m wrong. But someone needs to pay for health insurance, cover the mortgage and clothes and food, maybe make a car payment and put some money away for college.
What about household finances? Securing high-quality childcare and school options, especially if a couple has more than