Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

Appendix I: Sample Documents 295
graphics and, of course, advertisements for the
companies’ products discreetly sprinkled in. There
are powerful forces who want more authority over
how we live our lives, who want to undermine
couples and families, and want increasing control
over our children’s minds from an earlier and earlier
age. Parents are urged to enroll their diapered
toddlers in early childhood education classes, and
child day care programs begin when mothers return
to their jobs, sometimes only a few months after
giving birth. Any repressive interests know how
important it is to mold children’s minds to their
agendas, and how to defuse any independent
impulses before they ignite independence in others.
Teaching Our Own
In light of the abysmal non-education kids get in
public school, Christians have always had the option
of sending their children to parochial school. Since
we don’t want our children indoctrinated with
Christianity, Satanists seem to naturally gravitate to
one solution: homeschooling. It’s a vision many of us
carry from schooldays, when we were thrown onto a
playground of tedious, dull-witted savages. Some
Satanists have been homeschooling their children for
years; others are sending their kids to public school
with a wait-and-see attitude, vowing to spring them
at the first sign of induced befuddlement. Our attitudes
toward mandatory education grow inevitably
out of the same disdain we feel for other aspects of
institutionalized life. Unlike other religious groups
who increasingly advocate homeschooling, Satanists
object to public schools not just because of imposed
religiosity (as Christianity per se or in the guise of
multiculturalism), but we resent the presumption of
homogenized thought and method. Every child is
expected to learn the same thing at the same time in
the same way, regardless of interest, individual
pacing or learning style.
How can one teacher, it would be asked, be
expected to cater to the individual learning needs of
30–35 people They shouldn’t have to. It’s unrealistic;
especially in this hypersensitive climate, when there
are more diverse cultures than ever before blending
into the same classrooms, and teachers are expected
to walk a tight-wire communicating values that
won’t offend anyone. If public schools can’t fulfill the
needs of the majority, how can we expect them to
teach our children They can’t even teach in one
language! In all fairness, we are a minority religion,
with values, priorities and a mythic context that is far
from the mainstream. We would probably be just as
frustrated by a mandatory curriculum in 1945 as one
in 1995. For Satanists, the problem is as much the
method as the content.
Homeschooling, on the other hand, offers many
advantages to Satanists, and seems to fit easily into an
ideal lifestyle most of us would adopt, given the
opportunity. Modern technology is diabolically
enabling us to fulfill those ideals. Satanists, with or
without children, naturally try to arrange their lives
so they can work outside the mainstream, choosing a
creative field, commissioned work, or a position in
which they can do most of the work freelance or
independently. The computer network revolution
has been a great boon to Satanists and non-Satanists
who are most productive working out of home
offices. In the coming century, working at home will
be the rule rather than the exception for certain
professions. The sharp line between “home” and
“work” will no longer exist. A flexible schedule will
mean people can work, learn or socialize at 3 p.m. or
3 a.m., if they are so inclined. Women will no longer
be torn between their professional and domestic
lives. Both men and women will have an opportunity
to do both, weaving work and home and children
together more comfortably than they can now.
Satanists are driven people. We don’t need children
to complete our lives, as our identity or as our
sole creative expression. But if you’re in a stable relationship
and your compulsion to have children
finally outweighs your reservations, it will mean that
you and your partner should realistically evaluate the
resources children demand. The biggest drains are
not financial, but on stores of patience, humor and
primarily, TIME. Having a child is a time-consuming
proposition. If reasoning Satanists are going to make
the commitment to have a child, they’d want one
parent at home caring for the child full time (at least
until we can get some of those fabled Satanic daycare
centers going!). If at least one parent is going to be
home anyway, the teaching will come naturally and
constantly. That doesn’t mean that the at-home
parent can’t work as well, at least part time. It’s good
for children to see both parents involved in their own
pursuits.
Satanism is ideally suited to homeschooling.
Though we’ll have to discover the “how” through
impulse, intuition, and trial-and-error, some of the
“whys” are readily apparent:
1. One major criticism people often lob at home
learning is that the children don’t have the opportunity
to “socialize” with other children their own age.
They always use that same word. “Your children will
be isolated,” we’re cautioned, “unable to relate to
others, will miss out on the proms, the football
games, graduation, and all the events that all the
other kids will be part of.” This criticism is invalid in
general. Kids “socialize” every day. It’s unavoidable.
They interact with their parents, siblings, grocers,
mailmen, other children in their neighborhood, their
parents’ friends and their children... For Satanists, it’s