• If you don’t enjoy your job or you resent the time you spend there
• If you spend your time clock-watching and lingering in the cloakroom
• If you only look forward to the evenings, the weekends, the holidays and retirement
• If you work only for the pay cheque because there is no joy or job satisfaction
• If you feel controlled, powerless and miserable
• If you don’t learn anymore because it’s too much effort, pointless, and you have no time
• If you are resigned to accepting that life is just like this, for everyone

Then of course you’re going to think that I am irresponsible for not automatically sending my child to school. I can see why you seriously question my ability to parent when I tell you that she is going to choose entirely what she learns, when, how, and whether she seeks someone else’s accreditation for her own efforts.

I understand that your experience has taught you that work and a happy life are at opposite ends of the spectrum. For you, work is hard, unpleasant but ultimately necessary. You have been taught that people (yourself included) are inherently lazy and not predisposed to productivity. You view people who choose to work long hours as put upon, obviously stressed, and clearly in need of a long break doing absolutely nothing.

Your view of the world is such that you believe children need school to teach them as soon as possible that life is tough and the daily grind is something they need to knuckle down to. They need to learn to take instruction from authority without question and they need to be shown some discipline.

Of course, you say, education is a necessary chore that all children must undertake if they are to learn anything of any import for the life slog that stretches ahead of them. You can see far more clearly than they that they must undertake the unpleasant (but fortunately finite) business of schooling, so they will achieve the examination results necessary, in order that someone who sees box ticking and hoop jumping as paramount will see fit to give them a job, and so they:

• Will begin to hate and resent the time spent there, so they
• Will spend their time clock-watching and lingering in the stationery cupboard, whilst they
• Look forward to the evenings, the weekends, the holidays and retirement, as they
• Work for the paycheck because there is no joy or job satisfaction, and they
• Feel controlled, powerless and miserable, so they
• Don’t learn anymore, because it’s hard work, pointless, and they have no time, so they
• Become resigned to accepting that life is just like this, for everyone.

Alternatively, you're at the other end of the food chain. You do know that I am being responsible by giving my child this choice - but my responsibility and her autonomy is dangerous - it threatens your authority, status and undeserved privilege - all of which is built upon the paradigm I describe, accepted as reality by most people in this country. And now you seek to harness those you control, those you have taught not to know any better - to join you in seriously questioning my ability to parent. This is precisely why the idiot, unthinking majority are now supporting compulsory national civic slavery service for children, state "groundings" and intrusive surveillance of home educating families in the name of child protection - without thinking for a minute what the implications are for their own civil liberties. Morons.