nurturing = a kinder, gentler world

I believe that the homeschooling "community" is, in general a kinder, gentler kind of community. We are generally not money-driven (or we wouldn't be doing this, folks) but fulfillment-driven. We learn, we teach, our children learn from us. And we are grateful for this process.

As a single parent in New York City, I constantly face people and their "issues" alone. Perhaps it is because I am a single parent, and because my mother and father's families are nowhere near the City of New York, that I feel the brunt of these things so much more than if I was in a partnered relationship. I do not know.
I can tell, very generally, who will be the more kind and more reasonable in my day-to-day interactions with them. It is generally the person who nurtures someone else.

I find that nurturing dependents teaches us selflessness. Not in the Ayn Rand sense. Those with dependents (child/children, a group of people, or a good number of pets) and who nurture those dependents, are generally kinder than those who do not. Nurturers are by no means perfect. But they care. And they do this without checking if they look "cool" doing so.

(Of course, there are exceptions and degrees to this. The evil Upper East Side socialite might have softened only a notch by having a child; UES ladies tend to let the nannies do the nurturing, and tutors and schoolteachers everything else.)

I know of a few so-called "experts" who champion humanity or youth issues, yet prefer not to interact directly people long enough to nurture anyone. They write papers, give talks, and talk the talk. When their humanity is truly needed, they bail out. It saddens me to no end.

When I knew Zana the filmmaker, she was self-absorbed. Okay, she was incredibly self-absorbed. Yet she has become this incredibly kind and generous human being; she offers what is uniquely Zana's to the world. Steely determination still there, she ultimately nurtures others and does so in a way that is very public.

I doubt that Gandhi could have become the Mahatma had he not experienced some form of nurturing and selflessness. And yes, apart from his children, he had an entire country to look after.

Anyway, it is just an observation.