'Nothing to hide, nothing to fear'? Don't be daft!

Assuming the Children schools and families bill comes into being, I have everything to hide and everything to fear.
For instance; I would need to hide it if I disagree with an LA official - because I would fear they have the power to call me 'non-compliant and agressive' and use that as a basis to take my children away.
I would need to hide my lack of use for a curriculm and pre-planning - because I would fear that that would be deemed 'unsuitable' and used as a basis to take my children away.
I would need to hide the general 'definitely not a show home' state of my house generated by the day-to-day activities of a family who spend more time out and about and playing together than they do cleaning - because I would fear it would be taken as a sign of neglect and used as a basis to take my children away.
I would need to hide my fear and apprehension caused by the stress of needing to be annually 'approved' - because I would fear it would be taken as a sign that I was 'guilty of something' and used as a basis to take my children away.
I would need to hide the number of hours my child spends watching TV, playing on the computer and running around the house in nothing but her knickers pretending to be a superhero - because I would fear the intrinsic educational value of these activities would not be obvious to an official and used as a basis to take my children away.
I would need to hide the fact that my daughter owns her own set of woodwork tools at 5, that my 1 year old son is allowed to climb up and down the stairs on his own as often as he likes and that I have never baby-proofed my home - because I fear these things would be treated as dangerous hazards by people who do not know my children as individuals, and used as a basis to take my children away.
I would need to hide the fact that my parents do not agree with our decision to home educate - because I fear that an official would assume the objections of someone so close to me must be based on their belief in my competence rather than an inability to understand home education itself, and use that as a basis to take my children away.
I would need to hide the fact that I enjoy my children's company and dislike being apart from them - because I would fear that I would be labelled 'overprotective', or 'controlling' or simply 'suspicious' and have that used as a basis to take my children away.

And I would need to hide my fears and worries from my children, because I would fear that if they picked up on my distress it would have a negative impact on their lives.
But I won't be able to do the last. The proposed laws would change our lives so much, they could not help but notice, and wonder, and object. And force a choice on me.
Either; I will not comply and spend my time worrying about the recupussions to my family should officials ever caught up with me.
Comply and spend my time worrying about the recuppussions to my family should we inadvertently upset the LA, or got an official who was prejudiced against/misunderstood home education or was not really the sort of person who should be allowed near children, or my children were not compliant with production of work/the interview process etc etc.
Send my child to school and spend my time worrying about the recuppussions to my family should it prove to have a deterimental an effect on my children and destroy our preferred way of life.
Emmigrate, and spend my time worrying about the people I have left behind and the recuppusions on my family of removing them from everything they hold dear.


Everything to Hide. Everything to fear.

An institutionalised state.

I have been increasingly amazed and dispairing of the way so many people seem so sanguine about losing their rights and freedoms under government legislation. Why are so many happy to give these up? Why are they not angry at the all-encompassing belief that the adults of this country are like small children who need to be guided and controlled by an overseeing 'wiser head' to prevent them making terrible mistakes? Why do they not feel constrained and threatened by the increasing lack of privacy and loss of ability to make their own choices?

I believe it is because they are institutionalised.

They have grown up in nurserys and schools, entered the world of work by joining large corporations, and therefore spent their entire lives living by other people's rules and being actively encouraged not to think for themselves.

This has led to fear, fear of being responsible for their own lives, their children, their neighbours. They want to be told what to do and how because that is all they have ever known. Worse, they have been indoctrinated with the belief that any other course of action is wrong and must be punished. So they look to those in charge to tell them what to do.

And those in charge are also scared, by the wieght of the responsibility being forced on them, the apparent inability of the populace to think for itself. But they are also institutionalised. They have also grown up in the 'system' and find it hard to imagine other solutions beyond more and more controls. It doesn't occur to them that removing the controls and forcing people to take the responsibilities that are theirs might be the best cousre of action, that the very 'solutions' they are currently implementing time after time are the cause of the problem, because that is what they themselves know.

It takes a lot to break free of this. Ask ex-prisoners, ex-slaves. Freedom is scary. It is easier to let someone else tell you what to do. The more controls we have, the more institutions we put in place, the fewer people there are who will have the strength, or understanding, or sheer bloody-mindedness, to break out of this mindset and the closer to death our society will come.