I succumbed to peer pressure this week and read the Instagram posts that supposedly detail a mom-fight about whether children can have Oreos in their lunches. (Google is your friend.) The question arose because one mom wanted to control the lunches of children who were not her own. The posts have been declared by some to be AI, and I have no information on that question. The initial set-up was that a mom on a group chat wanted to know how her daughter got some Oreos. Another mom spoke up and said her (five-year-old) daughter had shared the Oreos in return for some yogurt. A whole fight developed as Mom Number One demanded that no-one else’s children bring Oreos, because it made her daughter feel bad when she saw treats she wasn’t allowed to have. The other mothers pushed back.

The particular aspect of this that caught my attention was actually in the comments on the side of the post(s). Several of the commenters suggested that Mom Number One should homeschool.

Like, seriously????!!!!~!

This particular suggestion stems directly from a mindset that says — if Mom Number One doesn’t want to conform then she should go elsewhere. I’m not in favor of this conformist idea in general, but in particular, in this situation, this is a crazy thought.

The mom, who won’t let her daughter have Oreos, is also unable to enforce this on her daughter, and wants everyone else to do the enforcing, by changing their own lunches. This is not a mindset that will homeschool successfully. A mother at home with her children is the one who sets the rules and enforces them.** There’s no administration to turn to for enforcement.

There are, unfortunately, plenty of unhelpful other parents, and disapproving relatives among those who homeschool. Along with all the helpful ones. And there are homeschooling groups that get taken over by a clique of mean girls, and lose the camaraderie that they once had. Serious homeschoolers have to ride these waves. And they do. Because they can. Because if they really want to homeschool, and someone wants to control them, they walk away.

Mom Number One can’t even walk away from this fight. She keeps escalating, to the point where she’s checking the other child’s lunchbox. Her daughter, on the other hand, has traded for Oreos, and pre-arranged to have them delivered, and even gotten other children to give her their Oreos because they feel sorry for her. This is behavior she learned from her mom, though her mom does not realize it. The daughter is sure that if she wants something, she is entitled to any kind of subterfuge to get it.

Oreo hating mom has nowhere to hide if she takes her daughter home. She can certainly get away from arguments about food, at least until her daughter is older than five, but the fundamental clash here is about how children internalize rules and difficulties in life. Oreo mom wants to fix the world so that her daughter has no choice. This won’t work. If it’s not other people’s food it will be the rules at the home about bedtime, or about reading or drawing. It will be SOMETHING because, as I said, it’s about the child growing up and navigating the world. Children don’t come prewired with ideas. They learn from their parents. As Mom Number One’s daughter in fact has!

If you want your children to stand up for your beliefs, you’ll have stand up first.

Side Note: I’m reminded of the moment when my youngest grandchild was diagnosed with a serious dairy allergy. I had been visiting for years and bringing snacks. Suddenly, the three-year old was in my face, telling me that I couldn’t give the baby anything until I cleared it with her mom. When I suggested that I understood the problem, she was unimpressed, standing between me and the baby. I thought it was important for the safety of that baby to reinforce the idea that mom had to approve of what he ate, so I duly ‘checked.’ The point is that very young children will enforce special rules. Non-Oreo mom can teach her child how to get along with people who eat things she shouldn’t have. Or how to mind her own business. It can be done.

All I’m saying is, this mother and child are not candidates for successful homeschooling.

**Hopefully, with the dad. And if dad’s not on her side, the rules won’t be enforced at all.