I tutored for four years, mostly to 7th-12th graders. My clients were from a wide range of socioeconomic groups, i.e. lower middle class to stinking rich. And the school-going students went to all kinds of schools, i.e. crappy public, good public, crappy private (some quite spendy), good private, crappy parochial and good parochial.

I also had experience tutoring, for a short time, several home-schooled kids, and looked into working for agencies that help parents who home school their kids. I was not at all impressed with said organizations, and from my working and interacting with the home-schooled kids, I could see that they were being woefully under-served by their home schooling.

Their parents didn't do the teaching; the school either provided or paid for some teacher that would come around once or twice a week and meet with them for perhaps three hours. It was obvious that the curriculum was poor and that these kids weren't spending much time at all doing homework -- and certainly weren't learning much.

Now O'Hehir and his wife sound like they are doing a good job, but I'd bet dollars to donuts that they are the exception. More over, providing kindergarten home-schooling is one thing, continuing to do so on up through higher grades is another matter. Mr. O'Hehir, how are you and your wife at calculus (or algebra for that matter), chemistry and early 20th-century US history?

Furthermore, one of the reasons some well-educated parents who had time to help their kids, yet hired me was because of problems inherent in the dynamic of just tutoring/helping their own kids.

No doubt some parents are up to the task, but, as at least one other poster said, they provide the justification which unqualified parents use to rationalize doing the same.

I also believe there is something to the notion of socialization. I'd imagine that a lot of home-schooled kids have a difficult time dealing with their peers, although I have no observations to back this up. In addition, part of an education -- to my mind -- is learning how to deal with different types of teachers. This is a very useful skill, and comes into play, down the line, with employers and co-workers

From the posts I read (not nearly all 431 at the time of my posting), a lot of home-schooled posters are claiming they or theirs were served well by home-schooling. I would that persons with poor home-schooling experiences are not the typical Salon readers and even less likely Salon posters.

In addition, Mr. O'Hehir, keep your inane stereotypes to yourself. I am a single man, and I am quite dubious and concerned when I learn that someone is being home schooled.

Moreover, touting one's or one's wife's success at home-schooling kindergarten just doesn't make for a very useful article on the subject of home schooling. Sure, it's copy to help pay your bills, but it doesn't address the real issues of home schooling, and you have done a great dis-service to the subject with your trite, anecdotal essay. Pure fluff really.

What a messed up piece of sloppy writing. The author uses the actor's name when she is referring to the character: "Faced with insolvency, an unexpectedly pregnant wife and a teenage son with cerebral palsy, Cranston did what any man in his position might do: He teamed up with a no-account loser of a former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), and started cooking up high-grade crystal meth out of the kid's Winnebago." Cranston doesn't do this, his character Walt White does. Does Havrilesky know the difference?

Apparently not.

Then she obliquely refers characters from other shows without referencing the shows they are in. I guess Ms. Havrilesky assumes everyone spends as much time watching the idiot box as she does, and thus knows exactly what characters she is talking about. Tony? I guess she means Tony Soprano. Why not include his last name? Don Draper? Maybe the main character in Mad Men, but I don't watch Mad Men, so how am I, or other such readers not strung out on cable soap operas, to know?

You lost before the end of the first page. You seemingly can't be bothered to proof read your own copy or present facts clearly; hence, I can't be bothered with wasting my time trying to wade through your drivel. Good day, madame.

This all begs the question: does Salon have copy editors or any editorial oversight what so ever?

O'Hehir writes:

"...in a dismal postwar housing complex outside Stockholm"

Hmm, what war would that be, Drew, the 30 Year's War or the War for Norwegian independence? Sweden wasn't involved directly in WWII, and certainly didn't have a lot of bombed out neighborhoods there from, so what's with the post-war architecture mentioned? I doubt they had a construction boom after the war, as there was no reason for it.

I liked early ABBA -- "Waterloo". It was all downhill from there.

As far Swedish bands go, I'll take the one-hit wonders, Blue Swede, with its "Ooga Chaka" version of B.J. Thomas's "Hooked on a Feeling", or Golden Earing and "Radar Love" over any other ABBA pablum.

As for the musical philistine slamming Bob Dylan's earlier material, you probably think all of Woody Guthrie's oeuvre suck too. No wonder your love of ABBA has no bounds. Bob Dylan has more talent in his long-dessicated foreskin than ABBA has in its collective body.

People, you wanna like a sucky group and see a sucky movie? Fine, but don't try defending your bad taste to the discerning among us.

ann1960 , No need to be apologetic in you're analysis. Most of America isn't as liberal/progressive as most Salonadistas. Obama needs an older white guy as his VP in order to get non-liberal white-guy votes. Otherwise the ticket will be too touchy-feely for my demographic brethren.