The Pearl Boycott/Debate/Debacle

Please Note: I am adding a comment to this entry. It has come to my attention that my comments have been linked to a blog that I'm not necessarily comfortable with. I'd just like to state for the record that the views expressed by any people who link to this entry may or may not be in accordance with mine.


I'm majorly bumming about some news I got yesterday.
I found out that the author of one of my favorite homeschooling blogs has had to stop blogging. She's been homeschooling for about 15 years, and was a great source of knowledge and encouragement. Not to mention her links.
Well, you're probably wondering by now what this has to do with the Pearl Boycott.
Some of you may even be wondering who "The Pearls" are. I'm talking about Michael and Debi Pearl, authors of the book To Train Up a Child (TTUAC.) They have come under a great deal of fire recently due to their punitive and (imo) harsh, even abusive attitudes toward disciplining children. Recently a child died and the mother was a card carrying member of the Pearl School of Switching, er um, Discipline.
Now bloggers and homeschoolers everywhere are harkening to the cry of "Boycott all things related in any way to Pearls, including the eating of oysters!" Okay, I made up that last part, but you get the drift.
The woman I mentioned above had the audacity to say that while she agrees that the Pearls are abhorrent in their teachings, she doesn't agree that boycotting Amazon.com will make much of a difference. She personally has chosen not to support them in any way and will make the same recommendation to others, but doesn't see the point in chasing down anyone who has any relationship to the Pearls. For this she was hounded and ridiculed and threatened to the point that she eventually shut down her blog. Somehow I don't think that the Pearls were adversely affected by that action.

Now before you go and send me nastygrams (please don't, I'm new here, remember?) I want to make it perfectly clear that I do not approve of the Pearls in any way. And I do understand the rationale behind boycotting, it's just that I'm not sure that it's the most effective way. And for those of us who believe that hearts are changed by love and not by force, I have to ask: Would our energies be better spent in working person to person than taking on the whole world and threatening not to buy from various e-commerce merchants?

Righteous anger and legitimate outrage (over the murder of a child) can turn into bitterness and ugliness and threats against someone who has no vested interest in this whole situation. I'm not naive enough to think that the Pearls can be "loved" out of their erroneous ideas, but we can love our friends and relatives enough to show them that there are better ways to parent.

Tags: Homeschooling, Homeschool, Pearl Boycott