Everything my kids know, they learned from the Far Side

Stuart impressed an adult yesterday. This dad at a birthday party, while the cake was being prepared, yelled out 'Let them eat cake!'. Stuart started laughing hysterically and said, 'That's mean!' He and Malachi then went on to call for a guillotine.  The dad was flabbergasted that Stuart had caught the reference, and thoroughly impressed at how smart all those homeschooled kids are (though he didn't state that directly, I just know that's how he feels ;) I, of course, kept my mouth shut, since I knew that Stuart's awareness of the French revolution has nothing to do with intense and demanding history courses for elementary-aged kids and everything to do with his passion for the Far Side.

You've maybe seen it... Gary Larson's typical chubby, pointy-headed woman being led to the guillotine, surrounded by an angry mob, and she's yelling out: 'I said let them eat cake and ICE cream!' Stuart read this and was like, huh? Mom, what in the world is this talking about? So we had a nice little discussion about the grisly period of time known as the Terror, and being an adolescent boy, he was all over it. '50 people a day!? Oh, wow, can I build a guillotine?' Yea. If you've had an adolescent boy, you understand. They just love gore. The end result? Stuart now understands subtle party references to Marie Antoinette.

Of course, I'm going to let everyone keep assuming that it's my adept teaching style that causes my children to be so smart, while amassing large quantities of Far Side, Calvin and Hobbs, Non Sequitur.... who knows, maybe I'll even start my own homeschool curriculum, based entirely off comics!