Thank you. This was the support I needed and I passed your comment on to my dad. My dad was really worried that my son would be at a "disadvantage" in life if he could not read cursive even after I explained that my son chooses to print and might have a little more difficulty reading it because he hasn't written in cursive for several years. He can still read my cursive if I take time to write it legibly. I am not going to have him waste time on this.
It turns out that my niece told my sister that her cousin said he couldn't read the cursive on one of the Christmas cards and my sister, who was never supportive of our homeschooling and sent her kids to the local public school, spread the rumor that my son could not read cursive at all and that I was not teaching him everything he needed to know.
When I told my adult daughter I was just going to ignore my family's comments and continue doing what I had been doing, she immediately sent a texted tongue-lashing to her cousin and told her if she was so concerned that her little brother didn't know something he needed to know, she should discuss it with us instead of talking to all the rest of the family behind our backs.
My family is very judgmental and they love to gossip. With the exception of my dad and maybe my uncle, they thought I should have kept my son in the public school that refuses to provide an appropriate education to twice-exceptional kids. There is no support for kids like mine who want to learn but because of a mild disability cannot do sports.
It isn't just my family. Education is not a priority here. The majority of the people in town recently voted down a library again. They don't feel we need it because we can drive 20 miles and pay to use another town's library. All they need is football. They believe they have a good school because all their kids are on the honor roll (almost every child in every class is) and when they get to college they need remedial classes. A relative of mine got a football scholarship and made straight A's at that school but is not doing well in college because he never liked to read. So we can't talk about anything related to education with our family and I don't want to talk about football. We don't know what movies are considered bad by the church they go to so we are afraid to talk about any movies we see or even books we read. They won't go to any of my son's musical theater performances but they all go to see the football games and talk about how good the cousins are in football.
My very perceptive adult daughter feels that she is being judged every time she is around our family. She says that is okay, she can handle it, but she will not tolerate this kind of thing toward her little brother. She and her little brother are very good friends. I am happy about that.
