Mary Pride
Encyclopedia
Mary Pride is an American
author and magazine producer on homeschooling
and Christian
topics. She is best known for her homeschooling works, but has also written on women’s roles
, computer technology in education, parental rights, and new age
thought from a conservative
evangelical
perspective. For her pioneering role in authoring guides for the homeschooling movement, Pride has been described as "the queen of the home school movement" and as a "homeschooling guru". Stemming from her first book, The Way Home, she is also considered a pioneer in the Christian Quiverfull
movement.
, New York
, in 1955. She has described herself as a bright student who graduated high school at age 15, after which she entered Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
where she earned a bachelor's degree
in Electrical Engineering in 1974 and a master's degree
in Computer Systems Engineering a year later. She married her husband Bill around this time and both soon converted to Evangelical Christianity. Pride had formerly considered herself a feminist activist.
Before the first of Pride’s nine children were born, she had decided to homeschool them. The lack of homeschooling guides she encountered prompted her to begin writing her own.
, within which she had lived as an activist before her conversion to conservative evangelical Christianity in 1977. She described her discovery of happiness surrounding what she felt was the Biblically mandated role of wives and mothers as bearers of children and workers in the home under the authority
of a husband
. Pride argued that such a lifestyle was Biblically required of married Christian women but that most had been unknowingly duped by feminism. She meanwhile countered in the book various versions of Christian feminism
.
As the basis for her arguments, Pride selected numerous Bible verses from which to lay out what she felt was the Biblical role of women. These included verses she saw as containing her ideas of the importance of childbearing and forswearing any form of birth control
. Pride argued that the mindset that led to use of family planning was a root cause for inadequate influence in the world by the Christian religion.
Pride's rejection of each and every method of family planning in The Way Home was soon noticed by prominent members of the Couple to Couple League
, a Catholic natural family planning
(NFP) movement. John and Sheila Kippley in their The Art of Natural Family Planning describes how representatives of the organization contacted Pride to express concerns over her position. In 1989, Pride in her HELP for Growing Families periodical published portions of the correspondence between the Kippleys' and herself, during which Pride accepted NFP use only for couples who wished to remain healthy until they were ready to use no fertility control at all. Sheila Kippley credits the correspondence as the reason why Pride accepted NFP in such circumstances in her sequel, All the Way Home.
Mitchell Stevens, a Hamilton College sociologist, has criticized Pride for exhibiting feminist values in her lifestyle much more than in what she espouses. Pride has countered that the model of womanhood in Book of Proverbs
31 in the Bible
shows there is no hypocrisy in a woman engaging in public and economic life, so long as she maintains homemaking as her first loyalty.
Pride's The Way Home has been an assigned text in at least one university course.
Because so few guides were available on homeschooling in the mid-1980s when Pride began writing on the subject, her works are considered pioneering.
Pride has argued that public school systems are overly concerned with student self-esteem concerns and that they can no longer teach right from wrong. She has highlighted public school environments as contributing to teen sexual activity, while also noting them as frequent sites of gang violence and drug use.
The first volume of Pride's three-volume homeschooling series, The Big Book of Home Learning, was released in 1986 and had sold 250,000 copies by mid-1991. The work was still subject to journal reviews ten years later.
Pride's 2004 work, Mary Pride's Complete Guide to Getting Started in Homeschooling, was described by Publishers Weekly
as a "Herculean signature title" that covers "every aspect of home-schooling imaginable".
Pride has summarized her approach to homeschooling in what she calls "The Four Standards for Sane Home Teaching": "It's gotta be simple, fun, comprehensive and cheap".
Pride has been a pioneering advocate of software usage in home education. Her 1992 Prides' Guide to Educational Software was reviewed as a groundbreaking work aimed at providing homeschoolers with software curriculum and tools, and was recommended by Kiplinger's Personal Finance
. PC Magazine
described the book as a "monumental 607-page book", "a treasure trove of educational software", that "describes, analyzes, and ranks over 750 programs for DOS
, Macintosh
, Apple II
, and Amiga
platforms".
Wired Magazine stated that the Prides' and their computer-savvy children had evaluated and mercilessly tested in the book every piece of educational software known to be on the market. Pride's Internet-based questions & answers sessions on usage of technology for homeschooling were noted in the Wall Street Journal, and her work using technology in homeschooling shown in the Rocky Mountain News
.
Pride has continually advocated that homeschoolers use Internet technology to "be able to react instantly to any and all political threats," to "become a nationwide support group," and to "transform the entire face of American education".
's educational databases. She also runs the website Homeschool World (http://www.home-school.com) which maintains it is the world's most visited site on homeschooling.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author and magazine producer on homeschooling
Homeschooling
Homeschooling or homeschool is the education of children at home, typically by parents but sometimes by tutors, rather than in other formal settings of public or private school...
and Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
topics. She is best known for her homeschooling works, but has also written on women’s roles
Gender role
Gender roles refer to the set of social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific sex in the context of a specific culture, which differ widely between cultures and over time...
, computer technology in education, parental rights, and new age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
thought from a conservative
Conservative Christianity
Conservative Christianity is a term applied to a number of groups or movements seen as giving priority to traditional Christian beliefs and practices...
evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
perspective. For her pioneering role in authoring guides for the homeschooling movement, Pride has been described as "the queen of the home school movement" and as a "homeschooling guru". Stemming from her first book, The Way Home, she is also considered a pioneer in the Christian Quiverfull
Quiverfull
Quiverfull is a movement among some conservative evangelical Christian couples chiefly in the United States, but with some adherents in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Britain and elsewhere. It promotes procreation, and sees children as a blessing from God, eschewing all forms of birth control,...
movement.
Early life
Pride was born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, in 1955. She has described herself as a bright student who graduated high school at age 15, after which she entered Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Stephen Van Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School on November 5, 1824 with a letter to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Blatchford, in which van Rensselaer asked Blatchford to serve as the first president. Within the letter he set down several orders of business. He appointed Amos Eaton as the school's...
where she earned a bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
in Electrical Engineering in 1974 and a master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in Computer Systems Engineering a year later. She married her husband Bill around this time and both soon converted to Evangelical Christianity. Pride had formerly considered herself a feminist activist.
Before the first of Pride’s nine children were born, she had decided to homeschool them. The lack of homeschooling guides she encountered prompted her to begin writing her own.
Books and Views
On women's roles and contraception
In Pride's first book, The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality, she chronicled her journey away from what she argued were feminist and anti-natal ideas of happinessHappiness
Happiness is a mental state of well-being characterized by positive emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources....
, within which she had lived as an activist before her conversion to conservative evangelical Christianity in 1977. She described her discovery of happiness surrounding what she felt was the Biblically mandated role of wives and mothers as bearers of children and workers in the home under the authority
Traditional authority
Traditional authority is a form of leadership in which the authority of an organization or a ruling regime is largely tied to tradition or custom...
of a husband
Husband
A husband is a male participant in a marriage. The rights and obligations of the husband regarding his spouse and others, and his status in the community and in law, vary between cultures and has varied over time...
. Pride argued that such a lifestyle was Biblically required of married Christian women but that most had been unknowingly duped by feminism. She meanwhile countered in the book various versions of Christian feminism
Christian feminism
Christian feminism is an aspect of feminist theology which seeks to advance and understand the equality of men and women morally, socially, spiritually, and in leadership from a Christian perspective. Christian feminists argue that contributions by women in that direction are necessary for a...
.
As the basis for her arguments, Pride selected numerous Bible verses from which to lay out what she felt was the Biblical role of women. These included verses she saw as containing her ideas of the importance of childbearing and forswearing any form of birth control
Birth control
Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...
. Pride argued that the mindset that led to use of family planning was a root cause for inadequate influence in the world by the Christian religion.
Pride's rejection of each and every method of family planning in The Way Home was soon noticed by prominent members of the Couple to Couple League
Couple to Couple League
The Couple to Couple League is an international, non-profit organization based in Cincinnati, Ohio dedicated to teaching and promoting Natural Family Planning. Specifically, CCL promotes the sympto-thermal method of fertility awareness and also promotes exclusive and continued breastfeeding...
, a Catholic natural family planning
Natural family planning
Natural family planning is a term referring to the family planning methods approved by the Roman Catholic Church. In accordance with the Church's requirements for sexual behavior in keeping with its philosophy of the dignity of the human person, NFP excludes the use of other methods of birth...
(NFP) movement. John and Sheila Kippley in their The Art of Natural Family Planning describes how representatives of the organization contacted Pride to express concerns over her position. In 1989, Pride in her HELP for Growing Families periodical published portions of the correspondence between the Kippleys' and herself, during which Pride accepted NFP use only for couples who wished to remain healthy until they were ready to use no fertility control at all. Sheila Kippley credits the correspondence as the reason why Pride accepted NFP in such circumstances in her sequel, All the Way Home.
Mitchell Stevens, a Hamilton College sociologist, has criticized Pride for exhibiting feminist values in her lifestyle much more than in what she espouses. Pride has countered that the model of womanhood in Book of Proverbs
Book of Proverbs
The Book of Proverbs , commonly referred to simply as Proverbs, is a book of the Hebrew Bible.The original Hebrew title of the book of Proverbs is "Míshlê Shlomoh" . When translated into Greek and Latin, the title took on different forms. In the Greek Septuagint the title became "paroimai paroimiae"...
31 in the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
shows there is no hypocrisy in a woman engaging in public and economic life, so long as she maintains homemaking as her first loyalty.
Pride's The Way Home has been an assigned text in at least one university course.
On homeschooling
Pride has argued that public school systems are overly concerned with student self-esteem concerns and that they can no longer teach right from wrong. She has highlighted public school environments as contributing to teen sexual activity, while also noting them as frequent sites of gang violence and drug use.
The first volume of Pride's three-volume homeschooling series, The Big Book of Home Learning, was released in 1986 and had sold 250,000 copies by mid-1991. The work was still subject to journal reviews ten years later.
Pride's 2004 work, Mary Pride's Complete Guide to Getting Started in Homeschooling, was described by Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
as a "Herculean signature title" that covers "every aspect of home-schooling imaginable".
Pride has summarized her approach to homeschooling in what she calls "The Four Standards for Sane Home Teaching": "It's gotta be simple, fun, comprehensive and cheap".
On parental rights
In 1986 Pride released The Child Abuse Industry, which is most noted for its pulling together of cases where, in Pride's view, state child protective services wrongly infringed parental rights.On computer technology
Pride has argued that public schools were designed for a factory age when it was important to work in groups on rigid schedules, but that they are no longer suitable for a technological age in which conditions have so radically changed. She has contended that the increasing user-friendliness of home computer technology has rendered public schools "obsolete".Pride has been a pioneering advocate of software usage in home education. Her 1992 Prides' Guide to Educational Software was reviewed as a groundbreaking work aimed at providing homeschoolers with software curriculum and tools, and was recommended by Kiplinger's Personal Finance
Kiplinger's Personal Finance
Kiplinger's Personal Finance is a magazine that has been continuously published, on a monthly basis, from 1947 to the present day. It was the nation's first personal finance magazine, and claims to deliver "sound, unbiased advice in clear, concise language"...
. PC Magazine
PC Magazine
PC Magazine is a computer magazine published by Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009...
described the book as a "monumental 607-page book", "a treasure trove of educational software", that "describes, analyzes, and ranks over 750 programs for DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
, Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
, Apple II
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
, and Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
platforms".
Wired Magazine stated that the Prides' and their computer-savvy children had evaluated and mercilessly tested in the book every piece of educational software known to be on the market. Pride's Internet-based questions & answers sessions on usage of technology for homeschooling were noted in the Wall Street Journal, and her work using technology in homeschooling shown in the Rocky Mountain News
Rocky Mountain News
The Rocky Mountain News was a daily newspaper published in Denver, Colorado, United States from April 23, 1859, until February 27, 2009. It was owned by the E. W. Scripps Company from 1926 until its closing. As of March 2006, the Monday-Friday circulation was 255,427...
.
Pride has continually advocated that homeschoolers use Internet technology to "be able to react instantly to any and all political threats," to "become a nationwide support group," and to "transform the entire face of American education".
Periodicals and website
In addition to her books, Pride is editor of Practical Homeschooling Magazine which by 1998 figures had a circulation of 100,000, the contents of which is carried by Thomson GaleThomson Gale
Gale is an educational publishing company based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, the United States, in the western suburbs of Detroit. It was part of the Thomson Learning division of the Thomson Corporation, a Canadian company, but became part of Cengage Learning in 2007.The company, formerly known...
's educational databases. She also runs the website Homeschool World (http://www.home-school.com) which maintains it is the world's most visited site on homeschooling.
Books
- The Way Home (Crossway Books, 1985)
- The Big Book of Home Learning (Crossway Books, 1986)
- The Next Book of Home Learning (Crossway Books, 1987)
- The New Big Book of Home Learning (Crossway Books, 1988)
- All the Way Home (Crossway Books, 1989)
- The Child Abuse Industry (Crossway Books, 1986)
- Schoolproof (Crossway Books, 1988); (Blackstone Audio Books, 2002)
- Unholy Sacrifices of the New Age and Ancient Empires of the New Age (Crossway Books, 1988, 1989 both with Paul deParrie)
- The “Old Wise Tales” series (Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1990): Too Many Chickens, The Greenie, The Better Butter Battle, Baby Doe
- The Big Book of Home Learning 4 volumes: Getting Started, Preschool & Elementary, Teen & Adult, Afterschooling (Crossway Books, 1991)
- Pride’s Guide to Educational Software with husband Bill Pride (Crossway, 1997)
- The Big Book of Home Learning 3 volumes: Getting Started, Preschool & Elementary, Junior High Through College (Alpha Omega Publications, 1999)
- Mary Pride’s Complete Guide to Getting Started in Homeschooling (Harvest House, 2004)
Periodicals
- HELP For Growing Families
- Practical Homeschooling
- Big Happy Family
- Homeschool PC