When I was a kid, whenever I would act up the common threat was that I would be packed up and shipped off to military school within the week. To be fair, my parents were left-wing pacifists and I suppose in their minds that would have been the direst of consequences. But I remember thinking at the time that it wasn’t such a bad idea. It would have been superior in many respects to what I was learning, and the photos always showed these majestic campuses in some bucolic setting. Maybe New England. Plus, girls dig a man in uniform. Or so I’m told. Homeschooling wasn’t a big thing back then, and the stereotypes surrounding it were already cemented in place. And my parents were “intentional” about their beliefs. That meant dragging me to cultural events that I didn’t understand and making me eat health food that I despised.
