Farris is a devout Christian, but with "excellent" Christian schools nearby, her homeschooling decision had little to do with avoiding the secularism of public schools. For her, homeschooling seems to be more about motherhood than about education. Likening her ordeal to the Israelites' conquest of Canaan, Farris sees homeschooling as the capstone to an epic style of feminine self-sacrifice--complete with total submission to husbands and a rejection of birth control--that is enjoined on women by the Bible. If some readers are persuaded by her archaic interpretation of the meaning of Christian womanhood, many others will find it disheartening.