My mom had a fear of the government putting ideas into her kids heads. When I was 11 some of my older siblings decided that they wanted to go to public school,

My mom had a fear of the government putting ideas into her kids heads. When I was 11 some of my older siblings decided that they wanted to go to public school, so one by one we all eventually started following suit. I think my mother just figured she'd let us do what we wanted. My next younger brother (not an electrical engineer) had many of the same problems that I had, although he was two years younger and so wasn't quite as far behind his peers. My older siblings taught themselves to read and write (somehow, I should ask them how they managed that), but I found myself incapable of figuring it out on my own.