Unschooling is liberation theory for the child class. In America, this is not a popular conceit. Even so-called progressive and/or liberation activists are uncomfortable with or even loathe the child class (and therefore take pitying or scornful attitudes about those who most often care for the child class - usually women and gender minorities).
My partner and I unschooled both our kids and it worked out great. I wrote about it for a chill fifteen years at least. I wrote a lot, I self-published and published in other places too.
I am proud of this body of work and I've helped thousands. And every parent/carer who got help from me helped their child(ren). As necessary as these conversations are, over the year I got wore out because people object so ceaselessly and in tedious sameness to the apparently ground-breaking concepts that:
1. we do not own other sentient beings (including our children); and
2. we should not exploit power just because we have it - and even if (almost) everyone tells us that it's our right to use it.
(On points 1 and 2 see also: veganism)
As my children grew and thrived and especially as I didn't see the public conversation advancing very quickly, I grew disheartened. I stopped writing about unschooling as much. Besides: I have other vocations and interests (LOL so many) and those required my work, as well.
But a few years ago I was reminded that many, many people have either not been exposed to unschooling or have not taken it seriously still. And I realized it's not up to me to decide if the difference I made is "enough", because I will never truly know my full impact - ever.
I still have a duty.
So I write here in hopes it reaches ANYONE who either wants something better for their child, or (more wonderful still) wants something better for all the child class.
You know. Those people who are going to grow up and take care of us, and each other, and the planet.
So!
Please get a cup of tea or coffee, and please read as slowly and thoroughly as your time allows.
Here are ten boogeymen people threw at me, while we raised our children:
"Your babies will be spoiled if you breastfeed a long time / carry them so much / sleep with them."
In the world of radical unschooling, the practices start in pregnancy and infancy. It is relatively easy to narrow down what we owe the child class, what we owe babies. We must create safety, provide nurture, and then grant as much autonomy as we reasonably can. We meet their needs (without resentment if possible) so they can grow out of their needs. As our children grow we focus on our own ethics and mind our own business - modeling good behavior but never trying to smash it on the heads of the child class.
So in that way, providing for babies - while very very hard work - is actually quite simple in theory. The act of carrying our responsibilities out may be difficult or at times, sadly, impossible. But that doesn't change what we owe them.
Babies like to be carried. So my partner and I carried them constantly, so much it was regularly remarked upon. When they wanted to walk, we let them. But little babies like to be held, a lot. So we held them. A LOT.
It was hard work carrying babies, breastfeeding them for as long as they like. I breastfed - a lot. About five years straight including twice nursing through pregnancy, and a full year of nursing two children in tandem. We coslept until ages ten and thirteen - yes ten and thirteen years old - when the kids opted into their own bed. This wasn't every single night all four of us, but lots and lots and LOTS of time with the kids in the family bed.
Time softens our memories, but life was so hard back then and we struggled financially. Giving more and more and more to children - especially in a society that is obsessed with making children fend for themselves emotionally - is hard to do. It's hard to practice and it isn't always pretty.
Still... carrying babies, breastfeeding, co-sleeping - the remembrances are far more sweet than they are ragged. I have a vivid memory of wearing BOTH children - one in a front pack, and one on my back - and taking a chill walk for miles along the waterfront - not because I wanted to be a twee Attachment Parent but because I had to get somewhere and the car wasn't working. That was a hard day physically but damn did my babies and I benefit from this time together. There's nothing like it. A fucking Eden. I am always saying.
So anyway during these babywearing years adults would admonish me that our children would end up spoiled. You know, all the stuff you're always hearing about how rotten kids are unless you shape them into independence. (Most adults who say stuff like this were themselves deprived and haven't done much recovery work!)
But here's the thing.
Years later the LITERAL SAME ADULTS were marveling to people how independent our kids were, because my partner and I had met their needs in infancy.
If you know my kids - you know they aren't spoiled. They are also strong, independent, funny, considerate, and they take up space because they know they deserve that.
As I've heard it said: "a need met, is a need outgrown."
Here's number two:
"How can you talk about giving kids more freedom? This is ridiculous. Kids need boundaries and rules. You wouldn't just let your toddler run into the street!"
The gist of this argument is as follows: kids are not capable of making good decisions or keeping themselves safe, so any substantive discussion of liberation or autonomy is in equivalent to throwing them to the wolves.
This is obviously untrue and every adult who says this kind of crap already knows it's untrue. When a toddler runs into the street, we simply pick the toddler up. We can let them know, "the street isn't safe my love" and repeat that kind of thing until they grow into knowing it for themselves (some people reading here are already fuming at my tone of respect). There are obvious exceptions and there are children, teens and adults that need more help and/or supervision.
Most grownups don't realize how little autonomy they offer their kids. Then they expect kids to grow into confidence, imbue healthy esteem, and find themselves prepared for the challenges of adulthood!
As radical unschoolers we offered as much as we safely could and followd this with autonomy. This praxis (obviously) helped them make better decisions at earlier ages. Very very quickly they needed less and less of our help.
"Unschooling may be all well and good for YOU, but we need a routine!"
Absolutely, most people need routines.
Unschooling didn't prevent the Hogabooms from having plenty of routines. For instance; we generally have a quiet time during sleeping hours. We brush our teeth twice a day and take showers once daily. We sit down to eat dinner together. We celebrate loads of holidays doing traditional things. The grownups (Ralph and I) tried to keep at least one day completely open during the week so we could devote this to family. Loads of routines and traditions. Etc Etc
Nothing prevents an unschooling family from creating the exact amount of structure that is best for them.
But for many it's far easier to adopt the mainstream's routines - the schooling life will take over an entire family's calendar for almost the whole year - then to decide to create things according to your own family's needs. About 97% of American kids are in compulsory schooling; most the rest are in a curriculum-based homeschool environment. In part, this is because it's a lot easier to do what (most) everyone else does. When you go along with what "everyone" does you don't have to deeply examine what might really be best for the child and the family system.
Unschooling is fringe as hell! It can be a steep learning curve. Don't mistake your family's initial confusion or temporary panic, for your family "needing" a (culturally-prescribed) "routine".
"Bless you Agni. You are so patient. I could never be with the kids so much! I need a break!"
I hope not only your kids never hear you say that but also that you are scouring your worldviews and cleaning that shit out.
Our children did not ask to come into the world. We invited them. Don't get it twisted.
Of course parenting is hard, whatever choices we make. Every parent/carer needs breaks; every parent/carer gets frustrated.
But as adults we have far more resources and agencies to figure out how to make it work. Children should never, ever, ever be made to feel they are a burden.
Only one person on the planet ever asked me, "Will you have enough time to yourself, if you homeschool?" That was my father.
Everyone else has wanted to talk over me and tell me why THEY personally couldn't do it - or they've wanted to hint it's somehow dreadfully un-feminist and regressive to homeschool at all.
"Well it might work for YOU but my kids would play video games all day."
There's a lot to unpack with this malarky but I'll say first: the longer you keep your kids in a schooled mentality and an authoritarian family structure, the more unbalanced things will look when you remove the strictures, rules and requirements of these environs. Kids WILL test new freedoms to see if it's a for-real freedom or if there's a secret stopwatch. With most parent/carers, there is a secret stopwatch. Kids are smart and they can tell!
Kids who've had parents who manipulate or offer fake-freedoms (much of American mainstream parenting) will hold out longer than children who trust their parents that Yes, they have this time for themselves and they are trusted.
Let me add something here!
Our kids DID play video games a lot. They also painted, read books, explored outside (MOST their time was spent outside!), studied cooking, learned how to grocery shop, built forts, rode bikes, went to swimming lessons, attended volunteer meetings (the Recovery world is one of the few truly child-inclusive public spaces out there), slept in (an unschooling benefit that does not get discussed enough), voraciously consumed comic books, organized parties, ran lemonade stands, hosted role play games with other children, helped me run a cottage catering service (The Conch Shell Deli), and gamboled with our kitty cats. I supported ALL these activities as inherently wholesome, therefore they didn't obsess about video games. They self-moderated from a very early age because they really, really truly knew they were allowed to play.
"How will your kids learn math?"
Let me cut to the chase and let me tell you there are just a handful of the same alarms we unschoolers hear over and over:
"how will kids learn math?"
"what about socialization?"
dietary stuff ("my kids would just eat junk if I gave them freedom!")
screen time / video games
sleep schedules
personal grooming
These are all easily solvable. Each topic is big but I'm an expert on them all, at least an expert in my own family with lots of experience in hundreds' other unschooling families. If you are thinking of giving unschooling a go I recommend you find a mentor or healthy unschooling peer groups. For authors I like Wendy Priesnitz, Akilah S. Richards, and Idzie Desmarais. There are loads of other great authors, influencers and blogs but those are a few that will help you get started.
By the way, our kids have aced all their college math classes. Halle's last quarter she was tutoring her friends in their shared chemistry class.
Which leads me to:
"How are your kids going to get into college?"
Our kids got into college (one at age 13) by taking placement tests.
So hey - you know why they placed in, and have such great college GPAs? Because they decided college was important to them, so they applied themselves to the task at hand.
Unschooling isn't about being so superior to schooled children your kids do well academically when they decide to go to school. (And yes, homeschoolers out-perform schooled kids, academically.)
That's cool stuff - but unschooling is not about that and so to crow about academic excellence is kind of a weird vibe!
Unschooling is about decolonizing our view of human beings. In part his means the parent/carer will work to dismantle the idea that a college education makes you a better type of person. Your kid may go to college, they may not. That's kind of not your business.
Unschooling is far more about developing yourself as a parent/carer; it is not finding new tricky ways to get your kid to do what you want.
"Unschooling is only for the privileged."
Let's get it straight: this type of sentiment is so incredibly disrespectful as it erases the many, many marginalized folks who've chosen unschooling precisely because of how bad the school system was for their children. Saying unschooling is only for the "privileged" is erasing their efforts and negating their living, breathing existence. And objecting to unschooling rather than learning more about it means you are using YOUR power to work against the most marginalized. Absolute bollocks!
One of my favorite pieces to start to address and dismantle the (often liberal) conceit that by supporting public school you are doing some Great Holy Good for the common man, is Eva Swidler's piece "Re-imagining School: Public Educators & Unschoolers May Have Much in Common".
Link below.
"But what about socialization?"
Socialization in school is pretty rough. We all know this but we pretend mostly wholesome things happen there.
My kids never experienced required shooter drills, homophobic and transphobic bullying (from students or teachers), asking for permission to use the toilet, or being told you have to study English and read the specific books picked for you then BOOM now it's time to go to P.E. class and do a bunch of things you don't want to do with people you didn't get to choose.
My kids didn't have to watch other kids humiliated routinely by grownups and peers. Contrary to popular belief, this doesn't "build character". Bullying continues relatively unabated at schools - that environment does not "build chraracter".
Socialization at school isn't as rosy as people pretend.
The poor socializations my kids missed out on were legion. They found plenty of friends, activities, and groups and they learned to look adults in the eye and be very present for conversations, from a very young age.
"My kid is [ special ] and needs more rules, you wouldn't understand."
Okay. Fine. I mean most our culture completely agrees with you. Most kids are not only institutionalized in school, they are subject to corporeal measures of ownership. You can do with your kids what you like. In America, in all fifty states, children are considered property and it is also legal to beat them.
I also understand that in raising a "different" child life is stressful enough and the parents and carers of those children are not happy at how they're being squeezed out. So the idea of giving up and starting from scratch is terrifying. I understand this more than you might know. :) That pain, fear and defensiveness - you deserve those things to be taken seriously. (Here's a lovely resource!)
Of course, "my kid is different, unschooling wouldn't work for them" erases the many, many caring adults who are raising unschooled queer kids, autistic kids, neurodivergent kids, children of color - parents and carers who will tell you their child is safer, happier, and thriving outside of school precisely because school does NOT help those kids. Those parents have a harder fight than anyone because the institution of school and the supporters therein do NOT like square pegs that refuse to try to fit in the round hole. Those parents are criticized more than their schooling counterparts. Their children are more likely to be removed from their homes, by virtue of cultural marginalization.
If your child is "different" in some way and you wonder if unschooling might provide them more safety, more freedom, and a healthier self-esteem - I encourage you to find unschooling groups that center around your child's differences (there are so many).
***
Listen - there are a billion reasons not to unschool. And almost everywhere you go you'll see people promoting the cultural norm of compulsory schooling as not only a practical solution (so we adults can convert our daylight hours to working capital) but also the MORALLY CORRECT CHOICE - even while we admit the school system is getting worse every year.
If your kids are in school and you keep them there - fine. But please stop spouting ignorant nonsense about unschooling. It should be an option supported wholeheartedly so that the people who want it or need it must, have access to it. We should all support it PRECISELY so every family can take advantage of it, if they choose.
I exist as a resource ready to help those who are genuinely interested.
We have nothing to lose but our chains!
Because unschooling one's child is one of the most liberating things an adult can do - for yourself, as well.
Resources:
For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence, Alice Miller
"Re-imagining School: Public Educators & Unschoolers May Have Much in Common", Eva Swidler
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire