???
Well, no we shouldn’t b/c this world is so fucked up and b/c children are civilized almost at conception these days.
On the other hand, I believe that people who are re-wilding in as uncivilized a community setting as possible have the power to raise feral children who will inherit the future, a future we work to bring about for them and then with them.
Children who are mothered/fathered/community-ed in a wild, natural, etc. way may just be the only hope of a future for humans and many other species.
Also, mothers, fathers and other community members, I believe, who are wild-children-ed (ok, I’ll stop) may heal themselves in a way not thought possible until it happens. What kind of amazing power is there in freely birthing, nourishing, and protecting a child? I think tremendous power.
But… I just don’t know. How can we birth children knowing what we know?
And, then again, how can we not?
I think the drive to birth children is so strong it’s hard to resist even if there was a huge culture campaign against it. It’s like a hunger in my belly. I think I would like to birth at least one child, and perhaps adopt more.
To grow a baby in my belly, give birth, and be a mother is a desire that only seems to be growing stronger with the seasons. It makes my heart ache to imagine never having a baby.
Penny Scout wrote:
I think I would like to birth at least one child, and perhaps adopt more.
That’s our plan, my fiancee and I. Have one adopt four.
I believe one “should” do what they think is “right”. When one reaaches the point that one realizes that they can only control their own behavior and actions is the point such questions become irrelevant. Yes the world is overpopulated, but what can I do about it? Not having a child won’t do very much, b/c it’s not like the other 99.9999999% of humans are going to have an epiphany and stop breeding.
Should is a dirty word for me.
I support the continued evolution of the human species, which requires propigation in order for the evolution to continue.
There are plenty of people who feel our time has ended, that the proof is already in the pudding:
I support their rather unsustainable view point, too bad they won’t have another generation to pass it on to… (they should go ask the Shakers… oh that’s right, they’re extinct…)
To me it seems these are people who are having trouble seeing humans as partners of the world.
I think ‘today’s world’ is just as tough as all the other world our ancestors passed through to deliver us here in this moment.
For me, I think I’ll be lucky to have the ability to propigate…
For those of you who do plan to raise children outside of yet still within this civilization, what conditions need to be met? How do we rewild birth and childcare?
I don’t know, but I think I would like to give my children the option to choose a feral lifestyle and not force it upon them, so I would teach them to read and write and educate them enough in math, science, history, etc. to be able to survive within civilization and go to college if they wished. If there are still such things when they grow up.
there were a few good things i got from christianity before i left it, and this is one of them:
Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it. – Proverbs 22:6
I want my one year old son to have the opportunities for being a real human (living like humans evolved to live) that were not afforded to me. But I don’t want to force them on him to the point where he despises his hippy dad for being a freak. I’m so scared that he’ll turn out to be a republican football playing CEO (just thinking of something diametrically opposite of me) that I want to be very careful in the way that I push my wildness on him.
Despite that fear, though, I’m not going to NOT push, all the same.
Seeing my friends who had wilder parents than mine, they tend to still be pretty wild, even if not in the same way their parents are (or want them to be).
Regardless of whether my son grows up to sit behind some corporate desk someday (if there are still any such things around), though, I at least want him to know that he can eat the amaranth that is growing up through the concrete at his feet. Even if he rejects my “teachings” once he gets a mind of his own, his mind will still be filled with those things, and they will be waiting to sprout should the soil ever be ready in his life.
For little kids, it seems like they just want to do whatever mommy and daddy are doing, so the introduction is easy. I’m not sure what is going to happen once puberty and peer pressure and machismo and all that shit kicks in. I never went too crazy as a teen (to a fault, actually). Mostly because of my fervent christian beliefs. But my wife did in some ways (go crazy) so I’m very uncertain of what our son’s future emotions hold for him.
I think, though, that as long as I love him and respect him and let him grow with guided proddings, he’ll turn out pretty alright.
There is really only one thing I have found that really makes kids hate their parents, or reject themselves against their families, and (aside from abusive families) it is SCHOOL.
Keep him home and safe and tied to the family as the emotional reality (not schooling) and I have doubts that he’ll ever end up anything near a republican. “Peer pressure” doesn’t really exist outside of school (aside from TV, so don’t have one in the house). “Family Pressure” is the natural form that takes the place of schoolings peer pressure… but that’s what you want, no?
that’s a really good insight, scout. i never thought about how much school warps kids because i had such an a-typical scholling experience.
hmmm. now how do i get his mother to buy into this idea…?
I usually start the “school sucks, don’t send your kids†conversation with this: “Is it a given that the current school system is horrible?(they answer yes), Then why even debate sending the child? If it is horrible, why buy into it by sending your child and your tax dollars?â€Â, and then go from there. Once they admit they think it is a piece of shit, don’t let them waffle around not going.
Doesn’t always work, but gets them thinking.
We started homeschooling our daughter, and she learned the material, no doubt, but the concept of “school” is so ever present in our society that she just really, really wanted to go to school…
It’s working out okay, but I can tell that there’s already a certain amount of confusion about things (like, say, foraging). Mostly harmless, but…
it is very present, jhereg. and it’s as difficult a meme to overcome as say eating the fruits of the agricultural revolution or escaping wage-slavery. mother culture has polluted our mindsets so much that we have to break out of these memes, and that often takes a lot of time, a lot of hacking away at the old ideas before new ones can sprout.
23, your argument convinces me, but despite the fact that it sucks, i think folks like my wife think the alternatives suck worse. “homeschooling is for fanatics,” kind of thinking. and while I am a fanatic, she doesn’t want to be. i can’t even bring up peak-oil without causing her brain to shut down.
when we watched spielberg’s war of the worlds in the theatre, she leaned over to me and whispered "promise me that we’ll commit suicide together if something like this ever happens. i was like “uh, i’m living for the day when something like this happens, so no.” it made the rest of the movie very uncomfortable for us.
i think my best bet is to try to get inside the system. i’ve been thinking about being a science teacher for a long time now. i’ve held off for so long because of all the negative things my teacher friends tell me, but then i realized that they’re not that much worse than any other form of wage slavery. and i can sow seeds of civ-dissension as i teach and demonstrate scientific principles with primitive technologies.
“today we’re going to be learning about friction, using… a bow-drill”
and i think that maybe if i’m seeing the peer pressure from that side (instead of trying to pick up on it from the hints a child drops when they get home) i can better equip my son for being able to be his own person.
plus crazy science teachers seem to be able to get away with being eccentric, so i’m hoping it will help legitimize my weirdness to the community.
Rix…
Have you read the Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto?
I’ve read his other book “Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling,” but I was not able to finish Underground History. The very foundations of schooling, how it functions, why they function in the way they do… this book goes into the science behind modern schooling and the corporations who funded the science. I couldn’t finish it because the whole fucking thing is just so horrific. I literally blacked out in anger/emotion when reading it and came to in my basement holding a can of gas in one hand and a spray paint bottle in the other. I causiously set them down and wrote a screenplay about middle school kids who burn their school down instead. I’m afraid to open the book again. I never thought I had that bad of a time in school but this book brings it all back, and articulates who, what and where this torurous enviornment came from.
I think the part of the book that made me the grieve the most, was not the content (which is horrific) but the fact that the author is a former teacher. Not just any teacher, he won Teacher of the Year for New York City three years in a row, then he won Teacher of New York State. At his award ceremony, he gave his resignation and read aloud an essay he wrote about how fucked up school is. See, for 30 years he fought the administration. He was one of the “good” teachers. All along the way the balked and tried to fuck him over (including destroying documents that allowed him to go on medical leave, and attempting to not let him come back when he healed). He was being awarded for the kids excellence under his tutelage, yet everything he did to make that happen had been against the system. He used to pull fire alarms and shit just to get the kids outside. Haha. My kind of guy. But in the end, it wasn’t enough. And he still quit to advocate against schooling.
I know it seems like being the quirky science teacher would be an ideal spot to get the message to some younger folk, and that may work. But I think that it’s also like joining the police to make a difference: you still end up beating up the poor. Regardless of the teachers personality or desire to change kids lives, you still end up yelling, giving orders, and becoming the tyranical leader of the youth-slaves. That’s the teachers position; slave master. While their were good slave-masters… they’re still slave-masters. You know? It simply keeps the cycle going. Why not walk away?
“Unschooling” is the modern, hipper, cooler, indigenous model of “Home-schooling” (which has religious conotations and practices). The number of unschoolers is growing. Did you know that on average home-schooled children score higher on the SAT’s than kids who go to compulsory school? Yeah. Throw that one at your spouse. Homeschool=smarter (not that SAT’s rate intelligence but you get it).
Why would home-schooled kids want to go to school? Because they don’t have an unschooling club and they want friends and culture they think school has. If, from the begining, you form an Unschooling group, or join your local one, your kids will actually learn the horrors of modern schooling and learn that they’ve escaped them. They’ll also have friends of mixed ages. You’ll have a network of other parents for support. I’ve worked with and met lots of unschooled kids and they are all proud of the fact they never went to school. Some of the homeschooled kids I met did end up wanting to go to school, but not the unschoolers.
Here are some leads:
Websites:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/
http://www.unschooling.com/
http://www.unschooling.org/
http://www.wildernessawareness.org/about_curriculum.html#guide
http://www.wildernessawareness.org/adult/mentoring_teaching.html
Books:
*Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
*The Unschooling Handbook : How to Use the Whole World As Your Child’s Classroom
*Guerrilla Learning: How to Give Your Kids a Real Education With or Without School
*Anything and everything by John Holt
i think my best bet is to try to get inside the system. i've been thinking about being a science teacher for a long time now. i've held off for so long because of all the negative things my teacher friends tell me, but then i realized that they're not that much worse than any other form of wage slavery. and i can sow seeds of civ-dissension as i teach and demonstrate scientific principles with primitive technologies.“today we’re going to be learning about friction, using… a bow-drill”
and i think that maybe if i’m seeing the peer pressure from that side (instead of trying to pick up on it from the hints a child drops when they get home) i can better equip my son for being able to be his own person.
plus crazy science teachers seem to be able to get away with being eccentric, so i’m hoping it will help legitimize my weirdness to the community.
A few things come to mind. First of all, Daniel Quinn’s famous line, “We need changed minds everywhere.”
Secondly, Derrick Jensen worked within the educational system and did some good things in the classroom. If you haven’t already, check out his book Walking on Water.
Third, I first of heard of Tom Brown Jr.'s work from my chemistry teacher.
Lastly, In our school district they’re trying to get funding to build a new school. Personally, I would like to see the whole thing torn down. Putting aside all the traumatizing characterstics of compulsory schooling, how are we going afford to keep the yellow buses running when we see gas hit $5…$7…$10 a gallon? But the teachers and administrators are in complete denial when it comes to this issue. Part of it, I think, is because their paychecks depend on it.
So, perhaps if you become a teacher within the system, and when a taxpayer like me suggests the district tear the whole thing down, you can be one of the teachers that agrees with someone like me. Now, that’s working within the system!
Take care,
Curt
I agree with everything Scout says. For school, the system represent the real curriculum, the real content.
John Taylor Gatto wrote a relatively short article on this that sums it up great. Give it to anyone who considers school like ‘democracy’; “it sucks but it’s the best system we’ve got.” Bullshit!
Mr. Gatto says in the following article, “It only takes about 50 contact hours to transmit basic literacy and math skills well enough that kids can be self-teachers from then on. The cry for “basic skills” practice is a smokescreen behind which schools pre-empt the time of children for twelve years and teach them the six lessons I’ve just taught you.”
damn, scout! you take your video games and books very seriously. i like that about you. 
you guys have made very good points that i am definitely taking to heart.
the main argument that i do hear against homeschooling is the socialization. granted, learning social interactions in a public school doesn’t teach a balanced form of socialization, but it is the kind that fits the image mother culture has set up for us to believe in. i know it’s wrong and that there is a better way, but i don’t believe i can hit that path yet.
the majority of my life is filled with slavery metaphors right now. i’m a slave to my rutty fast-food diet when i want to be going paleo. i’m a slave to paying rent when i’d rather pitch a tent. i’m a slave to my job because of my debts and the bills for all my civilized “necessities”. i’m a slave to my car because i can’t walk to my job.
i’m still functioning in a civilized world, and trying to do so, while i work my way out. and it has to be my way that i get out. i have to find it for me. i have to make it work for me.
i’m also a slave to my marriage even though my wife and i don’t believe in the construct of the christian marriage vows that we made to a god we no longer put faith in. but the memes hang over us, dangling into our eyes and burning them with their poisons. [okay, that metaphor was insanely intense and probably unnecessary.]
maybe this isn’t the best way to go about it, but i feel like as long as i am stuck being a wage-slave, i might as well be doing something that fits my character better while i’m doing it.
teaching resides in my nature. i live to drink knowledge in and spew it back out. i see it in my dad, and i see it in me. we dig knowledge and we love to shovel it your way. and i think i’m good at it. i feel like i can really get concepts through to people that others can’t. so i’m seeking to work out my nature in the middle of my stuck-ness.
plus i don’t think the civ will be around long enough for me to burn out as a teacher. i might be deluding myself, but i am pretty good at staying a course even if i don’t like it. i’ve had some pretty shitty jobs, been a slave master, and died a little in the process, but i know that i did some good while i was there. i worked as a night-shift psychiatric technician and chaplain for a mental hospital for adolescent sex offenders. it nearly killed my soul in a lot of ways–especially seeing how the others in my position were so quick to abuse their power. but i know that i was able to reach a lot of the kids there and give them hope in something better for themselves.
curt, i have enjoyed following your letters to the school board on your blog. i will be one to stand up and say “this dude’s right.”
we need changed minds everywhereand i think i can change more of them in my area by being a teacher than i can by doing this compu-tech crap i'm living off of right now.
thank you both for your reading recommendations. more knowledge to drink.
the ideal would probably be for me to get a divorce, live in a hut in my friends’ back yard and be the teacher for all my friends’ kids. and even though there are a lot of reasons for me to do that, i don’t think it’s necessarily the best thing for the people that currently make up my family. but who knows, it may come to that soon enough.
and, yeah, when gas hits $10/gallon, who knows what all will come crashing to a halt. but i figure that a state-funded, mother culture-approved institution will have more longevity than a lot of other jobs.
i don’t think it will be easy or ideal. but it might be the most ideal for the situations i’m going to be in over the next 5-10 years.
Cool WildeRix! I just like to hear folks as they think aloud through all their options…what else can we do but balance the pluses and minuses of a panoply of impossible situations, situations this culture purposely set up to bedevil us!
As long we spend time sincerely thinking things through (unlike 99.9% of modern enslaved humans), any decision makes sense. I enjoy reading about you untangling all those threads!
thanks, willem. it is definitely a tangle. and i appreciate the perspectives you guys are giving me as i try to untangle it.
gatto’s The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher is pretty sobering. thanks for sharing that.