Vision for Life

How did we get here?  I must admit as a first time parent in my mid 20s there was no way that I ever would have envisioned that my eldest child would have been home educated for all but a couple of years of school.

Damien and I started out parenthood with the idea that our family unit was important, and that being connected and supported in our relationship was important and that supporting each other and our child(ren) was our priority.  Our main priority for ourselves when we met, was happiness and to have a happy relationship.  This was our vision for our future, and this has been the motivator for many of our decisions.

We started home education, because it seemed convenient for relocating back to Australia.  We stopped home education because Willow needed more social contact.  We returned to home education because Willow's happiness and our own family harmony were more important to us than the schooling system. 

With Willow being in school (in Scotland), home educated in Scotland, France and Adelaide, and back in school (in Adelaide) it became clearer to Damien and I that some of our own problems as young adults were purely to do with school and its systemisation.  We could see some of this appearing in some of the kids in Willow's school in Adelaide, certain behaviours that the 7yr olds were developing to cope with being in the system, that parents explained away as a stage, and that Damien and I with our new perspective could see was the kids finding ways to cope with have too few adults to spend time with, be supported by and to model grown-up behaviour from.

Within a very short time of removing Willow from school the anti-social behaviours that she was displaying at home vanished, and when on further questioning on my part, about how much happier she seemed, 7yr old Willow declared, "I don't have to act any more Mummy."

So this formed the basis for our decisions around education, these transformative experiences, started us on this wonderful and at times challenging but always inspiring journey that has lead us towards a usually contented home life based around education and learning.  This has meant that only Willow attended school, and that Gabriel and Arden have never been, and that Irving is heading towards being registered for home education next year.  For the littler ones in particular this experience has been all encompassing and nurturing, being surrounded by their family that loves them almost all of the time, and having an understanding that learning is inspiring and interesting and exciting. 

When they go out into the world, they transition into being independant, and they are not rudely and sharply separated from their family, and the feeling of safety that that offers them.  The separation that happens does so gently over the years: time at classes with parents present, time at classes without parents present, time with friends, time at home alone, time walking to the shop,etc.  Each skill is built up gradually and gently and each separation is partly encouraged by Damien and I, and by our child.  In the early years, this can feel very slow, but in a larger family there are so many other activities happening that the later years of school travel past quite quickly and all of a sudden, home education is coming to an end, and new experiences past school are being planned and created.

One final note, in our family, one of the main occurrences during the years to keeping life happy and content, is to always resolve emotional disturbances and disharmonies on the spot.  Some days this has meant at home learning has gone out the window, as we sit and work out and sometimes have a good cry, about life and what has been going on.  But these times of disharmony, have always worked out in our favour, as we as a family, have learnt about emotions together and have language and skills to problem solve our feelings, and the problems that they can create.  For me pre-children this was the path that I was starting that lead us to this place, the path towards being able to find and create happiness, and be content most of the time.

So my question to anyone starting home education is...What is your goal for your family?

Some of our moments...
Coffee mornings with Damien have become a thing around here, after him missing us all in the mornings!  (We tend to be later risers) 

Hanging out at the playground with everyone...so nice to have teens that have fun with everyone, that like to chat with people, and to have a family of people that look out for each other.  (Little one has a way to go with this obviously!)

Things to do whilst waiting for your older siblings...."pop"...umbrella fun!

One of Arden's latest passions, photography.  Hot chocolate on a cold day!

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2025 

I had forgotten a few of the things I had referenced here- those illuminating moments when I realised what was going on for some children in their early years of education, as they become dulled and disillusioned and surrendered to the idea of being systemised.  I imagine now that more and more children are in childcare from almost birth, that this may be harder for modern parents to notice, and I am certainly glad to have had that experience of illumination.

As a family with 20 something children, a teen and a pre-teen we still have a lot of fun.  Willow lives out of home with her fiance, in the South- West of WA, and regularly comes to stay with us, and we get down to visit her too.

Our goal as a family has stayed consistent over the years; working out how to get along, and allow everyone to be themselves, and at times it has been easier to work this out than at other times.  Introducing regular computer usage brought  some challenges, and some of these boundaries are things we are still working out and exploring.

Gender Equality in Education and Life

Gender equality in education is something that I feel very strongly about.  The first time I remember reading this as an idea, was in regards to Steiner curriculum, where an article I was reading discussing that the curriculum  involved all children learning all skills.  So girls learnt woodwork and boys learnt to knit.  This applied to all sorts of skills; including metalwork, crocheting, etc.  I loved this idea, everyone having an opportunity to try and learn a skill that is useful to life and that they may discover they love. At this point in time, I had two children aged about 1 and 3, and I was starting to develop a relationship with cooking.

 I moved out of home aged 21 and was a useless home maker.  Children being involved in caretaking their living environment was not encouraged in my family and I could cook a bare minimum- I could scramble and fry eggs, make french toast, make pancakes and bake.  Maybe there were a few other skills in there, but they mostly involved cans.  I didn't have the patience to cook 2 minute noodles properly.

So this complete education idea appealed because I felt everyone should be able to take care of themselves.  Going to an all girls' school that valued academics, home making skills had been rejected; girls were as capable as boys!  And whilst this is a fabulous attitude; it should also be noted, that boys are as capable as girls!  So the idea of an education that would teach both genders to be balanced and capable and caring for themselves and others appeals to me.

This was one of the reasons that we headed towards a Steiner education whilst living in the UK.  Along the way, I learnt to be a home maker in a whole sense, as did Damien.  Damien could cook when we met, I was better at cleaning, but not keen to do it! And between the two of us, we made a comfortable home life.  Damien cooked and I cleaned, usually.  However, when we had kids, my lack of food preparation abilities became more and more evident and combined with family health issues I started to take an interest in food.

For us now this is great, but really I should have learnt this as a child/young person, and IMO the same can be said for any basic caretaking skills.  Sewing buttons on, bike maintenance, basic woodwork, cooking, cleaning, etc.  People need to know how to care for themselves in their environments, and the idea that a woman or a man needed to be around to help the opposite gender is just ridiculous!

Due to this equality in education in the Steiner setting we were in, in Scotland, we saw children playing and acting and creating regardless of gender.  Some boys and girls liked dresses and princesses, some liked dragons and princes, some liked pink,blue, green, yellow.  There were far few boundaries around what was accepted for their gender.  This was beautiful, kids were liking things because the thing spoke to them, not because it was what "boys did" or "girls did".  Just because they could.  At home having a daughter and son, and very little media (no TV and only occasional film watching), our children flourished playing all sorts of games sometimes violent, sometimes delicate.  Gabriel loved being able to wear kilts.  He dressed as a fairy.  Willow did the things no-one wonders at any more, she wore pants.  She climbed and hammered things, and built. Willow and Gabriel both getting dressed up in fancy clothes to go out. Both genders trying both things. 

In our home now, this is totally a way of life.  I must admit Damien and I were already like it from the start.  I'm quite a masculine woman and Damien is quite a feminine man.  He expresses his soft side and I express my harder side.  (Generally I'm a bit suspicious of the women and men that are unable to do this.) Everyone tries everything, and everyone is valued for what they themselves offer in our home.

Arden and Irving in their sequin t-shirts from the "girls" range in Zara.  (Who said boys don't like sparkles?)

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2025

I feel this is more important than ever.  The introduction of the trans story into schools and the ridiculous notion of queerness....yes, yes, tell me I'm queer.....seems to me to be a complete spiritual crisis.  There is a traumatised generation that are completely confused by the idea, that they are their bodies, when in fact their spirit/soul is anchored to their body, and that their body may be female/male, girl/boy, man/woman but that does not define their interests and what they would like to do.

I used to wonder about the growing materialistic need to know the sex of one's baby before birth.  We have not found out what any of our babies were.  Partly because, with our first pregnancy in 1999, it was still fairly common for people to want a surprise.  The lovely aspect about this, was that there were a beautiful range of colours for new babies.  Pastel green, lemons, apricots, also navy was considered neutral and white, and of course the baby pinks and blues.  Gradually as the years went on, and more and more people knew the sex of their baby, these colours vanished.  Until by 2013, my choice of neutral colours for Irving was grey, or grey.....there was a bit of red in there too I think.  But I did really have to ponder, why drop the colours?  Why couldn't a new baby still have all these other shades.  (I looked through the baby wear today, and they're still limiting the colours!).

So I tend to think this crisis of confused children is partly created by people, boxing babies into their bodies too soon.  Children are in dream mode (there's more on that here), and are meant to live in the imagination, and are meant to explore characters, but they also need to be reminded that their bodies still naturally grow and behave a certain way.  

And so these small people come to feel that because they do things that are labeled "girl" and they are boys, or they do things that are labeled "boy" and they are girls, they concluded that means that they are other than their bodies are.  This is a complete tragedy.  They always were themselves, and a girl can like trucks, cars, weights, being strong, etc, etc, and still be a girl.  A boy can like skirts, pink, twirling, dolls,etc,etc and still be a boy.  

So I would love  to see more of this revolve full circle.  I do believe it is starting to, where we start accepting our children's essence again, and let them live in their imaginations, playing, being, exploring, and coming to understand that their body grows a certain way, and that it needs no modification.    We don't make ducks into dogs, or cats into flowers, and our children need to be loved and embraced as the souls that they are, and helped with the strange transitions of being anchored to bodies.

Recent Work

After experimenting with hexaflexagons, Willow moved on to cut out puzzles of Pythagoras' theorem.  Took a little bit of moving around, but eventually a solution was found!

Arden took his lego man out adventuring in the Cultural Centre.

Willow spent some time making rose windows this week, as part of her ancient history block.  She's studying the Catholic churches and the changes that came to it during the Renaissance via the Lutherans, Church of England and Calvinists.

And I finally finished knitting Arden's penguin socks.  He's very happy with them.