Is it a Mistake to Raise Children Gently in a Harsh World?* (or Picking Up the Pieces)

Peace is the best armor in a stressed out world. Confidence is way better than fear alone. Karl can’t help but notice how odd it is that people get worked up but being in the midst of it doesn’t prepare one for it. Knowing the difference gives one a taste for a better way, that’s all. I mean, that’s how I feel about being lucky enough to appreciate unschooling. The peace we have in our family as a result of that find is amazing

I said the above in response to the title question which appeared on an unschooling dad’s Facebook status.

By the same token, how else do so many parents learn to do the unschooling thing except through much determination to move AWAY from the difficulty that is their past lives and realities? For me, unschooling is the continuing saga of a personal struggle out of that world where everything is about picking up the pieces and setting them back down again softly so as not to be forever caught up in their drama and conflict.

When it comes to harshness to children and to oneself, practice often does not make perfect or even functional. I’m so glad for the glimpses I see of how lucky we’ve been to fall into parenting outside of so many pitfalls which are painful to even mention and are being experienced on an ongoing basis elsewhere. I’ve read about several things this week that would be upsetting to have happen in my own family and ARE upsetting to see in the lives of others.

To my mind, an even better question than the one in the title is “Is it a mistake to raise children harshly in a harsh world?” My answer is obviously that it is a mistake yet it’s not easy to see that at first blush. Why is that? Because I’ve been raised somewhat harshly. And in my not-so-humble opinion, that was a mistake, one that is all too easy to repeat.

What one learns from living in a harsh environment isn’t reliable or necessarily useful once a person manages to escape. I have so much to do, so much more to learn about peace and how to be truly peaceful. The environment people live in is largely inside themselves because even when their external circumstances change, their minds can stay the same. So much conscious effort to put into escaping the environment that so often lives on in perpetuity between these ears of mine! Harshness is no preparation for the harshness I find just about anywhere I look (maybe I’m just more aware of it now than I used to be). Talking about what happened or warning against it doesn’t deter it’s recurrence.

I realize that the case could be argued existentially that all is illusion, and I understand why people say that. If people were happy all the time, then there would be no need to distinguish if it’s reality or not. Naturally, the unpalatable aspects anyone could wish to be an illusion!

It makes sense to me to see harshness in the world not only as personal perspective for some (many) but also actual reality. Clearly anyone can say it is a spiritual illusion. Yet for many (too many) people, it is also a physical reality, otherwise there’s no need to seek peace or be peace or be the change you wish to see or any of that. People, including children, get hurt, suffer damage, need recovery, etc. And at least sometimes it could have been or still might be prevented, lessened, softened, removed. I’m so happy I didn’t win the Worst Imaginable Childhood award. And I don’t think it strengthened me to go through some things that are often said to be strengthening. It is what it is.

I just read an overview of what we know about the quality of parents and children in our own day and the quality of parents/children of a century ago. This to me only confirms that things like radical unschooling are spot on because apparently human nature doesn’t change very quickly. It’s still like it probably always was: the natural development of children can drive a parent batty if parenting takes them too unawares. When I finally realized that I was pregnant with Karl, and the fog lifted and I understood I was going to be a parent, panic set in. Luckily I tapped into the WWW, and after mucho mucho reading around, I thought I could do this mom thing and maybe even do it well. A unexpected development on my part! It was quick. Or much quicker than I would have thought it would be.

Since then, I’ve learned so much in the Gentle Life of Karl. And it occurred to me that I now know how one can learn nothing in honor of Learn Nothing Day. But it doesn’t happen in the wide free world that is radical unschooling. How not to learn anything on Learn Nothing Day is to go to the School of Hard Knocks, where fear knocks thought and understanding way far out into the stratosphere and can place one decidedly out of one’s own sphere. It can dampen what a person knows and put it out of easy reach. But there’s another way to learn and it can take place in the sun, even if some things are difficult to learn.

Bits and pieces and mortar and brick of the metaphorical hard school of the past crop up here and there in my garden of unschooling and music and paint and smiles and flowers. No need to search them out. When I find them, I just learn from them in the kinder gentler place I find myself these days. THIS is what mistakes are really for: learning from. The old relics, the bones of the past can simply serve as a procession of doodads spaced out on the mantel to mark a mental, emotional and physical progress and perhaps pointing out new paths to try. Gosh, it feels so unbelievable to write that down — to talk about it so positively still seems more than a bit surreal.

So what I’m consciously deciding to do now … not live in the past (though I revisit it however often I need to) where I spent a great deal more of my energy than I bargained I would have, and avoid as often as possible bringing it up as I focus instead on the present joys, hugs, kisses, freedoms and thrills that come with a decision toward peace in all its myriad forms. Reliving the old harsh realities in the present just sullies it. Thank goodness for change.

*This blogpost was inspired by a Facebook status line that raises a doubt I’ve had myself numerous times: “I am raising gentle children in a harsh world. I hope that is not a mistake.”

It seems obvious to me more and more that it’s a doubt that comes of having little basis for comparison. But the beauty of unschooling is that a parent who’s been through school culture is gaining a basis for comparison over time as that parent partners with their child/ren in life. Just as though school didn’t exist.

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