It wasn’t that long ago, 15 years to be exact, our son Joseph was born. I will never forget the process up to his delivery the hours of meditation and positive thinking and the grinding of a day in and day out focus “I am GOING to have this baby AT HOME!”
Home births are a foreign concept in my family. My husband and his brother were both born at home, but everyone (and everything) in my family has pretty much been done by-the-book. Babies are born in hospitals, babies are given formula, children go to public school, our adults go to Jr. College, than College – or get married out of high school.
I give you all of this background to say… LIVING AN UNSCHOOLED – “UNEDUCATED” – GROW YOUR OWN FOOD – BE BORN AT HOME – BREAST FEED – HIPSTER – HIPPIE – HIT THE ROAD – WORK FROM HOME artisan lifestyle, is not something I was “born into”. In essence it is like taking a bird who was raised in captivity, letting it go, and saying “Ok birdie, you are wild now BE FREE!” I struggled for a long time to accept this pretty radical way of living.
The funny thing (to me) is that it seems to take more education not LESS to live off the gird and away from structured learning. In our little world of unschooling, I am always being asked “the impossible questions” from our kids like “How does fog work?” or “If there were no plants would we be able to breathe at all?” These are the types of questions our children (and myself) have to go online to read about, visit the library, or go to the planetarium to discover our answers. Everyday we are learning something new, and YES everyday it IS WORK. But it isn’t sit down in your seat type work, it’s let’s drive across the country and learn about the United States type work.
FAR FROM PERFECT
I would love to tell you our children are in the backseat playing car bingo, memorizing the state capitals or telling us facts about each state we pass… they AREN’T. They are sticking gummy bears up their noses (I’m guessing), watching their iPhones, playing video games and MAYBE reading a book. It almost makes me feel like an unschooling failure!
Then, when we pull into port and I sit back and watch as the oldest takes care of the younger ones, and the middle one get the bags, and my daughter hold the baby (all I am left to do is wait and watch) I realize they might not be learning things like I learned once “The capital of California is Sacramento, the capital of Arizona is Phoenix, the capital of New Mexico is Sate Fe and so on and so on…” but what they are learning is how to be a FAMILY and how to get what they WANT by asking questions like… “So mom, where’s the BEST place for beignets in New Orleans?”
Next stop Café Du Monde in LOUISIANNA!!
Today we are in the great state of TEXAS!
They say everything is bigger in Texas … whoa! I think Teddy could ride this bug!
America, the home of the beautiful and the brave. There is still patriotism in our great country, contrary to the medias portrayal, the real people of America still believe in liberty and justice. #werenoheadliners
thehappylittlecamperco 