Teens, Control, and the Nature of Love

Possibly the article I've received the most angry and condescending reactions to, of anything I've ever written, is my post on teenage rebellion (especially when it was posted, with heavy edits that I did not approve prior to posting, on the supposedly alternative parenting site Offbeat Mama).  And several months ago when that same article was published on Scarleteen, another comment (which we chose to delete because of it's condescending tone and the perspective it seemed to be coming from) got me thinking about the most common (and often very angry) criticism of the respectful parenting of teens: the idea of boundaries.

I feel like the way people talk about boundaries is the same way they talk about structure: as if both are these external things that are very important in creating "Disciplined," "Educated," and otherwise useful (aka "Productive") human beings. Things that the good and responsible adults (parents, teachers, etc.) are supposed to construct and enforce.

But, the same way that structure, when it comes to unschooling, is a mix of the natural rhythms found in the home and community and whatever the unschooler themselves chooses to consciously build in their life, I think boundaries are often similar. There are boundaries, both natural and constructed, in all aspects of life. I feel like everything from physical space limitations and physical abilities to laws, rules, and money could all be considered "boundaries" of a sort. Many of these boundaries should be challenged and pushed, in my opinion, but currently they all do exist, to some extent, for everyone.

Yet when I most often see and hear people talking about boundaries, it's very specifically the rules parents construct and enforce on their children. It's most often in the context of "I can really tell your parents never properly enforced any boundaries for you!" Once, on the aforementioned Offbeat Mama publishing of my rebellion article, someone even said that "Kids need, and deep down WANT, limits and boundaries," which is one of those things that, when writing about it, I need to first take a deep breath before I can go on to calmly discuss and dispute it, since my first instinct is just to say "fuck you," which isn't very helpful. But the incredible superiority and condescension contained in such statements takes my breath away, and brings home to me in a very profound way how terribly teenagers are looked at and treated in this culture.

Every pro-enforced-boundaries discussion comes back to the idea that teens are not full and complete human beings capable of making their own decisions and living their own lives. They're irresponsible, "unfinished," untrustworthy, and otherwise faulty.  I have very little patience for the condescension, rigid attemtps at control, and outright disgust and mockery that teens regularly have to deal with, because ultimately, all of this is sending some very harmful messages: there's something wrong with you. You're not good enough. Because of your age, you don't deserve to be treated well and fairly.

There are plenty of rationalizations made for the treatment teens receive, of course. From the scientific there's-something-wrong-with-their-brains (instead of celebrating the difference as just another stage of life), to "they secretly like being controlled", also known as control as a sign of love. There was recently a discussion on Facebook about teens and access to the internet, with much discussion by some parents in the thread about spying on their children (literally going into their email and Facebook accounts, and looking at their web history), and informing their children they were spying because they love them. Now, I can respect that those parents really do love their children, and that their actions are driven by fear which is driven by love, but I don't think these parents realize just how differently their teens most likely see things. What I posted on that thread was:

Snooping on a teen's internet activities is every bit as bad as reading their diary, as far as I'm concerned. Both are WRONG and a major violation of trust. It's horrifying for me to even think of the betrayal I would have felt had my parents hacked into any of my online accounts, checked history on my computer, or anything else. Good relationships and open communication are what's needed to help keep teens safe, NOT creepy things like reading their email (and Facebook messages, etc.)!

The idea that control shows love makes sense if you're used to there only being two options when it comes to parenting teens: pay lots of attention to your kids by placing lots of rules and restrictions on them, or ignore them entirely and neglect their needs. But once you realize that there are more options than that, you can see that control as love is far from the best way things can be. And in a very personal way, if control equaled teens feeling loved, and a lack of control equaled teens feeling unloved, I, and all my unschooling friends whose parents didn't/don't parent in a controlling and authoritarian way, should feel resentful and unloved. Which is very, very far from the case, as most of the unschoolers I know have really wonderful relationships with their parents. If you have a relationship that includes good communication, which is pretty essential for good relationships of any sort, then the love will be obvious. The idea that control equals love is really just a botched version of attention equals love, and parents can be and are attentive, caring, and loving without being controlling.

People seem to envision a state of utter chaos if teens are allowed freedom in the choices they make and the lives they lead, and while I find that an unlikely outcome to say the least, I do think there's some kernel of truth to the fear. Teens are more likely to be risk-takers. Teens are change-makers. And I imagine an entire population of trusted, respected, empowered teenagers participating actively in the communities around them would really shake things up. There's a lot of adults who really wouldn't like that! But I think it would do the world a great deal of good to embrace the strengths and unique viewpoint that teens bring to the table. Teenagers are important. And their voices and experiences need to be acknowledged as such.

What are or were your experiences, as a teen or as the parent of a teen, with discussions around "boundaries," control, privacy, and similar things? How did the way your parents parented effect you, and what things do you consider positive or negative about the decisions they made? Leave a comment and join the discussion!

Unschooling, Blogging, & Visions of the Future... Some Clarifications.

There have been some interesting comments on my last unschooling post!  And several things said lead me to want to elaborate on a few things...

Each post I write is fairly self contained.  I usually focus on *one* thing.  It's a single post amongst a much larger body of writing to be found on this blog.  So I do not try and talk about absolutely everything that could be related to anything I'm saying about the main point of the post.  That would lead to very long, rambling, and unpleasant to read posts.  I also don't tend to add disclaimers.  I think that much of the time, disclaimer type comments thrown in are distracting and weaken the impact of a post, so I only add that type of comment when it actually seems to make sense to do so.

Because I didn't mention something in one post, does not mean that I've never thought of it/about it before.  I love hearing from readers and getting a variety of opinions!  But I do feel slightly insulted when people post comments telling me I must have NEVER EVER thought of socioeconomic factors, or that I must have never thought of the fact some families are single-parent.  Really?  I always feel bad when I get comments like that.  So please do bring up aspects that you feel might have been overlooked in a post, I just ask that if it's something very obvious, like the fact that many people have a low income, you assume the best: that I have considered it myself, so don't approach it in a way that suggests I must have never thought of it!

When I say "unschooling should be available to everyone",  I think it's important to note the "should".  I also say that I believe every child is capable of being, and deserves to be, in control of their own education.  What I've never said is that unschooling is currently available for every individual, because it's not.  But instead of saying, as many seem to, that because it's currently not available for every individual unschooling (and freeschooling), isn't the answer (not sure how that logic works), I simply see there being lots of work that needs to be done to make freedom-based education available for all!  I feel like that's what I'm working towards, both with local projects I'm involving myself in (and I should point out that the local people working for educational freedom are very conscious of social factors and very involved in social justice work) and the advocacy for unschooling that I do.  I see myself as part of a movement towards a far more egalitarian future, and since I think education is a very important part of that movement, and something I'm passionate about, that's what I'm focusing on right now.  Note that I say part of a movement towards an egalitarian future.  Because I don't talk much about my other social/political views on this blog, perhaps it's easy for people to forget about them, and maybe think that when I talk about universal unschooling I'm envisioning this exact same way of living, only with unschooling instead of school.  That could not be further from the truth.  I'm talking about entire social transformation, radical decentralization, autonomous communities, etc.  And within that framework, I see unschooling as naturally becoming the default.  And a good way of moving towards a different way of living is building/creating as many positive alternatives to the current way of doing things as we can, I believe.  Showing in as many ways as we can that other realities are possible and attainable.  I see unschooling and freeschooling as part of this.

Also, I feel like I throw in the word "freeschooling" a lot, and I'm not even sure all of my readers know what that is, so I apologize for that, and do plan to write a post on it eventually (the shortest and least complete answer I can give is that freeschooling is basically unschooling in a building, or close to it).  Basically why I like mentioning it is because I see freeschooling as a great answer for families that are unable to stay home with their kids when they're young, and for teens who really prefer to spend their days in a group environment.  I think it would be marvelous if there was a freeschool in every community!

I hope this clears up a few things, clarifies some of what I've said in the past...  I always strive to be as clear in what I write on this blog as I can!

The Need For Schooling

I've gotten more negative comments on this blog in the last couple of weeks than ever before!  They have been kind of nasty (I think I deleted one, because it really bothered me), ignorant, defensive, and rather hostile.  Several have been responded to wonderfully by other commenters, I've responded to a couple, and some I've decided have enough in them that I'd like to really take the time to respond not only in the comments, but in an actual post.  This is one of them, a comment that was posted (anonymously, of course) on my post Unschooling is Forever Part 3: Isolation, Socialization, and Doubters.  The comment is in italics, my response in regular font.

Schooling and life learning are not mutually exclusive. Schooled children learn in a structured manner on school days for approximately 6 hours. The rest of their life is spent learning freely.

Really?  Only six hours?  What about transportation to and from school?  The hours of homework to be done after school?  It seems to me that school takes up quite a bit more time than six hours a day, and that for the majority of schooled people, very little time is left over to "learn freely"!

Not all parents are as patient and nurturing as you experienced with your mother.

Of course they're not.  But what other experience am I expected to write from besides my own?  I write and speak about unschooling from my own experience, my own observations of others experiences, and research (reading anything about freedom-based education I can get my hands on).  But, mainly, from my own experience.  I don't claim and have never claimed to speak for or represent all unschoolers: I represent myself only, and my mother is a wonderful, nurturing person.  I hope that comes across whenever I write about her.

However, there are lots of other unschoolers out there with very different experiences (though I'm happy to say the majority of unschooling parents I know are very "nurturing").  Some have bad relationships with their parents.  Some unschoolers left high school to unschool entirely against the wishes and without the support of their parents.  Each experience is different.

There are many children who benefit greatly from the structure and separation that school provides. In some cases there are sad situations behind that reality. In other cases, it just works well.   There are also many families who do not have the luxury of the stay-at-home-parent.

Now, I see a couple of points that need to be addressed here:  firstly, unschooling is NOT against structure.  What unschoolers are against is *forced* structure.  Unschooling is all about personal choice: putting the power over their own learning and life into the learner's/student's/individual's hands.  It's then up to that individual to choose how much or little structure they want in their lives.  Sometimes (fairly frequently, actually), unschoolers decide to try school!  Many end up choosing to leave again at a later date, some stay.  Unschooling isn't a philosophy against structure: it's a philosophy against force and coercion in the choosing of what and when to learn.

By sad situations, I assume you're talking about bad home lives.  I agree, that's incredibly sad, and in such cases, which are way too common, unschooling definitely isn't an option.  In low income families, again, I agree that unschooling can be extremely difficult, and even impossible, to do (I should mention that I do know unschoolers who either are on or have been on welfare, so some low income families definitely manage to unschool!).  But there's a reason I say I'm not just in support of unschooling, but of freedom-based education.  Under that umbrella of freedom-based education, I place both unschooling and something else called freeschooling.  The most basic description of freeschooling would be unschooling in a building!  Virtually every freeschool I've heard of is dedicated to accepting as many people who want to go there as they can, no matter their economic backgrounds.  This certainly holds true for the freeschool starting up near me, as the organizers have a strong social justice bent and envision something truly wonderful, community based, and inclusive!

There are many children who would not have the drive to learn to read, as you did.

Oh dear, here I do believe you're showing your ignorance in having never interacted with the unschooling community, and seen the results! As Peggy Pirro, who writes one of my favorite unschooling books, said:

“We learn because we want to learn, because it’s important to us, because it’s natural, and because it’s impossible to live in the world and not learn. Then along comes school to mess up a beautiful thing.”

And that's how unschooling works.  As humans, we're creatures who love and want to learn, creatures who will learn everything they need to function in the society they're born into, simply by being a part of that society.  However, when you dis-empower people by telling them that they're not smart enough, not mature enough, not trustworthy enough, to control their own learning and life, you create people who no longer know how to learn if not from an "expert".  Schooling creates people who look to a higher authority for the answers, and don't trust their own power.

I have yet to meet an unschooler who *didn't* learn to read, and at this point, I've been lucky enough to meet hundreds of unschoolers in real life, and dozens more online.  And yet at the same time, I don't think literacy, knowledge of math, or any other academic achievement should be used as a measurement, *the* measurement, of success for any human being.  Memorizing stuff, learning to read?  That's easy.  And there are plenty of very well educated people who are miserable, depressed, and suicidal.  Is being "educated", as defined by having a body of knowledge that has been judged the Most Important Things To Know by some far off authority, really the most import thing out there?  I'd ask instead: are you happy?  Do you have a knowledge of your own value?  Do you love?  Do you feel loved?  Are you living in a way that makes you feel good?  Are you giving your best self to the world?  These are what I would consider measures of success, not whether you can do algebraic equations.

Schools do provide a service to our society, even if all it amounts to is increasing literacy of our community.

If everyone graduated high school being able to read, then this might be a more convincing argument.  It might also be a more convincing argument if the tons of people who graduate high school and can read, actually all liked reading, instead of many planning never to open a book again if they can help it.  Forced "learning" (because forced learning is never as real or powerful as true, deep learning, chosen willingly) often sours the subject, makes it hard and boring and distasteful.  Who enjoys being forced to do something against their will?  When you come to something yourself, you come to it without the tangled web of negative emotions and experiences attached to something you were forcibly made to do.

It sounds like your objective is to promote unschooling as superior. What you should be doing is seeking acceptance of unschooling as an equivalently effective method for preparing our children to become productive adults in our society.

That's what I *should* be doing, is it?  I should tell you now, Anonymous, that I don't take well to doing things I *should* be doing.  Everyone has their own idea for what everyone else should be doing, and many feel no shame in sharing their visions of what an individual should be doing loudly and authoritatively with said individual.  Whereas me?  I'm a fan of listening to your own intuition, looking at what you need and want, what your community (human, non-human, nature) needs and wants, and then taking the path that seems best to you.

I believe in freedom: freedom from government, corporation, hierarchy, oppression.  I don't see unschooling as simply one option among many (should I unschool this year, or go with a private school?), but as a method of freeing individuals from a government controlled institution that's intent on turning out well schooled individuals, who don't question the status quo, and happily consume as an empty attempt at gaining fulfillment.  Unschooling isn't just a type of education to me: it's a revolutionary and joyful choice.

So yes, I definitely consider unschooling  to be superior to other so-called methods of education.  No, I *shouldn't* simply be "seeking acceptance of unschooling as an equivalently effective method for preparing our children to become productive adults in our society".  I have absolutely no desire to become a "productive member of society" (=cog in a very large and currently earth destroying machine), or to suggest anyone else do such a thing.  What I want to be, and what I see as being created by unschooling/life learning/freeschooling is *good* (kind, compassionate, passionate, strong) people.  That's my wish and my hope, and more importantly than wishing and hoping, what I'm trying my hardest to be and do.

There are so many children in our world that need schools. 

No.  There are so many children in our world that need love, and food and shelter, and acceptance, and support, and trust.  No one *needs* schooling!

Guest Post: Eat & Be Free

I'm thrilled to feature a guest post from ps pirro, one of my favorite bloggers, a longtime online friend, and author of one of my favorite unschooling books, 101 Reasons Why I'm An Unschooler.  I hope you enjoy this article on food and freedom as much as I do!

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“If people lose their ability to feed themselves, how can they be said to be free?”

 ~Kentucky farmer & writer Wendell Berry

 

I’m not the first writer to point out that, prior to the last century, most of what we ate came directly to our tables from the ground, from the trees, and from the animals with whom we shared the planet.  Nor is it a revelation to note that this is no longer the case, that most of our food now comes from a factory, from a chemist’s lab, from vertically integrated corporate interests.  

You and I didn’t choose this arrangement, of course.  It preceded us.  But, oddly enough, the generations before us didn‘t exactly chose it, either.  What they chose -- and what many people today keep on choosing -- was something this arrangement seemed to offer: Freedom.

As Ben Hewitt, author of The Town that Food Saved, wrote, over the course of the last century, our culture made a bargain with the food industry.  We turned over the growing, raising, processing and delivery of our food to business interests, and in return we were liberated (most of us, anyway) from the dirt, manure, fickle weather, hot sun, long hours and manual labor of farming.  

We gained lives of clean fingernails and shoes that never touched mud.  We gained a professional class, a middle class, leisure time, and abundance.  We gained well-stocked supermarkets and full refrigerators, and the cost of food as a percentage of the household budget went down every year.  

What we gained looked a lot like freedom.  Fifty years ago, it seemed like a pretty good bargain.  

Today it looks like a Faustian pact.

It’s not just that the average morsel of food on our plates now travels 1200 miles to get to us, or that it takes eleven calories of fossil fuel energy to give us one calorie of food energy.  It’s not just the travesty of factory-farmed beef and chickens and hogs, or the loss of topsoil from over-plowing or the salinization and desertification from over-irrigating.  All those things matter, but there is more.  

The bargain we struck in the name of freedom has returned to haunt us on a fundamental level: it has undermined our sense of  what it means to be us.

The food we eat is our most intimate connection to the world.  It’s what becomes us.  It is us.   It’s us as individuals, and it’s us as a culture.  

When industrial food producers say, “We’ll make dinner,” they are asking us to relinquish that intimate connection.  To sever our taproot.  To become commodities eating commodities.  They’re also asking us to trust that their priorities as producers are aligned with our own as eaters.  That’s where the Faustian part of the bargain comes in.  Because the priorities of the industrial food producers have never been aligned with our own.  Industrial food producers have always been less concerned with our health and vitality -- and the health and vitality of the world in which we live -- than they are with our appetites.  It’s our appetites they aim to feed, not our deeply rooted need to be nourished.

Undoing the Faustian bargain doesn’t mean we all have to become farmers, but it does mean drawing the food loop a little -- or a lot -- closer to home.  It means educating ourselves about where the stuff we put on our plates comes from, how it’s grown, who grows it and how it reaches us -- and then acting on that awareness.  It means entering into relationship with our food and with those who grow it, something best done locally, right where we are.  

When we break away from industrial food -- even one small step at a time, at the weekly farmers market or in a backyard garden -- we regain some of what was lost in that Faustian bargain: a sense of where we come from, and what we’re made of, and made from, and how we’re a part of the soil and the air and the water, as it is a part of us.  We regain not just our sense of connection, but the actual connection itself,  becoming that which we partake of, drawing into ourselves the stuff of our particular place on Earth.

And that connection, created and sustained in the face of all that divides us, might prove to be the most freeing thing of all.

You did not come into this world, you came out of it, like a wave from the ocean.  

You are not a stranger here.

~Alan Watts