This is such an important conversation! I’m a former public school teacher who decided, way back in 1996, to homeschool with my three now-grown kids. I learned so much from my kids about how to give them independence and agency, and how to trust them. And for me, it was a very intellectually satisfying life, though our culture loudly insists it would be otherwise!
What concerns me now is that not only do we not respect children in our society, we have—in the last thirty years or so—stolen away their autonomy. I’m writing a book about this and it’s alarming how this has come about for a whole slew of reasons: the rise of parenting “experts,” the No Child Left Behind Act, changes in the college application process, fears for children’s safety, the rise of intensive parenting…I could go on.
But all the media seems to talk about is how kids are being ruined by phones.😩
There is so much more we need to be looking at when it comes to children. I’m really worried about what we’re doing to childhood. I’m grateful that you’re taking time to shine a light on this, Sarah. It matters.
Thank you so much for this comment, Patricia, and major props to you for your work as a homeschooler! I know how hard – and also how rewarding – it is. I am fascinated by your book! Children's autonomy is so low on the list of priorities that I don't think most people even realize how little they have, or how important it is...and what I'm seeing in my college students is this really disturbing apathy about their own futures. They are so used to doing what they're told and what's expected of them that they don't even know what they really want or care about.
I had a moment this semester when I asked all of them, "Are you happy with the classes you're taking?" and NOT A SINGLE ONE raised their hand (out of 15 students). I asked them, "When will you get to choose?" They did not know, nor had it occurred to them that this was a problem. It was a mind-blowing moment for me.
I’ve heard similar stories from other college professors. 😔I’m about to publish a newsletter about kids who still have fallow time in their lives to play and make and create—something not valued in current parenting culture. I’m convinced that kids who grow up this way—like most kids used to—will not be sitting passively in college classrooms someday.
Wow your observation about spending more effort to figure out outdoor dining than outdoor schooling is brutal, yet so true. Thanks for this powerful post.
These ideas have been in the Zeitgeist. since before A.S. Neill started Summerhill school in 1921. I read the book years ago and it had an impact on me, although I don’t think I ever bought into his tolerance for allowing destruction as a way to work things out. It seemed to work for him though. Maybe he didn’t write about the times it didn’t.
Anyway, I think kids thrive best with freedom within limits that are based upon personal safety and a respect for the rights of others that develops as their age. (Ideally, adult freedom functions best when also within limits, preferably self imposed limits. One attribute of wisdom is restraint.)What I actually see in our society is often, not aways, either a sense of entitlement in upper middle to middle class kids, or a subtle sense of resignation and lower expectations with working class kids, and those of color.
Of course, it wasn’t mentioned in this piece that it’s hard to raise children into responsible, mature adults when most of the parents in this country aren’t mature adults. So many adults in this country, conservative and progressive, often behave like spoiled adolescents. I say this with sadness because I see it all around us.
The issue of healthy childhoods on a large scale won’t be resolved until our culture has a transformative experience in the meaning and values it holds. Strict materialism and corporate capitalism have gutted Western culture’s sense of the sacred. This is not to espouse a particular religion, or even any religion at all. I simply point out that life is sacred. When we grok that the lives of our children will be different.
"Strict materialism and corporate capitalism have gutted Western culture’s sense of the sacred. This is not to espouse a particular religion, or even any religion at all. I simply point out that life is sacred. When we grok that the lives of our children will be different." Could not agree more, Kevin!
I've followed Eloise's work for a long time and I'm so glad this conversation is entering the zeitgeist. I have two children and it breaks my heart to see how stifled and controlled most children's lives are. There is no free play, no freedom, no time outside, no climbing trees, no making up games, no adventure. Children are supposed to be constantly under adult supervision. Every single moment of their lives is controlled. We are allowed to openly mock them and discourage them from public places. They are legally allowed to be hit in most English speaking countries still. No wonder they're all anxious and depressed.
I certainly don't think the phones are helping (I notice my own mental health suffering when I'm on mine too much), but just taking away the phones isn't enough. We also have to give them rich lives full of freedom and risk and independence, and treat them with dignity as if they are FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS. (They are!)
We used to live in LA and when I would let my then 4 year old daughter play in the front yard, people would stop their cars and ask her where her adult was. It was wild. They were so freaked out by the sight of a child outside without an adult. She would be making fairy houses and having conversations with herself. Things she would never do if she could sense I was observing her. I had to beg her best friend's mom to let them play out there together, (and assure her they would not be kidnapped). Once she and said friend picked a bunch of our flowers and started selling them to neighbors walking by. They made $5 and were so proud of themselves.
We live in NYC and she's six now. There's a bodega around the corner from us and her goal is by the end of the summer she wants to be able to walk there by herself and buy a piece of candy with her own money. My husband and I are practicing with her so she can in a few months when she feels confident about it.
It really sucks when you're the only people trying to raise your kids this way though. My daydream is for my kids to have a pack of children in the neighborhood to run around with....but no one else lets their kids outside on their own.
There's also a great documentary called Chasing Childhood on this subject that everyone should watch!
"My daydream is for my kids to have a pack of children in the neighborhood to run around with....but no one else lets their kids outside on their own." Yes, same here! My daydream is to not have to send my daughter to summer camp: for the neighborhood kids to go to the pool together, run around together, go to the park...so we don't have to spend $450 a week for the kids to draw coloring pages in a field. It's such a big community issue as well as a personal one!
Thank you Sarah for again hitting where I needed. This is something I think about often. What would our culture and society look like if from the top down we had a child centered approach? Certainly it would be radically different.
I enjoyed reading this and found several of your points to be salient, but I do have to ask what the limiting principle is. Would an 8 year old be permitted to work a full time job? Enlist in the military? Are we arguing that the age of consent should be abolished? Basically, as someone unfamiliar with Rickman's work, I'm curious as to whether this an argument for total liberation or a reconsideration of where and why the existing limits are placed.
You should check out her work! These are all good questions. I think she would have some slightly more unconventional answers than I would. For me, I think it's a re-examination of existing limits. It's shocking how little children's voices are hold in our society. It's also shocking how much we underestimate them in comparison to other societies across time.
Wow the connection between women’s liberation, modern motherhood, and children’s liberation is compelling! I can see the common thread, which I hadn’t thought of before. Thank you!
This is such an important conversation! I’m a former public school teacher who decided, way back in 1996, to homeschool with my three now-grown kids. I learned so much from my kids about how to give them independence and agency, and how to trust them. And for me, it was a very intellectually satisfying life, though our culture loudly insists it would be otherwise!
What concerns me now is that not only do we not respect children in our society, we have—in the last thirty years or so—stolen away their autonomy. I’m writing a book about this and it’s alarming how this has come about for a whole slew of reasons: the rise of parenting “experts,” the No Child Left Behind Act, changes in the college application process, fears for children’s safety, the rise of intensive parenting…I could go on.
But all the media seems to talk about is how kids are being ruined by phones.😩
There is so much more we need to be looking at when it comes to children. I’m really worried about what we’re doing to childhood. I’m grateful that you’re taking time to shine a light on this, Sarah. It matters.
Thank you so much for this comment, Patricia, and major props to you for your work as a homeschooler! I know how hard – and also how rewarding – it is. I am fascinated by your book! Children's autonomy is so low on the list of priorities that I don't think most people even realize how little they have, or how important it is...and what I'm seeing in my college students is this really disturbing apathy about their own futures. They are so used to doing what they're told and what's expected of them that they don't even know what they really want or care about.
Disturbing apathy. Ugh. Yes. That’s heartbreaking and, in my mind, definitely fallout from this.
I had a moment this semester when I asked all of them, "Are you happy with the classes you're taking?" and NOT A SINGLE ONE raised their hand (out of 15 students). I asked them, "When will you get to choose?" They did not know, nor had it occurred to them that this was a problem. It was a mind-blowing moment for me.
I’ve heard similar stories from other college professors. 😔I’m about to publish a newsletter about kids who still have fallow time in their lives to play and make and create—something not valued in current parenting culture. I’m convinced that kids who grow up this way—like most kids used to—will not be sitting passively in college classrooms someday.
Wow your observation about spending more effort to figure out outdoor dining than outdoor schooling is brutal, yet so true. Thanks for this powerful post.
These ideas have been in the Zeitgeist. since before A.S. Neill started Summerhill school in 1921. I read the book years ago and it had an impact on me, although I don’t think I ever bought into his tolerance for allowing destruction as a way to work things out. It seemed to work for him though. Maybe he didn’t write about the times it didn’t.
Anyway, I think kids thrive best with freedom within limits that are based upon personal safety and a respect for the rights of others that develops as their age. (Ideally, adult freedom functions best when also within limits, preferably self imposed limits. One attribute of wisdom is restraint.)What I actually see in our society is often, not aways, either a sense of entitlement in upper middle to middle class kids, or a subtle sense of resignation and lower expectations with working class kids, and those of color.
Of course, it wasn’t mentioned in this piece that it’s hard to raise children into responsible, mature adults when most of the parents in this country aren’t mature adults. So many adults in this country, conservative and progressive, often behave like spoiled adolescents. I say this with sadness because I see it all around us.
The issue of healthy childhoods on a large scale won’t be resolved until our culture has a transformative experience in the meaning and values it holds. Strict materialism and corporate capitalism have gutted Western culture’s sense of the sacred. This is not to espouse a particular religion, or even any religion at all. I simply point out that life is sacred. When we grok that the lives of our children will be different.
"Strict materialism and corporate capitalism have gutted Western culture’s sense of the sacred. This is not to espouse a particular religion, or even any religion at all. I simply point out that life is sacred. When we grok that the lives of our children will be different." Could not agree more, Kevin!
I've followed Eloise's work for a long time and I'm so glad this conversation is entering the zeitgeist. I have two children and it breaks my heart to see how stifled and controlled most children's lives are. There is no free play, no freedom, no time outside, no climbing trees, no making up games, no adventure. Children are supposed to be constantly under adult supervision. Every single moment of their lives is controlled. We are allowed to openly mock them and discourage them from public places. They are legally allowed to be hit in most English speaking countries still. No wonder they're all anxious and depressed.
I certainly don't think the phones are helping (I notice my own mental health suffering when I'm on mine too much), but just taking away the phones isn't enough. We also have to give them rich lives full of freedom and risk and independence, and treat them with dignity as if they are FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS. (They are!)
We used to live in LA and when I would let my then 4 year old daughter play in the front yard, people would stop their cars and ask her where her adult was. It was wild. They were so freaked out by the sight of a child outside without an adult. She would be making fairy houses and having conversations with herself. Things she would never do if she could sense I was observing her. I had to beg her best friend's mom to let them play out there together, (and assure her they would not be kidnapped). Once she and said friend picked a bunch of our flowers and started selling them to neighbors walking by. They made $5 and were so proud of themselves.
We live in NYC and she's six now. There's a bodega around the corner from us and her goal is by the end of the summer she wants to be able to walk there by herself and buy a piece of candy with her own money. My husband and I are practicing with her so she can in a few months when she feels confident about it.
It really sucks when you're the only people trying to raise your kids this way though. My daydream is for my kids to have a pack of children in the neighborhood to run around with....but no one else lets their kids outside on their own.
There's also a great documentary called Chasing Childhood on this subject that everyone should watch!
"My daydream is for my kids to have a pack of children in the neighborhood to run around with....but no one else lets their kids outside on their own." Yes, same here! My daydream is to not have to send my daughter to summer camp: for the neighborhood kids to go to the pool together, run around together, go to the park...so we don't have to spend $450 a week for the kids to draw coloring pages in a field. It's such a big community issue as well as a personal one!
Thank you Sarah for again hitting where I needed. This is something I think about often. What would our culture and society look like if from the top down we had a child centered approach? Certainly it would be radically different.
That was beautiful, thank you. And it seems fitting I read it today on the birthday of my child who seemingly was born to teach me this lesson. :)
I shared it with the homeschooling community!
Thank you!
This is profound and a very necessary conversation. This is one area I haven’t delved into as much as I’ve wanted to in my own work.
Also, solidarity in the child-free weddings. My mom’s side of the family (so my cousins) had FOUR🫠
That is insane!!
I enjoyed reading this and found several of your points to be salient, but I do have to ask what the limiting principle is. Would an 8 year old be permitted to work a full time job? Enlist in the military? Are we arguing that the age of consent should be abolished? Basically, as someone unfamiliar with Rickman's work, I'm curious as to whether this an argument for total liberation or a reconsideration of where and why the existing limits are placed.
You should check out her work! These are all good questions. I think she would have some slightly more unconventional answers than I would. For me, I think it's a re-examination of existing limits. It's shocking how little children's voices are hold in our society. It's also shocking how much we underestimate them in comparison to other societies across time.
Nailing it, again! Thanks for this.
A phenomenal article.
Wow, fantastic writing here!!
Thanks Rose!
Brilliant! Thanks for writing this and giving the issue the attention it deserves
Wow the connection between women’s liberation, modern motherhood, and children’s liberation is compelling! I can see the common thread, which I hadn’t thought of before. Thank you!