Is There a School Out There Better Than Homeschool? Even the Best Private School in the World Isn't as Good for One reason: the Family

I have gotten some emails from parents who do not want to homeschool their kids and are desperate to know what their other options are. I have been sent links to at least two dozen alternative schools. Most had all the same problems as the current standard indoctrination-education we call school but with fancy wording on their websites, but some are really trying to be different. It has been wonderful for me to see some of the options out there. It's heartwarming to know that there exists a tiny free market still alive in education trying to make the world a better place.

That being said, my conclusion so far is that being with Mom and Dad (or the person whose job your kid wants or a small, committed community) is best. More on this below, but here is the "gun to my head" (as one reader put it) answer to the question: "If it were absolutely impossible for you to keep your sons with you, what would you do?"

My first response is that I cannot imagine a situation in which it would be "absolutely impossible." But, okay, I will play along. If it were "absolutely impossible" for Anders and Henrik to stay with me, this is what I would do:

A RIE daycare, ages 0-1
A Montessori preschool, ages 2-6 (making sure it's a real one)
Thales Academy, ages 6-10
Apprenticeships
Higher education when wanted and only if truly necessary

BUT I would be willing to suffer so much pain to avoid any of these, because:

1.  It doesn't matter what school is chosen, I would not be the one raising my kid.

I have often thought of taking on two or three children from other people and teaching them along with Anders and Henrik. But that would not be ideal because the parent is not raising his or her own child. If I raised your kid, your kid and I would get along really well! But is that your goal? For your kid to get along really well with me? [More on this below]

2. The greatest predictor of Anders's and Henrik's future career choices are what their parents do. If Tom and I do not "bring Anders and Henrik to our life with us," we are depriving them of an education in the career they are most likely to pursue as adults. [More on this below as well]

More on Point 1: Why It Is So Important To Me That I Raise My Children

The vision of parenting sold to parents today is that we are birds. We raise our young, and then they fly away. That is what parenting was for my parents. They suffered through the rearing of their children and will spend the rest of their lives tolerating those adult-children at family holidays. If that. There is a lot of lip-service to the importance of family, but let's be honest: We can barely tolerate each other long enough to get through holidays. And even in families that like one another, they don't share their lives, just a couple days a year.

When I think about this model of family life I... would rather not have kids. Luckily, I know I am not a bird.

Monkeys form strong familial bonds and live in the same band as their parents about 50% of the time. Same with hunter-gatherers. About 50% of the children in hunter-gatherer societies leave their parent's band and join another band. The other 50% stay with their parents for their entire lives. There is a risk that these parents will have a kid with whom they don't want to share their lives, but there is also a 50% chance that their child will fight for his survival with them throughout their lives!

Now those are odds I would take! In that scenario, I would have kids.

My dream is a tightly bonded family, people with whom I really share my life, people with whom I battle for survival. I don't dream of seeing adult-Anders and adult-Henrik on holidays. I dream of them living next door. Or on the same farm. I would never force it, but that is my dream.

If I raise Anders and Henrik, if I bring them to life with me, I estimate that I have a 50% chance of creating this kind of life-long bond. If I hand Anders and Henrik to other people to raise, my chances of creating this kind of bond are close to zero. Is it possible for my children to be raised by someone other than me and still turn out to be someone with whom I am truly bonded and happy to spend my time? Hypothetically--sure! But I have not seen any evidence that that actually happens.

[Incidentally, the Amish have a 90% retention rate of their children. Why? Because they do not under any circumstances allow anyone else to raise their children. They don't homeschool though. They do one-room school houses that serve three to five families only. They hire the teachers. Their children walk to school and attend for no more than three hours each day and only through eighth grade. They have absolute control over what their children are taught--from the Amish reading program, to the excellent Amish grammar program, to Amish math textbooks... this is why "going to school" works for them.

Many religious groups have schools based around their religion and do not succeed like the Amish. This is largely because they allow their children to watch (be raised by) television programs and read (be influenced by) fiction books that accomplish largely the same task as public school--the children are being raise by someone other than their parents. Amish children do not do either of these things.

If my children could attend a one-room school house with just four other families involved where I had a huge sway over the curriculums used, I would do it in a second over homeschooling! But dreaming of things that do not actually exist is not the purpose of this essay. The point of this tangent though, is that my odds are 50% whereas the Amish have odds of 90%--their method, though unavailable to me--is superior to mine.]

The trend that I saw while working with families and their children was that parents and children had very little in common. They didn't share a life; they shared a house. Four to six strangers had dinner together sometimes and suffered through vacations together. There was talk about family being important, but all I saw were roads diverging from one another. Parents loved their kids but didn't like them. Children loved their parents but didn't want to have similar lives.

Today, animosity between parent and child is considered normal. We talk a big game about how important our families are, but on holidays and at weddings, when we have to actually spend time with those weirdos... those of us who aren't lying to ourselves, can't help but be heartbroken about the arrangement, the gulf between our siblings and ourselves, our parents and ourselves.

I saw this with endless couples as well. Two people leading totally separate lives who do drugs together on the weekend (TV, video games, alcohol...).

Think of how you feel when someone is on your team, the bond of fighting a battle with them! Maybe it was a sports team in your youth. Maybe it is someone you work with today. Going to war with your partners, the people who have your back, the people on whom your survival depends: these are bonds.

More on Point 2: The Dream Is The People, Not The Job

In Not Fade Away a wealthy, dying man leaves this piece of advice for his children: Do not take the highest paying job you can find. And don't worry very much about the actual job. Work for your hero. That's all you need to do to have a good life.

I read that after I came to that conclusion on my own. I moved to Los Angeles to "be an actress." But acting in disgusting movies I can't stand with people I can't stand... didn't turn out to be much of a dream worth fighting for. If I had it to do over again, I would not have decided on the job, acting, but rather the person, Clint Eastwood. I would have worked for him. I would have gotten him coffee for free until he hired me. I would have joined his team and learned everything I could from him about telling the stories I actually wanted to tell.

But largely, I think the Dream Job is a lie.

We are pelted with these family-destroying ideas our entire lives: Get off the farm and do something with your life! As if wearing a suit and being a paper pusher in the city is a real life. Be your own man--if you do what your parents do, you are a loser. If you take over Daddy's company you have failed. If you are a stay-at-home-mom you have failed. If you and your husband work together, you are overly involved. You are supposed to have your own life. Parents who homeschool their kids are failing to let their kids go and holding them back. A child's job is not to learn to work and live well with his parents, not to create his place in that clan, but to explore his own interests, so that he can leave the nest. Our job, as parents, is to pelt our children with infinite experiences, so that they can "find their passion."

This cultural script exists partly because parents and children can't stand each other and would never want to work together.

But it also exists because many parents fail to give up the keys to the kingdom. It goes squire, warrior-king, wise man. Not squire squire squire king. The minute your child is an adult with his own child, you are not the king of your clan. You are the wise advisor. Same with women. It goes maiden, warrior-queen, wise woman. Or, in my opinion, it should.

A study came out a year or two ago showing that people who live in small, intolerant communities are happier than people who live in large, tolerant/diverse ones. Small bands of like-minded monkeys traveling through life together.... We were taught that there was a job out there that should be our dream. But what if that is not true? What if people are the dream? People with whom to fight the battle of survival who make your heart sing?

But let's say there are some people who do have One True Job Passion and Anders is one of them. Would it behoove him to have his time wasted in school because he just has to know about All Kinds Of Things or would he be better off at home, where he is allowed to pursue that One True Passion all he wants?

Moreover, I have a theory that a truly brilliant career takes at least two and usually three generations to make. I have a great post about it here--

http://roslynross.blogspot.com/2015/03/nature-versus-nurture.html

Despite the efforts made by schooling and our cultural script, the best predictor of someone's future job is still what his parents did. Yet the child who is going to grow up and be a writer like her dad anyway, wastes 22 years memorizing random things first and acquiring massive debt. Why?!

No matter how great the school, if I send my kid there, I am depriving him of learning about the career in which he will most likely end up! He could acquire his 10,000 hours in that career by the time he is 14! Or 18! Or he can waste 22 years trying to find his "passion" and start acquiring his 10,000 hours (which takes about ten years) at age 22.

So: knowing that the greatest predictor of my child's future job is my job or my husband's job, and knowing it takes 10,000 hours to become world-class at something... why on Earth would I send my child to even the best school in the world, so that he can spend 15,000 hours becoming world-class at nothing? And at the same time deprive him of excellence in the career he is most likely to have!?

I could only possibly do that if I bought into the idea that there is a One True Passion out there just waiting for Anders and Henrik to discover (if only they are exposed to this-wild-mess-of-everything that is attempted in schools). And if I believe that your job is more important than your people.

Let's say Anders is an expert at my job and Tom's job by the time he is fourteen, but he decides he doesn't want that to be his job. He still has plenty of time to do something else. And it's certainly not like he isn't exposed to a ton of other things just by going to life with me! It's only the kids shut up in school-jail all day who don't get exposed to the varieties that life has to offer since they are being deprived of actually living it. (And note that should Anders want to apprentice with someone other than me and Tom at any time, he is free to do so. Likewise should he want to go to school.)

My conclusion at this time is that there is no school better than homeschool.* Because whichever way you cut it, the child not living life with his or her parents is being raised by Not Them to be Not Like Them.

*Except Amish one room school houses and likeminded homeschooling groups.