Reading this, I also thought about how adults in modern societies miss out on “normal adulthoods.” We might work with other adults, but our home lives are nuclear. I don’t think this is an active choice from adults, it’s simply the only arrangement we know.
I notice that when this “nuclear-ness” is interrupted, adults and children alike behave more like you describe. I think of our experiences camping with friends, when the adults socialize and do cooking, cleaning, etc together and the children band together and disappear out of sight.
My feeling is that adults and children both feel freedom from this arrangement. My hunch is if we had more social ways of living for adults, the problems you describe for children would also be fixed. (Maybe not full-on communal living, but community centers, neighborhood meet-ups, etc)
With my first child, I definitely fell into the "mom must be EVERYTHING to child" mindset. I spent all of my daughter's waking hours engaging her in play, talking to her endlessly to enrich her vocabulary, interacting with her at all times. In fact, I only did housework and chores when she was napping or after she went to bed at night, so as to not deny her one second of important brain development stimulation.
However, when she was about a year old, she gave up the morning nap - so now I had a lot more time to fill up, and less time to get my own things done. I also was pregnant with my second child, and all that obsessive over-mothering was getting exhausting. It occurred to me that my own mother had never been my primary source of amusement - she was certainly loving and attentive, but 1960s moms didn't feel they had to be their children's entertainment. And my grandmother -- well, she raised six children in the 1910s and 1920s, so she was sewing their clothes, baking seven loaves of bread every Saturday, butchering her own chickens and growing and canning her own fruits and vegetables, all without Baby Mozart videos. Yet both my mom and I had turned out just fine; somehow, our brains developed without anyone showing up flashcards as we lay in our cribs.
So I made a conscious decision to not be that overzealous mother any more - and my daughter seemed to appreciate not being under my constant scrutiny. In fact, I realized I was overstimulating her and that partly why she was such a fussy baby! When my second and third children came along, I encouraged them to entertain each other; and by then we had moved to a neighborhood with lots of kids, so every day there'd be a few slightly older children who'd show up to play with my toddlers and who loved entertaining the baby.
My kids were really good at coming up with imagination games on their own; so I only interfered if there was danger or destruction. They all have happy memories of the elaborate make-believe worlds they came up with together. My favorite was the time I walked out into the back yard and discovered they had constructed a giant spider-web looking installment of ropes anchored between the trees and the swing set.
"Are you guys pretending to be spiders?" I asked.
"NO! We're playing butter factory!" my daughter responded, with a look that implied maybe I was a little slow on the uptake.
Fifteen-odd years later, they still remember that butter factory game fondly!
This is an interesting discussion and I probably should read the Gabor Mate book. The experiences described here do not fit with my experiences growing up, free range, in many different villages and two cities (we moved a lot), including my experiences in a mixed-race working class neighborhood. Nor does it fit with my experiences as an observer of children's independent play in many context as a researcher. However, I can't deny your experiences, and I'm sure what is being described here does happen. Also, I should be clear in pointing out that although kids learn a lot from peers, the evidence is that they acquire their values and life philosophy primarily from their parents. This is not from verbal lectures from the parents, but from seeing their parents as examples.
I have had a pretty indigenous upbringing, in a very large family in India. While it is true that kids spend a lot of time with other adults, the parents are not off working far away. They are very much present. Americans seem to think the equivalent of the village of old is to parcel off kids to institutional care. No, it is anything but. People are in the same context, doing things together. While I did spend a lot of time with uncles and aunts, my parents also spent a lot of time with my cousins.
I have written in depth about my experience of growing up in a "village" and squaring it with American childrearing in three posts:
As someone who was a caregiver for many younger siblings and cousins, they don't just leave kids to each other to run wild all day. There is a lot of responsibility expected from older children. If you're not being a good kid, you're marked as a bad influence and parents tell their kids not to associate with you. Parents are very protective of children and determined to make sure they have good examples, and their own kid should be seen as a good example to others. There's a social enforcement of good behavior from children. Bullying behaviors are very harshly punished. Physically weaker children are protected by stronger children, not bullied like is common in the US. If nothing, your gang of kids involves your siblings and cousins so if anyone is mean to you, you have a whole posse to fight on your behalf.
If you look at these cultures where children have a lot of freedom, female labor force participation is very low. I remember throwing stones at a mango tree five streets away with my cousins and came back home to my angry mother standing at the gate (we didn't have a phone). Kids are free because moms are around to ensure good behavior. Even if your own mom wasn't around, all the other moms were still keeping an eye on you.
With my own experience as a mom, you develop more confidence in your kid as you spend MORE time with them, and are much more protective of them when you spend LESS time as you don't know what they are capable of and how much they have developed.
Besides if your mom (Or dad or grandma) is at home, you're going to be able to be at home and run off to play. If they are out working, as are all the parents in the neighborhood, they'd rather have you in a daycare or aftercare because they don't want you to be the victim of crime.
If you want kids to be more free and playing, you're going to want more mom involvement, not less.
This felt very resonant! My wife and I have a 1-year old and we spend time in rural communities in Mexico for her work, and it's dramatic to me to see how our son comes alive when we're out there and other little kids pick him up, play with him, take him on adventures around their home, etc.
Lots of this letter also seems to echo what we've read in The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff and Hunt-Gather Parent by Michaeleen Doucleff (which makes sense since all draw primarily from indigenous societies as their source of inspiration/wisdom).
In terms of re-creating this in a context like modern America, my wife and I have talked about this a lot and we've come to trying to live in an ecovillage/cohousing community with other young families (in our case, it's rootednw.org), and start a self-directed forest school. So our approach is basically kids in a cohousing neighborhood and/or self-directed education, but would really love to learn from others who've tried these approaches or have others they'd recommend!
Not just mothers, dear Prof Gray. I brought up my daughter by myself for about 10 years, before her mother, who was totally absent from our lives, came and (literally) abducted my daughter in Japan. My main point is that even myself as a father, pushed myself to do everything humanly possible to support my daughter, in every way. I wish I read your article 10 years ago, which would have changed that I thought I "must" do 100% for my daughter all the time, and for anything to support her life, and give her every opportunity (aiming for Ivy League University, Olympic Sports training, entertaining all the time, travelling with her to show her all the famous sites and museums around the world, this goes on...)
I was so excited to see this letter hit my inbox! As a mum of 4 boys, 3 of whom I homeschool in a self-directed environment, I often feel the pressure to be everything to my kids. This pressure I know I put on myself partly because of my personality as well as my value of self-directed learning, but I also believe this pressure partly comes from a belief system that floats around in society that kids actions are directly caused by their parent’s, in particular, their mother’s choices. In times of pressure, I find myself reacting to the behaviours exhibited as a result of this societal belief system (what I refer to as adults behaving badly) with the thought, “Give me a god dam break…I put enough pressure on myself and I don’t need you to add to it!”
I definitely have come along way not only in my courage to follow my own heart but also my courage to not take personally another person’s judgement, but still face the challenge of finding and creating enough opportunities for my kids to play freely with other kids. Thankfully my boys have each other spread across ages 9-17 (that like everything comes with challenges also), but particularly for my 9 year old, I do question whether I’m doing the right thing by supporting his decision to continue homeschooling over him returning to school.
So thank you for writing this letter as it brings my attention back to what is mine to control and what is mine to let go of.
I’m a “relaxed” homeschooling mom of 3 boys and I will say that my life as a mom has gotten much easier now that my youngest is 2 and able to play with his big brothers. He definitely prefers their company most of the time, which makes sense to me; they’re a lot more fun! We also have a group of other homeschooling families we get together with regularly and while the moms are all around, the kids really do their own thing for the majority of our time together. I feel like this is the most balanced childhood I can give my sons in our current culture, and it has taken a lot of the pressure I felt to be “everything” when my boys were super little.
Accepting that our modern life is far away from what is described here, I think it is possible to have happy parents and happy kids by ensuring 2 key elements: regular connection with trusted adults/children, and allowing age appropriate independence (trusting the child to do its own thing). The 2 reinforce one another in my opinion.
Wow. I agree with this 100%. I have been reading books like Hunt, Gather, and Parent, which place less of an emphasis of parents constantly monitoring and directing children. I've looked up statistics on where children are happier in world like Sweden, who don't even start formal education until 6, but here, there's a pressure for kids to be "early readers" and etc. Although I think that the example is definitely an extreme, I tend to bear more towards "let my kids do whatever they want to do and leave them be!" and tend to gravitate more towards parents who also feel that way, HOWEVER they are far and few in between here in the USA and I've been on the lookout to find them.
What I've observed is that the more that I leave my children alone in their play, the more less they depend on me to be their playmate and my kids rely on each other to play instead. I've wanted even more kids because of it, but as I've said, the pressure of the modern mom is sometimes debilitating to even THINK about wanting kids, let alone more.
Many of us raised 1n 1950-60's had Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn enchanted childhoods. Though even back then, 3rd grade teachers warned to not take candy or rides from strangers. But there were more integral families back then, whereas today, —
1. 80% of all single parents in the U.S. are single mothers.
2. 52.9% of single mothers are millennials.
3. 15.6 million children live in single-mother households in the U.S.
4. 52.3% of single mothers have never been married, 29.3% are divorced.
5. Single mothers have a 35.6% smaller median income than single fathers.
6. Only 45.9% of single parents receive full child support.
7. Annual cost of child care is $10,174, which is 35% of a single-parent income.
8. 28.9% of single-mother households live below the poverty level.
Our social failure contrasts with these observations: —Letter from Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, is.gd/OInxcP
«When an Indian Child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our Customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and make one Indian Ramble with them there is no persuading him ever to return, and that this is not natural merely as Indians, but as men, is plain from this, that when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoner young by the Indians, and lived awhile among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them.
One instance I remember to have heard, where the person was to be brought home to possess a good Estate; but finding some care necessary to keep it together, he relinquished it to a younger brother, reserving to himself nothing but a gun and match-Coat, with which he took his way again to the Wilderness. ...»
Is it not common in the US and o do play dates with other mums or dads? In Europe it is super common, you just meet with other family, with kids of similar ages and leave them alone to play by themselves. Our friends community has shifted to other parents with kids of similar age. They play and we have adult interactions, that is the way to be closer to a community that we don’t have anymore in this modern world.
It is. I am a homeschooler and meet multiple times a week with other homeschoolers, and other days meet with family or go to church. However, I think one difference between this and these villages is that an adult must drive these kids around to everything. We live in the county and my kids do not have many opportunities to interact with others unless I transport them. (Not counting online interactions like video calls). This limits how and when because I must also set aside time to take care of tasks at home. So instead of this happening naturally, we must create it. We must create every instant of it.
You cannot free-range your children today. You will get called in; Many middle class mothers have faced persecution and even arrest and removal of children for allowing their children to be independent in this world. There seems to be more predatory adult men targeting our children - or maybe they’ve just gained the knowledge that little will be done if they get caught. Either way seems like a problem for men to step up and figure out. Women are continually fixing the problems forced upon us by male behaviour.
You could also go back pre-agriculture and see something different as well. The Great Cosmic Mother is a starting point for a huge perspective shift. When we end adult male colonial hierarchal violence against women and children as well as marginalized groups - there might be a way to free-range children once again.
The solution to this is actually in a matrilocal society- where man is not head of a nuclear patriarchal family. Where many women come together to watch over and caretake the children.
I’d also like to just drop Gabor Mate and Peter Levine’s book “Hold onto your Kids”. Peer culture in this day and age is terrifying.
I had this free-range up bringing where I was forced into peer groups that held no interest to me whatsoever. Every day I was outside until the street lights came on. If I had chosen as a kid - I would have chosen to spend all of my time with my mother and none with the peer groups I was involuntarily thrust into. My husband also would have chosen similarly.
Yeah I have read that book as well. Peer culture starts very early, with many parents bragging how their 4 year old is going on sleepovers with their best friend from preschool.
Even if you have the best peers, I find kids don't learn many skills or good manners if an adult isn't present as an attachment figure. In the past when I've brought up bullying, the author here has dismissed those concerns, but they are quite real. Even with close supervision, some 8 year olds in the neighborhood took aside my friend's six year old and beat him up for fun, and the kid was too shocked and ashamed to tell his parents. Parents are inclined to say "boys will be boys" but this is not the kind of behavior you ought to normalize in children.
I would like to hear Peter's take on Mate's book too. I think they key is to understanding the desired balance to unschooling - the balance between neglect & full-control; what we want to achieve is leading & nurturing children to deep discovery of their passions and interests. Not being "forced into peer" groups and not smothering them and having them avoid learning from their own mistakes. Curating their serendipitous path, but letting them take the steps and choose the speed.
"Hold onto your Kids" came to my mind too. I would be interested to read Peter's take on that book. If wonder if the harmful elements of today's youth peer culture (in mass educated / industrial society) are due to the level of repression and domination by adults. Which is probably a downward spiral - adults see something harmful, eg. bullying via social media, and clamp down even harder, leading to even more volatile youth behaviour.
Dr. Gray, I'm curious about your thoughts regarding the caregivers that choose to outsource childcare to media sources (Miss Rachel, etc.). Social media seemed riddled with parents thanking content creators for acting as their childcare, which you accurately mentioned can be an extremely expensive familial support that is out of reach for most. Do you believe this could also lead to social isolation at such a young age?
Great letter as always, thank you! One thing about Kenyan villages, and Madagascar villages, as well as many of the free play infused villages of time immemorial is they were anything but “diverse” in modern terms. What do you make of the research showing neighborhood diversity leads to lower social trust among neighbors? Is that a factor in the death of free play?
Reading this, I also thought about how adults in modern societies miss out on “normal adulthoods.” We might work with other adults, but our home lives are nuclear. I don’t think this is an active choice from adults, it’s simply the only arrangement we know.
I notice that when this “nuclear-ness” is interrupted, adults and children alike behave more like you describe. I think of our experiences camping with friends, when the adults socialize and do cooking, cleaning, etc together and the children band together and disappear out of sight.
My feeling is that adults and children both feel freedom from this arrangement. My hunch is if we had more social ways of living for adults, the problems you describe for children would also be fixed. (Maybe not full-on communal living, but community centers, neighborhood meet-ups, etc)
With my first child, I definitely fell into the "mom must be EVERYTHING to child" mindset. I spent all of my daughter's waking hours engaging her in play, talking to her endlessly to enrich her vocabulary, interacting with her at all times. In fact, I only did housework and chores when she was napping or after she went to bed at night, so as to not deny her one second of important brain development stimulation.
However, when she was about a year old, she gave up the morning nap - so now I had a lot more time to fill up, and less time to get my own things done. I also was pregnant with my second child, and all that obsessive over-mothering was getting exhausting. It occurred to me that my own mother had never been my primary source of amusement - she was certainly loving and attentive, but 1960s moms didn't feel they had to be their children's entertainment. And my grandmother -- well, she raised six children in the 1910s and 1920s, so she was sewing their clothes, baking seven loaves of bread every Saturday, butchering her own chickens and growing and canning her own fruits and vegetables, all without Baby Mozart videos. Yet both my mom and I had turned out just fine; somehow, our brains developed without anyone showing up flashcards as we lay in our cribs.
So I made a conscious decision to not be that overzealous mother any more - and my daughter seemed to appreciate not being under my constant scrutiny. In fact, I realized I was overstimulating her and that partly why she was such a fussy baby! When my second and third children came along, I encouraged them to entertain each other; and by then we had moved to a neighborhood with lots of kids, so every day there'd be a few slightly older children who'd show up to play with my toddlers and who loved entertaining the baby.
My kids were really good at coming up with imagination games on their own; so I only interfered if there was danger or destruction. They all have happy memories of the elaborate make-believe worlds they came up with together. My favorite was the time I walked out into the back yard and discovered they had constructed a giant spider-web looking installment of ropes anchored between the trees and the swing set.
"Are you guys pretending to be spiders?" I asked.
"NO! We're playing butter factory!" my daughter responded, with a look that implied maybe I was a little slow on the uptake.
Fifteen-odd years later, they still remember that butter factory game fondly!
This is an interesting discussion and I probably should read the Gabor Mate book. The experiences described here do not fit with my experiences growing up, free range, in many different villages and two cities (we moved a lot), including my experiences in a mixed-race working class neighborhood. Nor does it fit with my experiences as an observer of children's independent play in many context as a researcher. However, I can't deny your experiences, and I'm sure what is being described here does happen. Also, I should be clear in pointing out that although kids learn a lot from peers, the evidence is that they acquire their values and life philosophy primarily from their parents. This is not from verbal lectures from the parents, but from seeing their parents as examples.
I have had a pretty indigenous upbringing, in a very large family in India. While it is true that kids spend a lot of time with other adults, the parents are not off working far away. They are very much present. Americans seem to think the equivalent of the village of old is to parcel off kids to institutional care. No, it is anything but. People are in the same context, doing things together. While I did spend a lot of time with uncles and aunts, my parents also spent a lot of time with my cousins.
I have written in depth about my experience of growing up in a "village" and squaring it with American childrearing in three posts:
https://lila2.substack.com/p/how-it-takes-a-village
https://lila2.substack.com/p/the-village-ii-the-village-isnt-for
https://lila2.substack.com/p/the-village-iii-villages-help-parent
As someone who was a caregiver for many younger siblings and cousins, they don't just leave kids to each other to run wild all day. There is a lot of responsibility expected from older children. If you're not being a good kid, you're marked as a bad influence and parents tell their kids not to associate with you. Parents are very protective of children and determined to make sure they have good examples, and their own kid should be seen as a good example to others. There's a social enforcement of good behavior from children. Bullying behaviors are very harshly punished. Physically weaker children are protected by stronger children, not bullied like is common in the US. If nothing, your gang of kids involves your siblings and cousins so if anyone is mean to you, you have a whole posse to fight on your behalf.
If you look at these cultures where children have a lot of freedom, female labor force participation is very low. I remember throwing stones at a mango tree five streets away with my cousins and came back home to my angry mother standing at the gate (we didn't have a phone). Kids are free because moms are around to ensure good behavior. Even if your own mom wasn't around, all the other moms were still keeping an eye on you.
With my own experience as a mom, you develop more confidence in your kid as you spend MORE time with them, and are much more protective of them when you spend LESS time as you don't know what they are capable of and how much they have developed.
Besides if your mom (Or dad or grandma) is at home, you're going to be able to be at home and run off to play. If they are out working, as are all the parents in the neighborhood, they'd rather have you in a daycare or aftercare because they don't want you to be the victim of crime.
If you want kids to be more free and playing, you're going to want more mom involvement, not less.
This felt very resonant! My wife and I have a 1-year old and we spend time in rural communities in Mexico for her work, and it's dramatic to me to see how our son comes alive when we're out there and other little kids pick him up, play with him, take him on adventures around their home, etc.
Lots of this letter also seems to echo what we've read in The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff and Hunt-Gather Parent by Michaeleen Doucleff (which makes sense since all draw primarily from indigenous societies as their source of inspiration/wisdom).
In terms of re-creating this in a context like modern America, my wife and I have talked about this a lot and we've come to trying to live in an ecovillage/cohousing community with other young families (in our case, it's rootednw.org), and start a self-directed forest school. So our approach is basically kids in a cohousing neighborhood and/or self-directed education, but would really love to learn from others who've tried these approaches or have others they'd recommend!
Not just mothers, dear Prof Gray. I brought up my daughter by myself for about 10 years, before her mother, who was totally absent from our lives, came and (literally) abducted my daughter in Japan. My main point is that even myself as a father, pushed myself to do everything humanly possible to support my daughter, in every way. I wish I read your article 10 years ago, which would have changed that I thought I "must" do 100% for my daughter all the time, and for anything to support her life, and give her every opportunity (aiming for Ivy League University, Olympic Sports training, entertaining all the time, travelling with her to show her all the famous sites and museums around the world, this goes on...)
I was so excited to see this letter hit my inbox! As a mum of 4 boys, 3 of whom I homeschool in a self-directed environment, I often feel the pressure to be everything to my kids. This pressure I know I put on myself partly because of my personality as well as my value of self-directed learning, but I also believe this pressure partly comes from a belief system that floats around in society that kids actions are directly caused by their parent’s, in particular, their mother’s choices. In times of pressure, I find myself reacting to the behaviours exhibited as a result of this societal belief system (what I refer to as adults behaving badly) with the thought, “Give me a god dam break…I put enough pressure on myself and I don’t need you to add to it!”
I definitely have come along way not only in my courage to follow my own heart but also my courage to not take personally another person’s judgement, but still face the challenge of finding and creating enough opportunities for my kids to play freely with other kids. Thankfully my boys have each other spread across ages 9-17 (that like everything comes with challenges also), but particularly for my 9 year old, I do question whether I’m doing the right thing by supporting his decision to continue homeschooling over him returning to school.
So thank you for writing this letter as it brings my attention back to what is mine to control and what is mine to let go of.
I’m a “relaxed” homeschooling mom of 3 boys and I will say that my life as a mom has gotten much easier now that my youngest is 2 and able to play with his big brothers. He definitely prefers their company most of the time, which makes sense to me; they’re a lot more fun! We also have a group of other homeschooling families we get together with regularly and while the moms are all around, the kids really do their own thing for the majority of our time together. I feel like this is the most balanced childhood I can give my sons in our current culture, and it has taken a lot of the pressure I felt to be “everything” when my boys were super little.
Accepting that our modern life is far away from what is described here, I think it is possible to have happy parents and happy kids by ensuring 2 key elements: regular connection with trusted adults/children, and allowing age appropriate independence (trusting the child to do its own thing). The 2 reinforce one another in my opinion.
Wow. I agree with this 100%. I have been reading books like Hunt, Gather, and Parent, which place less of an emphasis of parents constantly monitoring and directing children. I've looked up statistics on where children are happier in world like Sweden, who don't even start formal education until 6, but here, there's a pressure for kids to be "early readers" and etc. Although I think that the example is definitely an extreme, I tend to bear more towards "let my kids do whatever they want to do and leave them be!" and tend to gravitate more towards parents who also feel that way, HOWEVER they are far and few in between here in the USA and I've been on the lookout to find them.
What I've observed is that the more that I leave my children alone in their play, the more less they depend on me to be their playmate and my kids rely on each other to play instead. I've wanted even more kids because of it, but as I've said, the pressure of the modern mom is sometimes debilitating to even THINK about wanting kids, let alone more.
Many of us raised 1n 1950-60's had Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn enchanted childhoods. Though even back then, 3rd grade teachers warned to not take candy or rides from strangers. But there were more integral families back then, whereas today, —
1. 80% of all single parents in the U.S. are single mothers.
2. 52.9% of single mothers are millennials.
3. 15.6 million children live in single-mother households in the U.S.
4. 52.3% of single mothers have never been married, 29.3% are divorced.
5. Single mothers have a 35.6% smaller median income than single fathers.
6. Only 45.9% of single parents receive full child support.
7. Annual cost of child care is $10,174, which is 35% of a single-parent income.
8. 28.9% of single-mother households live below the poverty level.
9. 31% of single fathers are living with their own parents. Source: https://parentingmode.com/single-parent/
Our social failure contrasts with these observations: —Letter from Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, is.gd/OInxcP
«When an Indian Child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our Customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and make one Indian Ramble with them there is no persuading him ever to return, and that this is not natural merely as Indians, but as men, is plain from this, that when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoner young by the Indians, and lived awhile among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them.
One instance I remember to have heard, where the person was to be brought home to possess a good Estate; but finding some care necessary to keep it together, he relinquished it to a younger brother, reserving to himself nothing but a gun and match-Coat, with which he took his way again to the Wilderness. ...»
My personal belief, —It Does Not Take a Village to Raise a Child, —Just an Infinity of Love, https://open.substack.com/pub/captainmanimalagonusnret/p/it-does-not-take-a-village-to-raise
Homes with fathers who abandoned their children***
The mother that stayed and took responsibility is not the problem.
Is it not common in the US and o do play dates with other mums or dads? In Europe it is super common, you just meet with other family, with kids of similar ages and leave them alone to play by themselves. Our friends community has shifted to other parents with kids of similar age. They play and we have adult interactions, that is the way to be closer to a community that we don’t have anymore in this modern world.
It is. I am a homeschooler and meet multiple times a week with other homeschoolers, and other days meet with family or go to church. However, I think one difference between this and these villages is that an adult must drive these kids around to everything. We live in the county and my kids do not have many opportunities to interact with others unless I transport them. (Not counting online interactions like video calls). This limits how and when because I must also set aside time to take care of tasks at home. So instead of this happening naturally, we must create it. We must create every instant of it.
Yes, in here the same, you need to plan everything! Not really a village anymore in these modern civilisations
You cannot free-range your children today. You will get called in; Many middle class mothers have faced persecution and even arrest and removal of children for allowing their children to be independent in this world. There seems to be more predatory adult men targeting our children - or maybe they’ve just gained the knowledge that little will be done if they get caught. Either way seems like a problem for men to step up and figure out. Women are continually fixing the problems forced upon us by male behaviour.
You could also go back pre-agriculture and see something different as well. The Great Cosmic Mother is a starting point for a huge perspective shift. When we end adult male colonial hierarchal violence against women and children as well as marginalized groups - there might be a way to free-range children once again.
The solution to this is actually in a matrilocal society- where man is not head of a nuclear patriarchal family. Where many women come together to watch over and caretake the children.
I’d also like to just drop Gabor Mate and Peter Levine’s book “Hold onto your Kids”. Peer culture in this day and age is terrifying.
I had this free-range up bringing where I was forced into peer groups that held no interest to me whatsoever. Every day I was outside until the street lights came on. If I had chosen as a kid - I would have chosen to spend all of my time with my mother and none with the peer groups I was involuntarily thrust into. My husband also would have chosen similarly.
Yeah I have read that book as well. Peer culture starts very early, with many parents bragging how their 4 year old is going on sleepovers with their best friend from preschool.
Even if you have the best peers, I find kids don't learn many skills or good manners if an adult isn't present as an attachment figure. In the past when I've brought up bullying, the author here has dismissed those concerns, but they are quite real. Even with close supervision, some 8 year olds in the neighborhood took aside my friend's six year old and beat him up for fun, and the kid was too shocked and ashamed to tell his parents. Parents are inclined to say "boys will be boys" but this is not the kind of behavior you ought to normalize in children.
I would like to hear Peter's take on Mate's book too. I think they key is to understanding the desired balance to unschooling - the balance between neglect & full-control; what we want to achieve is leading & nurturing children to deep discovery of their passions and interests. Not being "forced into peer" groups and not smothering them and having them avoid learning from their own mistakes. Curating their serendipitous path, but letting them take the steps and choose the speed.
"Hold onto your Kids" came to my mind too. I would be interested to read Peter's take on that book. If wonder if the harmful elements of today's youth peer culture (in mass educated / industrial society) are due to the level of repression and domination by adults. Which is probably a downward spiral - adults see something harmful, eg. bullying via social media, and clamp down even harder, leading to even more volatile youth behaviour.
“They are all on leashes here,” she said. “Nobody wants to be on a leash.”
Wow, that hit me hard.
Free-range is better than farm-raised
Dr. Gray, I'm curious about your thoughts regarding the caregivers that choose to outsource childcare to media sources (Miss Rachel, etc.). Social media seemed riddled with parents thanking content creators for acting as their childcare, which you accurately mentioned can be an extremely expensive familial support that is out of reach for most. Do you believe this could also lead to social isolation at such a young age?
Great letter as always, thank you! One thing about Kenyan villages, and Madagascar villages, as well as many of the free play infused villages of time immemorial is they were anything but “diverse” in modern terms. What do you make of the research showing neighborhood diversity leads to lower social trust among neighbors? Is that a factor in the death of free play?