What the title says is true, mostly. Let me clarify. I have four children. Two of my children are adults, 21 and 26. But two of my children are toddlers, 3 and 5. I must admit that I feel I failed my first two, as they went to public school from the beginning and graduated from the system. At the time, I didn’t feel I failed them. I felt as if I was doing what was right for them and fully supported the program and en(forced) their attendance. However, in retrospect, I see the errors of my ways. What does this have to do with the title of the article? This week I sent my toddlers to public school.
JUDGEMENT TIME
Here it is; your big opportunity! You have some options before you and you get to make the choice. All voluntary like, without coercion. You can immediately jump up and down, gnash your teeth, and decry me as the worst thing to ever happen to parenting. You could possibly think that I am coming to my senses and ditching this idealistic mumbo jumbo. Or, you can listen to my tale and see if what I say makes sense or maybe gives you something to think about. You can still bash me in the comments afterwards if you want.
An individual recently responded to one of my comments here on Steemit, an individual who by his words appears to be supportive of the government. Why do I bring this up? This individual appears to be in a very different place than I am, but I still feel his comment actually made some very good sense; “One cannot deny what is. So it’s best to look at both sides and appreciate how both good and bad push life forward along its path, like the two pedals on a bike.” I detest echo chambers and feel I can learn just as much from someone of differing opinion as I can from a sage in my own belief system.
THE REASON I AM
These are my two youngest children. The one on the right is 3-years-old and a handful. He is also neurotypical. What does that necessarily mean? A quick Google search reveals it as “not displaying or characterized by autistic or other neurologically atypical patterns of thought or behavior.” Why make that distinction now? The boy on the left is my 5-year-old, who is Autistic. I will be honest, sometimes it is a toss-up on who is the bigger problem. My older boy was also born at 26 weeks and weighed less than a pound. He tried to die in the hospital in his first weekend.
With all that going on, why in the hell would I choose to send my children to public school? The older boy has had a number of delays and issues that have had to be addressed over the years and continues to need help with some of these issues. How do you get the multitude of therapies a child like this needs? We could pay for them ourselves, but therapies are expensive and out of range for our middle-class income. That is if we want to feed and clothe him as well. Maybe our insurance can help, we pay a lot of money for that. Nope, they will not cover the therapies that are needed, because there already exists a way for him to receive them. Through the public school system.
No fucking way! You mean to tell me that I have to rely on an institution I detest to provide therapies for my child? Therapies that he needs to progress to be able to speak, to walk, to have any chance whatsoever at a “normal” life? Yep. Uncle Sam has mandated and regulated that all but a privileged few need to rely on the Government for help. If I was poorer, I could get financial help to fund some of the therapies, but it still ends up funneling them into the public school system. As it is, I am required to enroll my child in the local public school system in order to qualify him for the therapies he needs. Luckily, if you could call it that, my son also had some very bad vision problems, which allowed him the opportunity to go to a specialized school for the visually impaired. Small victory, the public school had to pay for this and it wasn’t cheap. Sadly, you and I both are having to pay for it in the long run. Go ahead and be angry about it, I am.
The older boy loves his school. They are specialized in what he needs and he receives an insane amount of therapy time every month. He is making progress. He speaks now, not the way you and I do, but he is able to identify many of his needs and wants. He even calls me “daddy” now. The first time he was able to vocalize that, I wept. Hell, I am teary-eyed now just thinking of it. But all good things must eventually come to an end it seems. This is the final year he will be able to attend this school. Next year he will be required to transition to the public school system, that is if we want him to continue to get his therapies. We are hoping for big gains this year in school. The problem is that when he has a break from his therapies, he starts to slide back. So unless a miracle occurs or we hit the lottery, it appears my son will be going to kindergarten in the public school system.
Cue the youngest son. My head-strong young anarchist. I have worked very hard with these two younger children to follow nonviolent parenting and to help guide them as best I can. The result is seeing this child’s personality blossom. He is not timid. He is 110% all the time. He also is only 3-years-old. He has grown up watching his older brother getting on the school bus or shuttle van and going to school every day. He has seen the smile on his big brother’s face as the bus pulls up and he squeals with excitement. So, it appears only natural when one day he tells me, “I want to go to school.” I jumped up and down, I gnashed my teeth, I swore I would not allow this and become the worst thing to ever happen to parenting. Okay, that was all metaphor. I actually just looked at him. I looked at his perfect face and his smile when he made that statement. I felt myself reeling back as he struck me that devestating blow. And, I loved him with all my heart.
THE CHALLENGE
His mother and I have spent countless hours discussing our beliefs and how to handle this situation. We do not spank our children as we firmly believe that if we cannot reason with our children to explain the situation, then how will they understand why we spanked them. Conversely, why would we need to spank them if they could be reasoned with. Yes, this is a poor quote from a meme. I do not know the original creator of it. I messed up the quote bad enough, I seriously doubt it is plagiarism. I digress. We also are voluntaryists and we do not believe in coercion or force, but that every action by humans should be consensual.
I have discussed this with a few of the anarchocelebrities of the day and had some interesting discussions with them, as well as in the comment areas of my posts. When I was questioning my right to limit my child’s choices, one person responded to me, “you wouldn’t just let him play in the street would you?” I was taken aback at first. Well, no, I wouldn’t necessarily just let him play in the street. This comment has bugged me for quite some time. To a 3-year-old, I can pretty graphically explain why he should not play in the street. I can reason with him on this. Well, with my 3-year-old I was able to at least. However, I was unable to find the words or the ways to reason with him on why he should not go to public school. So, I concocted a challenge. Up to this point, the child was refusing to potty train. He was happy to pee and poo in his diapers and preferred to wear a diaper instead of underwear. I told him that he could not go to school until he was able to do both on the potty stool and not wear a diaper anymore. Aha! I had hit on it. I was going to win this round.
No. I wasn’t going to win this round. With three months to go until the school year started, this little guy manned up and made me both proud and sad. He has not had an accident in a few weeks now. He comes in from playing outside to use the restroom, that is unless he decides to use a tree. We live in the country; I am not going to try to stop him from doing that at this point. Pick my battles and all. This little man showed me he was up to my challenge and proved to me that he knew what he wanted and it wasn’t just a whim. Here is my situation in a nutshell; how can I as a Voluntaryist, an Anarchist, who prefers nonviolence and peaceful interaction between all humans, force this little person to do something when he so adamantly wants the opposite?
THE FUTURE
So here I am. A Voluntaryist who has sent his kids to public school. I have some pretty good reasoning for the 5-year-old and at this point, I really do not have a viable out. But that doesn’t mean I am going to quit trying to find other avenues. If the shit really does hit the fan, I can always house his therapists on my property and pay them in food. But the 3-year-old, sigh. I have some very high hopes that his Oppositional Defiant Disorder (thinking on his own) will rear its head sooner than later and I will be called to the Principal’s office. I also believe strongly that once he sees that school is more than playing with toys and seeing new faces, he will start to question exactly what it is he wants. I am not going to allow him to win just because he melts my heart with a smile. I will watch all concerning the school and him and do damage control as best I can. I will be open and honest about his opportunities here on the farm and unschooling vs the regimented system that is public school. But he doesn’t understand that yet. For now, I have to let him be him and allow him to make his choices. It hurts. It really does. But, he also makes me very proud.
There you go. Blast me, praise me, whatever. I am only a human parent doing the best I can with the cards given to me. I am hoping I can trade this deuce and four in for a Royal Flush.