Acceptance

what the fuck is with everybody lately
i have no air
no space to breathe
everything i do is wrong
everything i say is rude
every way i look is bad
what the fuck people
i can't please anybody
i'm not happy with myself
so why should you be
but for god's sake
you don't really have to tell me every
single
time
i fuck up

— Anonymous. Used by permission.

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I've added a new label to the blog: acceptance.

The poem above was written by a teen friend. It made me realize that acceptance is the unschooling concept I would most like to promote. It is, after all, the concept that has made the biggest difference in our family, from repairing my damaged relationship with MJ (who had to live through more of my newparentitis and horrible mistakes), to building our new family dynamic, to opening up the world—with a nice side benefit of improving my self-esteem.

Our society is geared toward correction. If someone was wrong yesterday, we tell them. If someone is wrong today, we tell them. If someone might be wrong someday, we tell them. When it comes to kids, this inclination toward correction is magnified a thousandfold. From "Say please" to "Chew with your mouth closed" to "Stand up straight" to "Are you going out like that?" to "Have you given any thought to your future?", we bombard kids with messages that they will only be accepted when they change. So they do. And then they're confronted with the next set of expectations. So they change again.

For most of us, a day comes when we realize "they" will never be satisfied, so we'd just better get on with accepting ourselves.

Well, here's a question for you: If you have to tell a kid something, why not tell them that? Why not let them skip all those pointless years of struggle? Let them skip the part where they fight that voracious monster, Expectation.

Just let them be.

Accept.

One small example: Those of you who knew Chloe when she was younger might remember her headful of superfine blonde snarls. Matted rats. (And if you didn't know Chloe then, check out Fergus and multiply snarls by three. Or maybe six.) There were a couple of times when she and I decided cutting it off was our best option (easier than, if not as rewarding as, brushing it out). I had moments of hair-despair, and my mother probably wanted to call CPS on me. But I let Chloe be. And this is Chloe now.

We still don't tell her to brush her hair. But now it's beautiful, and people compliment her, and she likes it. She remembers being that messy-headed kid, though. At Non-Con this weekend, I overheard a little conversation between Chloe and Fergus:

Chloe: I like your hair.
Fergus: It's unusual, but I like it.

That's acceptance, folks.
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