We are actively unschooling with confidence and grace and have chosen to begin our return journey back to the ordinary world. Yet, it may not be all smooth sailing. In fact, we may soon find ourselves fleeing rather than walking.
… if the hero’s wish to return to the world has been resented by the gods or demon’s, then the last stage of the mythological round becomes a lively, often comical, pursuit. (p. 170, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell)
As Campbell notes in the book, not all stages are necessarily a part of every hero’s journey—it’s a matter of personal circumstances. And this stage is certainly one of the more optional ones. In over a dozen years, I don’t recall hearing any stories of experienced unschooling parents actively discouraging other unschooling parents from choosing to return and more actively engage with the conventional world.
But, I definitely think we can put an unschooling twist on this stage! What about when people in our ordinary world don’t want us to return?
They probably weren’t very vocal about it while we were mostly cocooning, busily exploring and learning about unschooling, but that can change as we return and more actively engage with the ordinary world.
Maybe family or neighbours threaten to call family services because they don’t understand unschooling and have no intention of learning more. They believe it’s wrong and neglectful and aren’t open to discussion.
Or family or neighbours drop by regularly and, maybe even inadvertently, belittle you and your children. Quizzing your children and questioning you, you’re left feeling inadequate and it takes hours or days for everyone to recover their joyful unschooling momentum.
In other words, sometimes there are people in the ordinary world who don’t want you to bring your funky new lifestyle and ideas into their bubble of “conventional society.” So much so that they will actively lash out at you. If you find you—or anyone in your family—feeling unsafe, you may well choose to flee/escape to safety.
Maybe the flight is more metaphorical as you choose to actively distance yourself from discouraging family and friends, but I have definitely heard stories of unschoolers moving away to distance themselves from negative environments. I imagine this could be a difficult decision to make, revisiting the strength of your convictions about the unschooling lifestyle versus the need to recover from regular assaults on those convictions versus the upheaval of moving to a new community.
But I can also imagine the incredible sense of relief and joy and adventure an unschooling family might feel when they choose to take that magic flight to a new community—a fresh start to go hand in hand with their new perspective on learning and living.
Your journey
If you’re inclined to share, I’d love to hear about your journey in the comments! Here are a few questions about the “magic flight” stage to get you started:
1. Has a magic flight been part of your return journey?
2. Did you experience a negative reception as you began to more actively live your unschooling lifestyle in your wider community? What helped you move through it?
3. What things did you find challenging as you began stepping back into the conventional world?
Next stage: Rescue from Without: When the Ordinary World Comes Knocking
The road so far …
Departure phase of the journey
Call to adventure: We discover unschooling and excitedly imagine the possibilities.
Refusal of the call: The many implications of choosing unschooling hit. Do we commit?
Supernatural aid: Our children guide us on our unschooling journey.
Crossing of the first threshold: Confronting the guardians who claim to protect us.
The belly of the whale: Transitioning to a learning mindset.
Initiation phase of the journey
The road of trials: The heart of deschooling.
The meeting with the goddess: Seeing the value in all experiences.
Woman as the temptress: Accepting our nature.
Atonement with the father: Accepting others where they are.
Apotheosis: Moving to compassion.
The ultimate boon: Unschooling with confidence and grace.
Return phase of the journey
Refusal of the return: Will we choose to step back out of our unschooling bubble?
We’ve had a return flight of sorts, although it may not be as dramatic as others since we were relaxed homeschoolers for a while before unschooling. We’ve been in our new house for a little over three months, and I was nervous at first about things like letting the kids play outside during school hours because I didn’t know how the new neighbors would take it. As the weather’s gotten nicer, I’ve quickly gotten over that and have no qualms about letting the kids play outside at 8 am if they so choose and letting the older kids walk to the park, the bowling alley, etc. by themselves during the daytime curfew hours- armed with our letter from the school district, of course. I used to wonder if I would get a knock at the door because a concerned neighbor called someone and reported that the kids never go to school, but I’ve actually been really blessed. The neighbors are very understanding, and the older lady who lives out back has even told me that she always tells the people at her church about her neighbors who are homeschooled and are beautiful, wonderful children. Warms my heart!
I do have a few challenges to get through, however- most of them having to do with my shock at how misaligned my views are with the school system and the public-at-large. I knew that my views were evolving, but I never suspected just how drastically and how passionately I now feel about these things. Sometimes it really bothers me to be out there in the “real world” because I feel so uneasy about the things I now see that I never noticed before:
– a young woman I used to admire screaming at her 5 yr. old for crying because he gets nervous when he can’t see her
– the same woman not allowing her 1 yr. old to crawl on the church nursery floor or take his shoes off even though he’s there for 3 hours at a time
– a school that advertises a night to help children learn to love reading which turns into yet another chance for them to do test prep- obviously reading for enjoyment is no longer as important as being able to answer multiple choice questions about what was read
I could list so many other things, but you get the picture. I took my kids to our second Book Blast event (described above) and was so ready for it to be our last. Last winter I saw a movie on SyFy with Julianne Moore in it. I don’t remember what it was called, but in it there was a plague of sorts spreading where people were going blind by the thousands and were being placed in quarantine. Julianne’s character is not blind but enters the quarantine anyway to be with her husband. As the only sighted person in there, she tries to lead the others, but every day is nothing but despair. She ends up as depressed as the rest of them. That’s how I felt at the school- I was the sighted person in a sea of blindness and no matter how much I wanted to be able to help them, the longer I was there, the more I felt myself being dragged down into their hopelessness. I was ready to run home and throw the covers over my head. While I would love to forego any more of these events, I won’t because my children do enjoy them (and the free books they receive), and they haven’t yet noticed the hidden motive behind them.
So, in the meantime, I find comfort in the fact that, yes, there are a lot of emotions that I still need to work through, but I will always have my cocoon- our home- to go back to at the end of the day.
Thanks for sharing, Shelly, I love hearing about your journey! 🙂