Saving the World
07/04/2024
Living in this world feels really hard right now.
Like, really, REALLY hard.
At least, my life does. And I'm definitely one of the lucky ones.
Thankfully, I have discovered the solution, the action we can take to save the world, and ourselves.
What I see our world suffering the most from, is a serious lack of respectful relationships.
With their children. With their adults. With their partners. With their exes. With their bosses. With their employees. With animals. With nature. With the earth. With the rest of the space we have found a way to reach.
Instead, all of our systems are based on exploitation. Jobs that require most of our lives to build someone else's portfolio, that we wouldn't choose, but nonetheless must have, in order to survive in a money based society. Marriages that are expected to be the only meaningful relationship in a person's life, fulfilling their every need and desire, because we aren't allowed time to nurture more than one. Needy folks shaming their kids into feeding their own narcissism, a coping mechanism and reflection of how they were invalidated at some earlier point in their life. Schools indoctrinating kids into consumerism by destroying self esteem because humanity matters less than fueling the economy and filling it with production workers. Media and marketing aimed at making every. single. person. feel less-than and unworthy and ugly and stupid, gathering our hard earned resources for the same elite's portfolios we fill with our labor.
It's an awful, vicious cycle, and we can step out of it if we choose.
The solution to all the world's problems is simple.
We must stop treating our children as empty heads that need filling, and malleable minds that need molding. We must stop treating our children as if they were unfinished adults who need to grow up. We must stop treating our children as if they were manipulative, cruel, and heartless- vile creatures who require obedience training and torturous punishment to become functional members of society. We must stop acting like it is our purpose to train them to succeed in the world as it is, because that only continues the cycle.
Our job is not to walk alongside them as they ride the factory conveyor belt, quality control checking every addition the powers that be have decided they need, making sure they will be accepted by this rough world we currently reside in, ensuring they will have a place in it, hoping that once they are finished playing the world's cruel games to the satisfaction of the overlords that they can rise above it to enjoy what might be left of the last years of their life. No.
Children are born whole people with their own thoughts, desires, needs, and personhood.
We must remember that children are supposed to have a place in our lives and societies, they fill a role adults never could. We must remember that childhood is important in and of itself, and not only as a means of growing new adults. We must remember that children are born good, any bad traits they display have been acquired through trying to survive their environment and relationships, and bad behavior is only the sign of an unmet need.
Children are already absolutely full of what this world needs. They are certainly already full of what they need. They are amazing, awesome people who should never have any of themselves beaten out of them through violence or mindlessness, through bribery or threats. They deserve respect as human beings, no less than any other human- adult, authority figure, anyone.
Our job is to ensure they remain as whole as the day they were born- never less, provide for the needs they cannot yet manage, and show them how to learn the parts that they will grow into- as needed and wanted by the child, or at least with their consent, not before, and certainly not out of fear that they might need something someday. Fear rationalizes disrespect as "for their own good," and I promise, when the day comes that they need something, they will learn it. (Aside- if the need never comes up in real life, is it necessary to learn?)
I said it was simple, but it's probably not going to be easy.
Some of us are ready to hear this, and live this, right now. Maybe we have been waiting for what seems like forever to be able to give ourselves permission to treat our children with respect, to offer them developmentally appropriate agency and autonomy, to offer them the opportunity to consent and contribute to the lives we are building together.
Adults, especially authority figures, are often very concerned with what makes a functional adult, or even a successful adult.
What might it mean to be a functional child? Baby? Teen? Toddler? Tween? Person? Adult in a better world system?
And what is this thing they call success? Who decided that?
Sadly, most of the humans I encounter are too entangled in thorny thickets of fear, too lost in the sightless fog of depression, and too caught up in their self medicating with consumerism to even consider how they are treating their children, how they were treated as children, or how the treatment of children shapes the world. They parent and teach on autopilot, even though whatever they learned obviously was not good for them. They believe the lie that the system is utterly perfect and it is they themselves (or their parents) who are defective and if they just do it better than their parents did, their kids will turn out perfect as promised. No.
I said it was simple, not that it will be swift.
I truly believe respectful relationships will save humanity.
And even if every single adult started treating the children in front of them with the respect they deserve, with absolute perfection, YESTERDAY, the impact of their work on the world would only begin to trickle into the world as those children became the adults leading the world. The rearranging of our societies would probably get in the groove while their children were growing, and our great or great great grandchildren would likely see the full flowering of our collective efforts. That's even taking into account how the first adults choosing to do this work would change the world's policy and leadership and direction while they worked and healed themselves, and again, only if everyone participated perfectly, which is highly unlikely given how wounded we all are and the fact that we don't really have any idea how to do this.
It's a long game, when you take in the scale of our world and the diversity it contains. None of us will see the full flowering of our efforts. Although I suppose that's true of any endeavor.
What we would see, in our lifetimes, in our ongoing lives and relationships with our families and communities, is a microcosm of what is possible.
Of course, homeschoolers have a huge advantage when it comes to respectful relationships. We have already opted out of a seriously disrespectful relationship with one institution that doesn't value or respect any human involved in any part of it. Deschooling is often mostly full of learning why and how to respect each other, as a family and out in the world. Radical unschooling obviously is all in on respectful relationships.
What if, in your family, with your children, you could have a relationship that didn't include whining, nagging, fear, or punishments, ever again?
What if, in your life, with the children you see or teach or care for, you never needed to resort to bribery, coercion, or threats, ever again?
What if, in your family, you could be three generations deep in respectful relationships? How would your life have been different if your parents or their parents started this work?
How amazing would that be? For everyone to be respected, treated as worthy, and contributing to society in the way that made them light up?
What's the worst that could happen?
Well, I can tell you what the worst thing that could happen is... by respecting your children, you just might be able to extend that respect to YOURSELF... and then EVERYTHING in your life and relationships would have to change... for the way better.
Which again, is super simple, but not easy, and likely not real quick.
In fact, it's going to be really freaking hard, because, ya know, millennia of biological hardwiring that says exile from your tribe equals death.
Lucky for us, we have the option to choose a new tribe. I'm over here trying to create one. It's going to be a grand adventure. Wanna join? We're accepting new members;-)
No really. I've just opened a conversational coaching and mentoring beta program so I can take everything I know about respect and education and plant the seeds of it in every heart in the multiverse. And learn as we go along exactly what it takes and where folks are struggling and how best to help them. If you need mentoring on your respectful parenting, deschooling, unschooling, or homeschooling journey, give it a look here. It's super cheap right now while I work on the process and details.