Unschooling Needs a Village
Hey guys!
I recently came across another powerful message in a short video—a woman speaking about why raising children feels so incredibly hard today. Whether you're unschooling or sending your kids to school, parenting can feel like an uphill battle. Most of us carry a heavy sense of overwhelm and guilt, constantly worried that we’re not meeting everyone’s needs.
Many parents who question the schooling system and long for a calmer, more connected alternative still keep their kids in school—not because they believe in it, but because unschooling seems harder without the built-in support that school offers.
I often hear things like, “Let me know when your project is ready and we’ll join,” which really means, “I want out, but I need a support system first.” And I get it.
Personally, I’ve always chosen my children’s wellbeing over what society says I should do—whether that’s giving birth in a hospital, sending them to school, using punishment, or following medical norms without question. Honestly, sending my kids to school would feel far more difficult than how we live now. But I also understand how scary the unknown can be. Most of us weren’t unschooled. We were raised in the system. It’s all we know.
So to step outside of it feels like a giant leap—especially when you don’t yet know how you’ll land.
The truth is, unschooling is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to stepping out of the matrix. So many other parts of our lives are still shaped by the system—and those things also make it harder to thrive.
For instance, we haven’t always parented this way. And by this way, I mean inside the walls of a nuclear family, isolated from the everyday presence of other parents, elders, teens, and children. Many of us—especially those choosing an unschooling path—reach a point where we think, “Why is this so hard? Am I just getting it wrong?”
But here’s the truth: it’s hard because this isn't how it's meant to be.
Not long ago—historically speaking—each child would have been surrounded by at least five older humans: adults, adolescents, and elders. They would have spent their days immersed in play and daily life with other children, while we, the parents, would have been side by side, sharing the load. There would be a matriarch (or a wise elder) close by—someone we could turn to when we hit a wall, someone who would pass down stories, lessons, and grounded reassurance.
We don’t have that anymore.
Instead, we’re parenting in small, self-contained units. We’re trying to be everything for our children: teacher, mentor, cook, healer, emotional anchor. It’s no wonder we feel overwhelmed. And yet, we tend to blame ourselves—or worse, we blame our children. We think they’re being too wild, too sensitive, too difficult. But in truth, they are showing us what happens when we try to live in a way that contradicts our nature.
The modern nuclear family is a relatively recent invention, born in part out of the Industrial Revolution. We went from living communally and cooperatively to being isolated in our own homes, our support systems fractured, and the wisdom of the elders filtered through podcasts and parenting books instead of personal relationship.
But our nervous systems still remember. Our children’s behavior still speaks the truth: we are wired to live in community.
At A Place To Be, we are slowly, intentionally reweaving that communal fabric. We gather, we play, we problem-solve together. It’s not perfect, and it’s still growing, but every time we sit in a circle or share a meal or tend to a disagreement together, we are tapping into a much older, more natural way of being. One where no one has to do it all alone.
You are not doing it wrong.
You are just trying to do the work of five people in a structure that was never meant to hold this much.
Let’s keep rebuilding the village — together.
