Monthly Archives: June 2018

Let’s Talk About Sex

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We have been having a lot of conversations about sex around here lately. Lots of questions. Lots of time for contemplation. Then lots of questions again. Kind of like any topic really.

I know a lot of people didn’t grow up in sex positive households. Because of this, I know a lot of parents view sex as a very private thing that is uncomfortable to talk about. I always felt free to talk to my parents about sex, but I know my husband jokes that ‘the talk’ with his parents was the anonymous placement of ‘Where Did I Come From’ on the end of his bed when he was…fifteen.

We haven’t really had ‘the talk’ either. That would be kind of strange. It implies it is a one off chat. And then what? You never speak of it again? Sex is a conversation constantly evolving, pausing mid sentence while information is taken in, picked up again days or weeks or months later. We have answered a lot of questions over the years about lots of things to do with the body and that has come together to form a more coherent picture over time.

How this develops for each family is going to be different so rather than retelling our story, which could never be a blueprint for anyone else, I want to focus on some of the key messages and elements I think are really important.   Continue reading →

Unschooling On Tuesday

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I thought it might be time for another unschooling on Tuesday post.

I stopped writing these for a while for a few reasons. Firstly, it is impossible to capture everything that happens in a day. This has really been highlighted for me recently. All of my kids have had a few moments in recent weeks where they tell me about something (bees, mythical creatures, maths, architecture have been a few) and I think, I am with you all day and I have absolutely no idea where you learnt that! They are surrounded by books, the internet, movies, friends, life. Learning comes from so many different places and no matter how involved you are or how closely you feel like you are watching, it often doesn’t involve you. And, as I have learnt, sometimes the learning is instigated, researched, absorbed and then life goes on without you even noticing.

Secondly, it is hard not to make these posts sound too contrived. I’m not trying to make my kids out to be some kind of prodigies or try and make everything they do have some higher learning purpose. This isn’t the motivation. I can see how for someone who isn’t living this life, it might seem implausible for a child to suddenly really want to learn how to write in cursive, or learn about multiplying fractions or delve into the finer details of evolution. But on the other hand, this may very well be what kids get up to when everyone else gets out of the way of their learning. So even when I talk about my kids doing something quite ‘academic’, it isn’t because I care at all about the comparison, it just is what it is. Their questions and curiosity in that particular moment.

So here we are. I do think these kinds of posts are useful for people who are wondering what unschooling might look like. Or if you are like me and you take on some voyeuristic persona when it comes to reading about what other families living this wonderful life are doing, you will probably enjoy it too! I love hearing about and reading about how other families are spending their days.

We were thinking about catching up with friends today, but there wasn’t consensus amongst the ranks about what we should do, so we decided to stay close to home. I thought it might be a good day to record what we got up to.

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Raising Boys Who Respect Women

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I thought about tip-toeing around this issue, leaving gender out of it, because I guess this applies to #allchildren, but then I thought screw it. We can’t address an issue if we pretend it isn’t there. Males hold an overwhelmingly disproportionate slice of the perpetrator pie for domestic violence and sexual assault. This is a gender issue. And at the heart of it, I want to raise boys and men who respect females.

I am a feminist and I take the concepts of enthusiastic consent and respect very seriously. I am also the mother of two sons who are going to venture out into this world and a daughter who is going to encounter a whole lot of men out there.

For those of you scratching your head about enthusiastic consent, this is a great article. Basically, enthusiastic consent means ensuring that there is positive, mutual engagement in an activity and frequently checking in for any signs that this enthusiasm has been withdrawn. Simple, right?

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