Who's The Daddy

This post is my contribution to the June Unschooling Blog Carnival.

The theme is Dads.

FYI Home Education is the phrase used in the UK to cover home schooling and unschooling.

So, beginning at the beginning, back in 2004 when The Daddy One (TDO) and I found out that we were to be parents very quickly we began to be bombarded by new information and "facts" and stories, we cut our way through them in our own ways. Me, the economist and strategist "I'm not gambling with those odds" when I saw the data on hospital births going wrong and TDO in his own listening and analysing way.

So it was that our first child, Sapphire, came to be born at home. This worked out perfectly for us as a family. S was born at 43 weeks something that could never have been allowed to happen within the English National Health Service but due to our decision opt out of the system and go private so to speak the three if  us shared a birth experience that set us off on the right, for us, parenthood path.

Very soon we began to realist that is wasn't just birth that institutional frameworks where handling poorly but breastfeeding knowledge and vaccine information was pretty sparse too. The best source of both appearing to be charities rather than doctors and hospitals and on this lead to education.

We had found out that home education was possible because our midwife's own children did not go to school, although for very different set of ideological reasons than those that appealed to us at the time, and so I began to research. By way of background I should add that I was on maternity leave still at this time planning a return to work as TDO was at college. He went back to college shortly before  our wedding having messed around the first time, the temptations of life in our capital city outweighing the desire to study. As I was working his return to college was not a problem financially and has come to be one of the events that has reinforced the importance, to us, of life learning in our modern economy.

Anyway, before children I would read interesting bits out of the Sunday papers and sometimes Harry Potter books too, aloud, but with a change of circumstance came a change of reading matter and so every book I could access on home education was scattered on the sofa. Although 2004 is only really a short time ago blogs and online information was not as extensive as now plus in our new rural location we only had a dial up internet connection! 

The books I devoured included "School is Not Compulsory" "School's Out" by Jean Bendell and "Free Range Education" I also came across this other volume which quoted studies from the US and Australia and, after nodding and listening to all I had read before I clearly remember I read this quote that went something like

"It says here that girls who are home educated lose their virginity, on average, two years later than girls who go to school."

and that is was it 

"Alright, alright she can be home educated."

came the reply. And, it has never been discussed since! We have subsequently had two sons, both of whom were born at home and who are home educated, and yes of course there are tough days and rough days but never for a moment has that initial decision  been seriously challenged.

Now, I wish I could find that book again. I think it might have been by Alan Thomas but it was old and has since been removed from the library system. I have tweeted and googled but to no avail. Do you know the research it comes from? I'd love to know if you do.

You might be wondering why TDO? Well it is short for The Daddy One, whenever S was small and played with figures, mostly Fisher Price Little People they would be asigned The Daddy One, The Mummy One etc and so, it has stuck!

And now, fast forward to 2012 and everyday on the blog you will see TDO building lego, planting and nurturing, taking S on London days, playing,  at the allotment and most of all supporting me emotionally, financially in all the ways I need to be able to home educate our trio. 

and I do not take this lightly, I know that in the 5 years I spent running our local home education group (approx 150 member families) that the main reason, far, far outstripping all the rest combined, that families gave up on home education was due to unsupportive Dads.

He's the Daddy. He's our Daddy :)