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So funny to know that Peter Rock was out on the Forest Park trails thinking of this father and daughter. It is something I've done often, "lurking" along the trails, perfectly able to imagine their lives in the forest and in town. This strange activity made me long for the times when I lived in a community that chose  to raise children similarly, away from the schools and institutions that society deemed "appropriate," but that we found to be entirely inappropriate, learning from real experiences in the real world rather than from the contrived lessons in the classroom, letting the children become, rather than training them to be what others wanted them to be.

What we did then was illegal, and we knew it. We would have faced the same "intervention." But today my children (now grown) are doing well and are so remarkably well adjusted that I have no regrets.

I could have predicted that this father and his daughter would have lasted about a month--time for the furor to die down so they could get back to living the life they clearly enjoyed. I would have done the same.

posted 4 years ago
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