wonder farm 2.0

how we’d circle, back in the day

Hello friends,

For years I’ve dreamed of building an online community made up of parents, educators and all-around curious people of different ages and experiences. I’ve attempted this in various eager ways in the past few years, but nothing has quite panned out.

By way of telling you why I long to do this, I’d like to tell you about a community I’ve been part of, in different forms, for many years. Especially if you don’t homeschool yourself, let me tell you about my homeschooling community.

This was a group I first met one Thursday in 1998, when I packed my courage into the diaper bag and walked toward the play structure at a park with two-year-old L on my hip, holding H’s still-small five-year-old hand. A small group of mothers and kids welcomed us, all smiles and hellos.

Every Thursday we went back. The group grew and we moms and the occasional dad began bringing camp chairs, circling up to chat while for hours, the kids played. Well, for several years we sat, until a few of us had third kids and, after a few blissful months of passing our babies around the circle, we were out of our chairs, chasing toddlers.

We planned field trips to sticker factories and goat farms and a zillion activities, everything from writer’s workshops to history fairs to living like gold miners in the foothills. Twice a year we staked our claim in redwoods or on river banks and camped, communing over breakfast burritos while for three blissful days, the kids ran wild.

One day those kids were seven, running over to the circle in tears because someone wanted a Pókemon tradeback and then the Thursdays flipped by and they were pre-teens playing Truth or Dare behind a stump. Meanwhile, we parents grew close, supporting each other through miscarriages and the parenting of teenagers and the sucker punch sorrow of watching our children leave home.

All those years, I’d often forget that by homeschooling, Chris and I had chosen to raise our family outside the cultural norm. Because here was a community that made our choices seem normal.

Something I loved about our group: the range in parental age and experience. Those first few years, the kids were close in age. But over time, we attracted newer families. Our kids went off to high school, or community college, or other adventures, and new families showed up, toddlers on hips, holding their five-year-olds’ hands.

That mix of experience, I loved it. Newer parents could come with their concerns–how do you teach math and what if the kids listen to audiobooks for hours–and more experienced parents could offer assurance, say trust your gut. You’ve got this. In turn, those younger parents inspired us older ones with their button-nosed babies and their enthusiasm and their new ways of doing things. (Instead of chairs, they sat on blankets–what a concept!)

What if I could make a space like this, where people could virtually circle up and share experiences, in small, snack-sized ways?

What would we talk about?

Ooh, I have some thoughts!

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that for the past year, I’ve been participating in a program to help writers draft a book in a year. Parakeet is not a craft program but a program for people who have a book stuck inside of them.

And boy, as some of you well know, did I have a book stuck inside of me. For more than eight years I tried to get that book out.

Some of you also know how, a little over a year ago, I exploded that eight-year draft and started my manuscript again from page one. Each month, with encouragement from my fellow parakeets–Trust your gut. You’ve got this–I drafted a new chapter. At the end of the month if I hadn’t finished the chapter, tough cookies, I had to keep going.

I’ve never done this before, kept moving forward in a draft. My perpetual tinkering had kept something essential from happening and now it happened. About six months into my draft, my book began teaching me what it wants to be.

What it wants to be is a very different book from the eight-years draft. In addition to my personal stories, there’s a thread of societal story running through the manuscript now. A research quest that starts in 1996, the year the book opens, the year Chris and I decided to homeschool.

It’s a quest I’m tracking in real time as I write the book, an attempt to understand two questions that keep me endlessly wondering: how, over the past thirty years, did childhood change so much? And when and why did we start stealing independence and creativity from kids?

The research has been juicy. The research has been heartbreaking. I’ve made a few TikTok videos about content from some chapters and judging from the viewer response, I’m not the only one riled up about what I’m finding.

Which gives you a little preview of what we might chat about in my dreamed virtual community.

But how to make that community happen? After sixteen years on this here Wonder Farm, I’m trying something new. I’m going to take these posts to Substack.

A lot of writers have been jumping to Substack as a way of earning income for their work. Which I respect but rest assured, my posts will, always as ever, be FREE. For me, Substack offers something else: better ways to build community, to make my work visible beyond this tight little group, you wonderful people.

I’ve tangled myself up in this choice for a while now, not wanting to close this space here. Wonder Farm feels like a real place to me and I couldn’t possibly quit it after sixteen years. So here’s the plan: I’ll post my newsletters here and if you subscribe, your email notification will come from Substack, where I’ll cross-post my work.

For now, the comments will stay open here, but I assume more conversation will happen where the post appears on Substack. I’m a little sad about that, but honestly, blog commenting began dying around the time Instagram took off in 2013. To those of you who have continued leaving comments here in recent years: You have a secret room in my heart!

Regardless, if you’re still reading here, you are dear to me. If you’re a subscriber I offer boundless thanks for your faith as I’ve wandered and waffled and tried to figure out what I have to offer. See that little community circle up there in the photo? You have been that circle for me virtually, in mind and heart, for sixteen years.

Let’s see if we can widen that circle, shall we? I’m hoping this new Substack project might help us. Let’s push back our chairs and make space for new folks who might benefit from your wisdom and generosity. And they can share their fresh, energizing perspectives, from where they sit on blankets. 🙂

If you already subscribe, there’s nothing more you need to do. Look for an email from Substack in the second week of January. And if you’re not yet a subscriber, you can become one here.

For now: I’m endlessly grateful to you.

xoxo and Wonder Farm forever!

Patricia

P.S. If you’re still reading and have a moment, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment on the blog for old time’s sake. Just saying hi will surge my heart. Or if you have a little time, tell us about a community you’ve loved, or maybe about some shift in childhood that has you thinking. Hearing from you honestly makes my day.