I'm reading a good book called Growing Up Firstborn and I just started the section called You and Your Firstborn--yikes!  I already know I'm task-oriented, a frustrated perfectionist and hard-wired for responsibility...now I get to read how I have or can avoid ruining my firstborn with my ridiculous tendencies.  Is it possible to avoid ruination?

I know she hates drill and sitting and repetition.  I've read Charlotte Mason, but come on...I want to know how unschoolers "turn out".  I see lots of articles about 9 yr. olds and even 12 yr. olds, but what about 20 yr. olds???  What are they doing now?  How did they get from point A to point B, or more precisely, from point U (unschooling)  to point A (adulthood)?  Was there "catch up"?  What lit their fires?

I can stand up to my kin folk and my kids'll go for it, no problem, but how do I step outside myself, my known realm of forced education?  I've already stepped out of a lot of boxes.  I homeschool; we don't have tv; I grind my own wheat for goodness sakes!  If we get any further outside the box, we'll have to start wearing bonnets! 

And, if I can't trust my kid to be safe with the internet, tv, candy, pop, trans-fat snacks and household power tools, why should I be able to "trust" her with something as serious as education for adult competence???

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