it takes a village to raise a child but I would rather it was a really funky HE group

Have you heard that saying before? "It takes a village to raise a child". This is fine, if you live in a nice village with happy, friendly people, possibly from an idyllic fiction novel set in the 1930's, where every one cares for one another, and children can roam the countryside without worrying about the ASBO's down the road, or worse.

I don't live in a village. I live in a town. A town where the local paper regularly reports on the drugs raids, weekend stabbings and attempted child abductions happening in the vicinity. It isn't all bad, and I know that I am (sadly) not in a minority. Most of us live with similar events. I used to live in a rural community, and some one got murdered with a claw hammer even there.

My children used to go to school here in this town, and it was one of the best schools in the area, we were, in that respect, very lucky. It was a nice school with lovely staff and my children did OK there. Not fantastic but OK. I didn't enjoy packing them off to school every morning, having some one else look after them for most of the day, doing the things I wanted to do. They didn't enjoy it either. We were both enduring, because we thought we had to.

Take reading. I have read story books to all of my children since they were tiny. I love books. I spent a lot of time making sure that each of my kids understood the magic of books. At school, this disappeared. Reading became important. Not books. Knowing that C and H make CH and S and H make SH, it didn't matter whether you actually enjoyed the book, liked the characters, followed the plot. Aged 4 you had to learn to read the words, sod the meaning and it was crushing for both my and the child. I could go on and on, but I am not anti-school, just anti--school-for-us.

Taking our children out of school, first OD, then the boys, was the best decision we ever made. Once out of school and into the HE community, I found the "village" I had been looking for.

They are a bunch of kooks.

Each and every one beats their own path, does things their way and will argue passionately about knitting patterns/ druidism/ politics/ coffee/ shoes, any thing. Regardless of this and other eccentricities, they are the nicest people I know. They are the people I choose to help bring up my children. They are the people who will help shape my children's view of the world.

I challenge you to find a more diverse group of people any where else.

This to me, is why HE is so precious. It is the empowerment. Letting a child know that they don't have to live within the system, that it is perfectly fine to be yourself and find your own way of doing things. It doesn't make you wrong, but it may make you a little bit different, just like every single person in this group on a sunny Wednesday afternoon.

Thank you, lovely people.