It occurs to me that this blog is no longer really very bloggy. It’s sort of not about HE and not about the kids and not very regularly kept… Given how very secret and select the audience I could probably use it a bit more for more diary style stuff, I’m not even sure who actually even reads it any more – apart from Michelle 😉
So on that basis, where are we at?
Davies – aside from the odd moment of fleeting teendom, perhaps a five second glimpse of it once a month he remains the same person he has always been. He has gotten more private over the years and is definitely still the deep one of the family but seems happy and well adjusted and fine. He does have his moments of taking himself off for a walk, I watched him from afar last weekend in a group and he took some time out every so often to adjust. I do think this is a genuine dealing with his own shit type thing rather than an attention  seeking heading off to get people to follow him. I am not entirely convinced that Rum and our remote lifestyle are great for Davies but he insists he is happy with this. He does have a very wide social circle online and having chatted to other parents of teens back on the mainland / in school / in more conventional settings it would seem that a huge amount of teen socialising is done online regardless of physical proximity to real people anyway so I don’t especially feel he is missing out there. I am always impressed with his being so comfortable in his own skin, he is confident and happy with who he is. I love his sense of fairness and intolerance for racism, sexism, or other isms 😉 We very much let Davies do his thing from time he gets up to what he eats. Very rarely I will lay down the law on things – an example being not accepting him not talking to me if I have pissed him off over something, which always upsets him still, he hates being in trouble. Davies has a real sense of integrity and wi. sll often call Ady or I on something if he thinks we are wrong which I am really proud of. I love that he won’t choose an easy path just because it is easy, I hope he retains that sense of honour. I occasionally have  a rant at both the kids about wasting opportunities and how so many (if not all) of their peers are at school or college or doing exams and they are largely drifting but in the main I am pretty comfortable with that. I am still really confident that our approach is the right one for us and will pan out for the best. Davies is very tactile still with me and I get hugs, strokes, ‘love you’s and other affection countless times every day. It would be really easy to demonise Davies as the least productive, least helpful and least active member of the family but the reality is that he is a quiet calm presence who very much has his place in our dynamic and it is his role as observer, teller of truths and subtle humour which makes him as valuable as any one of the rest of us despite never putting the kettle on or doing the washing up without very direct requests.
Scarlett – remains very young for her age. On the day I learnt that her same age cousin has been self harming Scarlett had spent the afternoon stood in the river catching fish. She does take herself off for alone time moments and is certainly not above having a hormonal rant and days when nothing I can do it right but she is capable, responsible and intuitive. She still flatly refuses to read, despite knowing it would please and relieve Ady and in some ways I am celebratory of that. Secretly I think she can more or less read and is happier clinging on to childhood that letting that final bit of dependence on grown ups melt away. Scarlett still craves attention and would probably have been better with another couple of years or normality before our adventures in some ways as she’s not yet finished playing with toys, pretending and imagining and being a child. As with Davies she is also very happy in her skin, I do firmly believe that this is the greatest gift we have given our children – a confidence to be themselves, able to accept what they can’t do, happy to learn and continue to strive for what they want, making no excuses for what they are not. I love how Scarlett is so totally and utterly herself and so free from inhibitions and the need to conform.
The kids are very much in  a bubble here. A home ed bubble where there is no pressure on them to learn anything, to be tested or measured, or do practise papers or know where they are at compared to anyone else. A real world bubble where they are not living in a world with bills, traffic, working parents or any of the things which pretty much everyone else they know exist within. I have no real idea whether this is sheltering them from things they would be better off being part of or whether this is some sort of eden where they get to grow up without all of that to distract them and can view it from a distance and dip in and out as they see fit, knowing that the’ real world’ is merely one option among various choices and that entering it is fine and has many positives but also comes at a cost. The best we can do it to ensure they are aware of the whole world and all the possibilities offered by all the various choices.
We continue to talk and debate about options for the four of us moving forward and both Davies and Scarlett are very aware of the failings and downsides to this way of life. For now they both want to continue with this reality even though the compromises they make between the perfect life they may wish for (wifi, power, cinema, friends, junk food… the usual teenage trappings) and quite what this life offers are becoming more apparent.