Britain’s feral families
A girl of 7 allowed to shave her head. The young boy learning to drum instead of how to read and write. A TV documentary visits the homes where mum and dad never, EVER say no . . .
So, mums and dads, picture this. Your seven-year-old daughter skips into the living room and says that she wants to shave her head. Do you (a) tell her not to be so ridiculous and to go and do her homework? or (b) point her in the direction of the clippers and let her get on with it?
If you are part of a growing tribe who embrace a concept called ‘extreme unschooling’ — aka parenting without rules — then the answer is obviously the latter.
The above scenario actually happened while cameras were filming at home with the Rawnsley family in Yorkshire for a Channel 4 documentary on the phenomenon.
The Rawnsleys have seven children who, when we meet them, are sliding down the stairs on mattresses dragged off every bed in the house. The title of this show is Feral Families — and, as the kids climb out of windows, help themselves to ice cream cones (with sprinkles!) as a bedtime snack and hurtle down the stairs headfirst, it seems a perfectly valid one.
mum Gemma, 35, a mobile hairdresser, and dad Lewis, a chef, made the decision some years ago that conventional parenting was not for them and the ‘no rules’ approach would work better.
so their seven children — as well as Pearl (the seven-year-old) there is skye, 13, Finlay, 12, Phoenix, nine, Hunter, five, Zephyr, three, and baby Woolf, who has just turned one — are well and truly in charge in this house. Parents are ‘facilitators’, says Gemma.
‘Right from the off, we felt really strongly that we didn’t want to be the sort of parents you see shouting at their kids in the supermarket. We felt that our children needed to be given the power to develop as people, to make their own decisions.’
What does this mean in practice? ‘It means that if they say they want to use the mattresses to make a slide, that we don’t automatically say “no”. Why should we say “no”? We are facilitators, so we will lift the mattresses for them. The conventional response would be to say: “No, you can’t take the mattresses and make a slide”, but why not? We put cushions at the bottom. It is safe. And they have the most amazing fun that is wonderful to watch.’
Ditto the hair clippers, so willingly entrusted to the care of livewire Pearl, who is just seven?
Yes, it seems. ‘I’m a hairdresser and barber,’ explains Gemma. ‘so it’s only natural for kids to be curious about it. I actually showed Pearl how to switch the clippers on and what to do with them. maybe most parents would say “no”.
‘I disagree. Cutting her own hair teaches her independence, encourages her creativity, improves her motor skills. she did a good job with her hair, too, but even if she’d made a mess of it, I’d still have praised her for it, because you want your kids to feel proud of everything they achieve. It bolsters their self-confidence.’
What does allowing the kids to have ice cream before bedtime teach them, then, apart from the correlation between sugar and teeth cavities?
‘They aren’t allowed to do this every night,’ Gemma points out. ‘During the week, we are quite rigid about healthy eating. But at weekends, things are different.’
she continues: ‘It’s not true that there are no rules — I mean, I wouldn’t let them bungee jump out of the window. It’s more that there are no unnecessary rules. We feel that, as a society, we’ve become too hung up on just saying “no” to kids, without thinking of why we are doing it.’
While home-schooling has been around for decades, ‘unschooling’ is a more recent American import. It means that rather than doing homework, children learn ‘organically’ at their own pace.
They also, it seems, choose what they want to learn themselves. And if they want to learn fire-juggling or drumming, and reach their teenage years unable to properly read and write? Well, the message that comes from this jaw-dropping programme is that that is fine.
As Gemma told one newspaper this weekend: ‘They’re behind their peers in terms of academics, but I’m not bothered. GCsEs are a memory test, it’s not about being intelligent.’
Jenna Presley, 38, has four children and lives in Wiltshire. Her eldest, Dylan, now 20, was conventionally educated. ‘He went to school. He did exams. I did everything with him in a mainstream way,’ says Jenna.
Then came Archie, who is now 13. When Archie was seven, Jenna became increasingly distressed about how he was adjusting to school life. ‘He hated it. He was depressed,’ she explains.
‘my background is in mental health, and I could see he was depressed. I’d have to drag him down the stairs to actually go to school — it was verging on child abuse.’
Family life was also a drag, she says. ‘ We were living a normal conventional lifestyle. I went to work, he went to school, but there was no quality of life. It was all: “You brush your teeth, go to school, have dinner, do homework, bed.” We wanted more.’
so Jenna took Archie out of school. This is perfectly legal, as long as you inform the authorities. At first, Jenna drew up study timetables and ‘tried to replicate the way he had been learning at school’. Yet still, Archie refused to engage.
‘I do think he is mildly dyslexic,’ she explains. ‘He really struggled with his reading and writing.’ All the more reason to get formal assistance with his education, you might think. But Jenna disagreed and, buoyed by research into the idea of letting children do their own thing, she let Archie decide what
he wanted to learn. mostly, this was the drums. ‘We watched a lot of videos of Keith moon,’ she admits. ‘But Archie came alive. He was finally doing something he loved.’
What else does Archie study? Well, since leaving school, he has taught himself to juggle fire and throw knives. ‘ He’s very responsible, much more so than other children his age.’
There’s a rather astonishing moment in the programme when his mother is asked if she would allow Archie to have a gun, if he wanted to learn to shoot.
she says yes, why not? ‘I mean, obviously, I’m talking an air rifle, and not when there are younger children around, but I know my son — probably more so than parents whose children spend all day at school know theirs.’
she says that ‘unschooling’ has been the making of Archie.
‘He’s blossomed. He’s become a confident, independent boy. It’s completely transformed him.’
It’s also, it seems, left Archie with the literacy skills of a much younger child. He struggles with his reading and writing and, while he does not think this is a problem (he says that if he needs to write, he can just use his phone), others in the family are appalled.
His father ( who is not with Jenna) wasn’t consulted about Jenna’s unschooling decision and, she admits, ‘wasn’t happy’.
‘ His mother, Archie’s gran, phoned me up and said I was ruining his life.’ Her own parents weren’t happy, either, and her dad mick, 66, has employed a private tutor for Archie.
While Jenna has allowed this, she simply doesn’t agree that exams matter. ‘I mean, I went to school, but I still left without any GCsEs. I went on to do a degree later. I don’t believe in getting hung up on a piece of paper. school suits some
children. It did not suit Archie.’ But will Archie not end up unemployable, at least anywhere other than a circus?
‘No, I think as a society, that’s what we have been led to believe, but Archie has already worked, helping out at a local festival putting up the marquees, and all the reports that have come back to me are about how amazing he is, and how good his work ethic is.’ She’s not convinced school would do a single positive thing for him. ‘I mean, my eldest, Dylan, went through the school system.
‘He is working as a barber, which isn’t a job that you need A-levels for. And when he sends me texts, I can see that he can’t spell, even with his education.’
She’s a passionate advocate of this lifestyle, and her younger children, Otis, five, and Silo, will be raised in the same way.
But what if they show an academic bent? ‘I think that might be the case with Otis. He’s already streaks ahead with his reading. But that’s the point. We take each child on their own merits and assess what is best for them.’
While some of the families involved struggled with the title of the show (Gemma, the mum-ofseven, admits she baulked a bit at the ‘feral’ description), Jenna is proud to call her family feral.
‘I came up with the title,’ she reveals. ‘I don’t see it as a criticism at all. To me, feral means freespirited, not hemmed in by convention. I want my children to grow up happy, not feeling that they have to conform.’
Mother-of-three Vickie Hairsine, 25, says her move into ‘extreme unschooling’ was gradual.
Her eldest daughter, Jessica, now seven, started at primary school, but became increasingly ‘sad and withdrawn’, to the point where Vickie removed her.
She was nervous about doing so (she admits sheepishly that she posted the letter through the door of the school and ran away).
She says her husband Mike, 35, who is an ex-soldier, struggled with the concept of ‘no rules’ parenting at first, but that the more relaxed approach has made their household ‘much, much happier’.
‘I read about the idea and it sort of chimed with how I was with the kids. I didn’t want to be stressed, shouting and screaming at them all the time.’
She is certainly a chilled-out mum. During filming, there is disruption in the house as Theo, four, spills juice everywhere while the 11-month-old crawls over the table. She deals with it by smiling. ‘What’s the point of telling Theo off? He is four. He doesn’t understand.’
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Jessica, seven, decides she would like purple hair. What to do? She helps her dye it, of course.
Others don’t understand, she admits. ‘People do feel the need to comment. If we are out in a coffee shop, they will say: “Are you not in school today?” and when you explain, they will say (to the child): “You won’t learn to read and write.” I think that is quite rude.’
There are some interesting conundrums explored in this programme. The Rawnsley family face a huge challenge when two of their children — Skye and Finlay — decide they to go to school. ‘That took us a little by surprise,’ says Gemma. ‘But we went with it because, again, it was their call.’
All three families are aware their unconventional approach will be seen by many as simply neglectful and irresponsible parenting.
Gemma rejects the idea that opting out of education ( and disciplining, to a degree) is an easy option. ‘No flipping way is it easier. The easy way is to wave your kids off to school and let someone else take on the responsibility.
‘ But we didn’t have kids for someone else to raise them.
‘And every single decision we make is controlled. We think about it very carefully.’
Jenna points out that their lifestyle choice is, if anything, harder for the parents — because it is all about the children. ‘I had to give up my own job to create this sort of life. In many ways, I’ve sacrificed a lot of myself.’
To watch these ‘feral’ children at play — whether it is on their mattress slide or juggling fire — is joyful. When they are grown-ups, however, will they thank their parents for their unconventional upbringing? Yes, says Gemma. ‘Because we are bringing them up to be themselves. They can only gain from that.’ Feral Families is on Channel 4 on Thursday at 9pm