Kids go to school, and then when they are adults, they go to work. Right?

Not necessarily.

Through the lifelong (their lives) process of homeschooling her kids, Starcat discovered unschooling. It is also known as child-led learning, and involves learning by living life and pursuing one’s interests and passions. When BlackLion joined the family, he figured, “Why limit it to kids? If they can do it, I can do it!” So he left his full-time job in December 2007, and Starcat did the same in May 2008. We’ve been spending time with family and friends, writing books, gardening, and having fun. We also have a wonderful support group of families who meet each week to play and learn together.

So how do we “make a living?”

BlackLion does some consultant work, mostly at home. Starcat does a little consulting for her former workplace, but is mostly the full-time Mom and facilitator for the kids’ learning process. Quester is working for himself as a landscaper and contractor. He has time to play in his rock band, Freakwitch, because he creates his own schedule. We keep our expenses down by living simply, reusing and re-purposing the things we need, which is not only in line with our green ethics but is also thrifty.

We’ve co-written a vegan Pagan cookbook which has been submitted to publishers, and are working on two more books, on spirituality. We have time to do some volunteering in our community, including writing for and editing a statewide Pagan newsletter. We’ve traveled, too, to a SCA event in Pennsylvania which was two weeks of fun and education for all of us, and BlackLion recently returned from volunteering at the RawSpirit Fest in Maryland. We look forward to more travel and meeting new people – it’s a great way to learn about a wide variety of topics. We hang out with family, friends and our beloved cats and dog.

And we’re certainly not the only ones living this lifestyle! We’ll give some resources and links, below. There are many families across the U.S. and the world who are discovering the joys of spending time together and having fun. In fact, an unschooling conference, ReThinking Education, recently took place in Texas, with the usual kid-focused topics augmented by discussions of how the parents can create the sustainable lives they want to live.

Our current focus is to create abundance and prosperity for ourselves and our communities. We’re thinking of combining our desire for travel with offering to speak to groups of people about what we’ve been learning, and perhaps writing travel articles about the places we visit. We’d love to collaborate with others who are interested in our passions: raw and vegan foods, unjobbing, unschooling, writing, spirituality, drumming, yoga, books, art, the Law of Attraction, cats and faeries (of course), and whatever else might strike our fancy.

Some resources:

Books:

Unjobbing: The Adult Liberation Handbook by Michael Fogler
The Four-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss
Radical Unschooling: A Revolution Has Begun by Dayna Martin
Homeschooling Our Children, Unschooling Ourselves by Alison McKee
The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education by Grace Llewellyn
The Science of Success: The Secret to Getting What You Want by Wallace D. Wattles

Websites:

TUT’s Adventurers Club
The Sparkling Martins
Abraham-Hicks
Radical Unschooling
ReThinking Education conference
Rite Food & Company