TV reviewFactual TV This article is more than 6 years oldReviewFeral Families review – no school and unlimited ice-cream? No wonder the kids are happy
This article is more than 6 years oldA look at the increasing popularity of no-rules ‘off-grid’ parenting – where some of the more rebellious children may actually opt for structure and education
Children – I’ve got a couple of them. One is due to start school next year, the other is already there. So I’m watching Feral Families (Channel 4) – about the increasing number of families eschewing school in favour of no-rules, “off-grid parenting” – with interest. All you have to do is write a letter it seems, and that’s it, they’re out. Free.
It might be hard to persuade my children’s mother, who is quite traditional about things like that – education, rules, boundaries. She might point out that sending our children to school allows us a bit of time for ourselves, for lives, careers etc. Also that the one who is already at school seems to be not entirely unhappy there – enjoys it even, and that he might even be learning a few things, as well as meeting children of his own age from the area.
Yeah, but he’s got us, his family, his tribe, he doesn’t need friends. And what is he learning? Reading, writing, a bit of maths, blah, who needs it?
Look at Archie here, in Wiltshire. Achie, now 13, hasn’t been to school for six years. “I don’t really like reading and writing anyway,” he says. “If I need to write anything I can just like speak into my phone. That’s the easiest bit.”
Exactly! Oh, except that his phone can’t write CLUB on the side of the caravan mum Jenna bought him, which is what Archie wants to do. When he tries, he leaves out the L. Well, that’s also OK, maybe later he and his younger brothers might take in a CUB.
Jenna wants her three boys to feel love and security, and the rest is pretty much up to them. She – and the other families here – seem to have thought it through: Archie wasn’t happy at school; she took him out; then he was happy. It’s a no-brainer.
Lucy Wilcox’s film is fair and non-judgmental, but I imagine it will stir up a #FeralFamilies twitterstorm.It’s a good subject for a barney. Within families too. Jenna’s dad, Archie’s grandad, is a traditionalist. He likes a roast on a Sunday, and a child in a school. He’s paying for a private tutor, so Archie can try to catch up. Which he is doing, very well. Trouble is, Jenna’s taking them on road trip – round the UK, Scotland, Wales, Europe – so the literacy’s going to have to be put on hold.
Anyway, Archie’s good at the drums, and handy with a bow and arrow. “If we have a civil war at any time soon I’m going to feel quite protected,” says his mum. Yeah grandad, you won’t be reading much after your head’s been chopped off, will you?
Up in Yorkshire, the seven children in the Rawnsley family are still awake, helping themselves to ice-cream from the fridge, at 10.40pm. Well, they haven’t got anything to get up for. It’s the same deal – their parents want them to be happy and free, to think for themselves, and if they think they want ice-cream at 10.40pm, then that’s what they get.
Hang on though, there’s a rebellion. Finlay Rawnsley, 12, likes structure and wants to go to school (that’s what rebellion looks like in the Rawnsley household). “I feel like I’m wasting the day if I wake up late, and when I do school work I feel proud of myself afterwards, ’cos I feel like I’ve achieved something,” he says.
His poor parents; they’re so disappointed. To be fair to them though, they go along with it – well, the kids are free to choose for themselves don’t forget, even if it means making the wrong choices. Mum takes Finlay and sister Skye, another potential rebel, to get uniforms. They have a three-day school trial, which goes quite well. Afterwards Finlay says he’s 60% likely to go to school next year …
Oh. But in the end he decides not to. Skye neither, but she wasn’t so keen. I thought Finlay would go though, and do well. I really hope it was entirely his decision, and that he will never regret it.
They do, undeniably, look very happy, the Rawnsley family, all nine of them, gambolling about in a bouldery countryside, eating ice-cream whenever the hell they want to eat ice-cream. I’m sure Archie and his brothers and Jenna are having a brilliant time on their road trip too.
But I’m thinking we might not drop out of the system just yet. Off-grid parenting looks like bloody hard work for starters – it’s making me feel tired just watching. And making me feel quite traditional. I think I’d quite like to increase the slim chance that my children might one day be employable, as well as happy now. I know, I want a roast on Sunday, Yorkshire pud, all the trimmings.
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