Back

The social nomad | Day 191 of my 2023 Journal

Cecilie Conrad·Jul 10, 2023· 3 minutes

🇩🇰 Read in Danish 🇬🇧

A question we often meet is this: What about friends? I

t is no different from before we started traveling; when the kids had their homebased life in a house, it was the same worry most people came to us with: How is children's social life outside the school system? And will they be socialized?

In 2012, I wrote a simple blog post on the social life of home-based children.

It has been one of the most read pieces, and I feel it is about time to do another one. It seems complicated for people outside the lifestyle inside what I call “The Box” to understand.

I think it is necessary to look at where the question comes from, beside an often wholehearted worry about the thriving of our family. Thank you for that, all!

Let me say: We’ve got it. Dont worry. We are happy and balanced.

But let’s face it: The question also comes from an understanding of how crucial friendships are for schooled children and how important it is for them to survive the context of the school setting emotionally.

The focus on friends and learning social codes is based on the fear of the child drowning in a sea of loneliness, lack of confidence, being mocked, and being an outcast.

This is a short text, not the next long blog-style unfolding of the theme, so let me be clear: We do not have that problem. There is no sea to drown in.

Our children are not dependent on a social field of

A) lack of trust of adults (because they always have an agenda, and they don’t trust you)

B) too many other children you are forced to spend EVERY DAY with for up to NINE hours.

You grow strong.

You get to know yourself. Y

ou pick and choose your own friends.

And passions.

You have TIME for your relations.

I don’t need to spend several hours a day with my friends to have a rich social life, nor do my children.

As it happens, we, all of us, including the children, have friends in many countries - long-lasting beautiful friendships.

We mostly travel for people or coordinate adventures with friends and spend most of our time coliving.

There is no problem. At all.

Love and light

Cecilie-Underskrift-300x133

Cecilie Conrad

🇩🇰 Read in Danish 🇬🇧 

Thank you for reading
I would love to hear from you. Listen to your thoughts and reflections - or praise :) It is often emotional to share our life like this, and we get very happy when we get feedback from you. So feel free to share a comment below 😋 

I hardly know how to visit people anymore. With the Attwood family, we live our lives on top of and around each other. We all do our thing, and the h…Read more
Ten years ago, Chris and Doris Attwood were suddenly in my living room in Copenhagen.Our families have been inspiring each other for a decade now, da…Read more
The adventure is not about WHERE we go, but rather WHO we meet. 

In the new relations lies the true adventure. Most important is the relation itself…Read more
I know all pain comes from the distance between how I perceive reality to be and how I want it to be, so I try to flip it around. To say to myself I …Read more
The families are starting to leave. Nomads always move around, and now the castle experience is ending. Everyone is going in different directions. Th…Read more
I love days of "little things" - days where I just follow along, do my yoga, organize things, and just are in flow with life. I am grateful for the f…Read more
Most people do not know what makes them happy. They think they do, but they don’t. I find it crucial to always be aware of our core values, our next …Read more
In the flow of life, as it goes, we rarely stop to think about how much effort goes into conversations. Communication is crucial for human life; we n…Read more
Unpacking and unlearning our fears and hidden agendas is most of the work of unschooling parents. We don’t judge a child who builds a tower of bricks…Read more