Wonder Woman's Axe effect

I have a very good friend who is absolutely crazy as are all my good friends. In fact in the membership form I ask them to fill out, that is the default option which has to be checked. Quite like Facebook's terms and conditions, if you don't tick it you are clearly not allowed.

So this friend of mine holds very strong opinions. Did I mention I hate fence sitters? Well! So she fulfills the second criterion too.

Obviously a person with strong opinions will air them frequently irrespective of whether they are solicited or not.

In this particular instance she spoke passionately about subsistence farming to my husband who tried to convince her earnestly that he could be classified in the same category. I pointed out that two tomatoes growing on the terrace, planted by squirrels and watered by me couldn't give him that branding. Talk of a desire to fit in with whichever crowd I hang out!

The better half has been secretly stalking all my friends and sending them facebook friend requests. You can imagine how horrifying it has been for me to see him pop up in random discussions with my friends whom he has never met or even heard of. I have needed counselling to get past this.

Getting back to my friend, she has turned vegan and has started decluttering her life off possessions and attachments. A happy consequence of this is that she gifted me earrings since she doesn't wear them anymore. She refuses to accept that she is turning into a monk. Instead she says she will become a farmer.

In the guise of farming, I suspect, she just wants to sit under a shade tree and read a book while the birds chirp merrily about. She can always say I'm singing to my plants and project a hardworking image while the rest of us look suitably shamefaced that we don't till the land or guard our borders; the two most important activities demanded by the nation.

She finally managed to convince my better half that he didn't know the difference between a ground digging wasp from a regular air borne wasp. Hell! He didn't even know the difference between a wasp and a bee, so how could he claim to be a son of the soil? She declared that though she hasn't grown the tomatoes that my husband has not grown either, she was still leagues ahead of him.

He retired to the room, claiming he was sleepy but actually shedding silent tears at this shredding of his manhood. Which man will publicly admit to being inadequately qualified for the job of farming, or for that matter, like to be berated over the lack of knowledge on the difference between a wasp and bee? Any sensible man knows that both have to be swatted or quickly sent out of the window by flailing madly with a newspaper.

He is in fact, one of that rare breed of people who isn't frightened of cockroaches. When he spots one, he just calls out to me. With my long years of training for long jump, I just take a flying leap from an imaginary footboard and land on it. You can make out however, that he has his heart in the right place since he always tut-tuts sympathetically at the dead cockroach and reproaches me with a “how could you?”

Having emerged victorious in this battle, my friend, let's call her wonder woman (WW, in short), turned to me and declared I should unschool my kids. I was totally taken aback by this attack from the flanks, I couldn't understand why she had turned on me so suddenly. It had been funny when she had berated the better half, but this turning on me smacked of a callous disregard for years of friendship.

'Unschool the kids,' could she mean unhinge my mind? It sounded pretty similar. 

She asked me “Why does your child need to learn anything in any structured way? What if children didn't learn addition or subtraction, how would it matter? When they desire to learn, you can easily facilitate it, but till then what is the purpose of it all?”

Ill prepared for this onslaught, I stuttered, “I wouldn't want them to turn around at a later date and ask me why I experimented with their lives.”

All her statements made sense, that schools encourage competition, they don't foster collaboration, children grow up feeling they need to outperform others. Moreover, if we have to save the world we need to collaborate not compete.

Much after W.W. left, I was still pondering over the wisdom in her words. The answer finally dawned on me. I need to send the kids to school not for them to succeed or achieve great grades or become sporting icons but for the sanity I would hold onto with everyone out of the house.

WW, I do what I do, not for them, but for me.

You go wear your hot Wonder Woman costume and save the world. I will clap madly from the side, all the while jumping up and down, shouting, “She's my friend, she's my friend”. But the only way you can convince me to unschool them, is if you can find me a socially acceptably story on why I had to adopt the ways of the cuckoo and leave my spawn in the crow's nest.