Abraham Lincoln, Unschooler and Attachment Parent?

For me, one of the great joys of homeschooling so far has been being infected by the interests of the children learning around me.  Unschooling author Mary Griffith calls this "viral learning," a phrase I love.  I know viral learning happens in families that don't homeschool, too--the difference, perhaps, is that I spend more weekday hours hearing all about children's interests, for better and for worse.

One of the learning bugs that infected me came from our friend Madeline, who's nine years old.  Last summer she was obsessed with presidents.  Her conversation was peppered with presidential facts, and whenever possible, she tried to steer the kids in our play group into pretending to be various First Families.  She learned how to subtract four-digit numbers so she could figure out how old presidents were when they died by looking at their birth and death dates.  With the presidential campaign going on at the same time, it was hard not to be sucked into her enthusiasm.  

After a family trip through Theodore Roosevelt National Park, I plunged into reading everything I could find about Theodore Roosevelt.  Next came FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt.  I found myself moved both by how ahead of their times these leaders were and humbled and instructed by the ways they were limited and blinded by the times in which they lived.  As my friend Katrina put it, seeing their blind spots was a good way to reflect on my own.  

Now I'm reading two books about Lincoln:  Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin and a chapter book for kids called Lincoln and His Boys by Rosemary Wells.

What has been striking me is how very self-educated he was--I'd forgotten that he only had about nine months of formal schooling.  While his lawyer and politician peers were studying at prestigious prep schools and colleges, he was stealing peeks at Aesop's Fables between plowing rows in a field.  While other would-be lawyers studied under the mentorship of established lawyers, he studied to become a lawyer on his own.  Even after he'd become a lawyer and was well into his forties, he was still an avid learner of all sorts of subjects.  After trying cases all day, he'd stay up late trying to work out ancient geometry problems.  After watching East Coast lawyers in action for the first time, he went home determined to study harder:  "For any rough-and-tumble case (and a pretty good one, too), I am enough for any man we have out in that country; but these college-trained men are coming West. . . Soon they will be in Illinois. . . and when they appear, I will be ready."

Often, I notice, writers about Lincoln marvel that he was able to accomplish so much when he didn't have the advantages of schooling.  I have to wonder if it was his self-schooling that helped him see possibilities that other leaders of his time didn't see.  I wonder if it was self-schooling that gave him the confidence to master new subjects as he needed to--to become, for instance, a more masterful military strategizer than most of his generals.  

The other thing that strikes me--and moves me--about Lincoln is what a devoted father he was.  In his gentleness and acceptance of his children, he was definitely way ahead of his time.  When his sons broke into Cabinet meetings and hauled him off to play, he often laughingly went along with them, to the consternation of his Cabinet members, who thought children should be seen and not heard.  His wife recalled him saying, "It is my pleasure that my children are free--happy and unrestrained by paternal tyranny.  Love is the chain whereby to lock a child to its parent."

As slightly disturbing as the "love as chain" metaphor is, I can't help but see that Lincoln was basically expressing what attachment parenting advocates say now:  that connection to our children is more important than enforcing blind obedience.

Way to go, Lincoln.  You rocked in even more ways than I knew.  And thanks to Madeline for infecting me with presidential history fever.