Parents (and kids) don’t need school

Ugly truth!
"We're forcing kids to be miserable for hours a day […] School is almost like a baby sitter, right? It's like, I got to go to work."@APompliano⁩ and ⁦@dwarkesh_sp⁩
On Why The Future Will Be Wild pic.twitter.com/Ra6yR9lhlw

— tagomago | Mauro Rebelo (@tagomago_me) March 8, 2025

“It’s social control as well. What do you do with the kids, right?! In some way, many parents look at school almost like a babysitter, right?! It’s like, ‘I’ve got to go to work.’”

This extract from the conversation between Anthony Pompliano and Dwarkesh Patel hit me like a punch in the stomach. It made me realize an ugly truth—I was doing exactly the same thing. I was treating school as nothing more than extended child care. I couldn’t care less about my kids’ school’s pedagogical project because I didn’t expect them to educate my kids!

Intuitively, I knew I could give them a better education than the school. School was not what my kids or I needed. What my kids need or want is my full attention. But my attention must be divided between myself, my wife, my family, my friends, and the work that I love.

School gave me a few hours a day to… take a break from parenting.

But I couldn’t ignore the resistance my twins—especially my son—had to kindergarten (yes, it started early). Going to school was already a struggle for them.

“But how come? It’s a nice school, with good friends, caring teachers, and it’s so close to home…”

Feynmann used to say that our hardest challenge is not to fool yourself, because we are the easiest person to fool. It turns out I was fooling myself into thinking the school was fine—because I needed my kids to like it, and because I needed the time off. The school wasn’t that great. It was low-tech, with almost no open space, paternalistic directors, bland food, cheap toys, and boring classes. But… it had a good reputation (which meant I would look good among my peers), and it was only five minutes from home.

Did they suffer all the time? No. Did they learn things? Yes. Did they have some fun? Yes. But was it worth it for them? I have serious doubts—and if you ask them, the answer is easy: no!

Especially because… we are great parents! We can afford to dedicate a lot of attention to them and provide them with rich experiences—from books to international trips.

My children’s reaction to school reminded me of my own. It was a terrible period for me, for several reasons I can discuss another time, but it all comes down to one thing: a child has no choice but to attend school. An adult can opt out of almost anything: a boring school, a job, a city, a relationship—even abusive partners or an abusive boss. A child can’t. So they suffer. Not always in silence, but they endure their way through school.

But how is it possible that we are putting those we claim to love the most—those we would give our lives for—through this suffering?

We can say that it’s complex and difficult to explain, but I’ll return to the same point: it’s convenient for everyone —except the kids.

It is convenient for parents to have a collective babysitter—one that doesn’t make them feel guilty for affording help. It is convenient for parents with little to no experience in education to have someone else take on that responsibility. It is convenient for the government because it is a single point of control. It is also convenient for a consumer-driven society.

After generations of reinforcement, the system is deeply entrenched, and the behaviors it promotes are designed to protect it. For me, the hardest barrier to break was social conformity and authority bias. Going against the tide is a lonely ride. “How can you expect to be right while everyone else—over the past 200 years, including governments and Nobel Prize winners—is wrong?! You must be an arrogant prick or a conspiracy theorist.”

But this wasn’t about my ego—it was about my kids’ suffering.

Luckily, I was not alone. Some frustrated parents are putting in a lot of effort to stand up against coercive education, fighting for their kids’ right to an autonomous life.

After these years of experience and research as a father, I am now fully convinced that families like ours don’t need schools—and that they can actually do more harm than good. We can do a better job than schools! What we need is child care, the ‘village’ that no longer exists and to which schools are NOT a substitute.

Criticizing the school system isn’t radical—it’s backed by psychology and behavioral science. Studies on autonomy, motivation, and learning suggest that coercion and standardized education often do more harm than good. Some movements, like Taking Children Seriously and Nonviolent Communication, explore alternative approaches to raising and educating children without force. However, In Brazil, unschooling is not an option as enrolling children in school is mandatory from age six, homeschooling unregulated.

At this point, it’s about how much I’m willing to stand up for what I believe is best for my kids—how much I’m willing to trade my convenience for their well-being. My wife, our kids, and I put a lot of energy into finding a school that truly prioritized THEIR best interests while navigating legal, financial, and logistical constraints. But we did so with a clear understanding of what school actually offers us and a commitment not to sacrifice their joy for my convenience, the school’s ego, or the system’s strength.