Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

by Katherine May

So I finally let his words sink in. I pulled him out of school and shrugged off suggestions for ways to shoehorn him back in again: how to threaten and cajole; how to charm him into tolerating it; whether to medicate him into submission. I would do none of those things. I was not willing to get him back into school by breaking him, however desperate I was for my own time again. I, who had essentially liked the rhythm and challenge of school, came to realise how many people found school an utter endurance—yet many of them believed that our children should endure it, too, for fourteen painful years of their life. I was supposed to worry about his future qualifications more than his ability to be content. I was not willing to do that. I didn’t feel that the two should be in conflict—achieving your potential and not being completely miserable. Happiness is the greatest skill we’ll ever learn. It is not a part of ourselves that should be hived off into a dark corner, the shameful territory of the wilfully naive.