By the time my son is grown, machines will likely do most of the world’s thinking. Artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation will have replaced much of what we once called work. Many of the skills I spent my own youth acquiring will be obsolete.
It’s a strange thing to realize. And stranger still to ask: how do I raise a child for a world where there is nothing he needs to do?
The answer, I think, is not to raise him for economic usefulness—but for wholeness.
What Machines Can’t Do
Machines can write code, sort data, compose songs, and drive trucks. They are fast, tireless, and increasingly competent. But they cannot love. They cannot be patient. They do not marvel at the curve of a shell, or cry when someone they love is hurting. They do not make bread for the pleasure of sharing it. They do not ask: what is a good life?
These are human things. They are also, I suspect, the things that will matter most.
So I am not trying to raise a high performer. I’m trying to raise someone who knows how to be alive.
A Different Kind of Education
Much of modern education is built to prepare children for jobs—jobs that are rapidly disappearing or transforming beyond recognition. The old system teaches compliance, speed, and standardized thinking. That system won’t serve my son.
If I imagine a better education for him, it looks like this:
- He learns with his hands. He builds things, grows food, mends what breaks. Not just to develop skills, but to understand the world as something he can shape and care for.
- He spends time outside every day. He learns from weather, tide, season, and soil. Nature is his first and best teacher.
- He reads stories and hears them told aloud. Not just for literacy, but for moral imagination.
- He learns how to sit with his emotions. To name them, speak them, let them pass without causing harm. This is the foundation of peace.
- He learns to ask good questions. Not just how to find the right answer, but how to live with the ones that don’t come easily.
So it seems to me that instead of a curriculum for knowledge acquisition that most of us grew up in, I’m hoping my son’s “school” will teach him how to live a virtuous life. Not a successful life. Not a safe life. But a good life.
What It Looks Like Now
My son is two. We don’t call what we’re doing school. But I know it’s begun.
We spend hours outside. He helps me in the garden. He scribbles pictures in the mud. He knows the calls of different birds birds and points at the moon. He helps water seedlings, sweep the floor, stir the pancake batter. He is clumsy and slow but always trying his best.
We read every day. He listens to the same stories over and over, learning the shape of language and the rhythm of narrative. We sing songs. We build with blocks. We watch the clouds.
Sometimes he’s wild. Sometimes I lose patience. But I try to let the day follow a rhythm rather than a schedule. I try to keep things simple, real, and close to the ground.
A School of Our Own
If I were to build a school for him—something more formal in the years to come—I imagine it blending the delayed academics of Waldorf, the independence of Montessori, and the groundedness of a working farm. The ocean would be part of it. So would the seasons, the soil, and the stories of this place.
The children would help grow their own food. They would build things with real tools. They would spend most of their time outdoors. They would learn to read and write by telling stories worth telling. They would learn math by budgeting for a feast or measuring out a garden bed. Formal study will obviously occur, but the focus would be much more on real world application.
They would apprentice with people in the community who do useful, beautiful work. They would learn not only facts but how to care—about land, about truth, about one another.
“Graduates” would emerge able to cook, fix, grow, speak, and listen. They would be curious, capable, emotionally literate creators (rather than consumers).
Preparing for What Matters
I don’t know what the world will look like in twenty years. But I do know this: if my son can pay attention, work with his hands, speak clearly, forgive easily, love deeply, and remain curious—he will be ready.
And if he can’t do those things, no amount of skill or cleverness will save him.
The future does not need more efficient, specialized workers. It needs whole people.
