The Call of the Wild and Free

When was the last time you watched your child look at the world with pure, unfiltered wonder? In The Call of the Wild and Free, Ainsley Arment invites you to rediscover that spark — both in your children and within yourself. She argues that modern education, with its obsession over achievement, testing, and conformity, has slowly extinguished the light of curiosity and joy that defines childhood. Her mission is to reclaim that wonder by redefining what real learning looks like — through homeschooling that is not about control, but about freedom, nature, connection, and purpose.

Arment contends that the traditional schooling model — born from industrial-age efficiency and standardized thinking — has stolen time, creativity, and individuality from our children. The book offers a radically hopeful alternative: an education that centers on relationships, curiosity, and slow living. It's not just about teaching at home, but about cultivating a life where learning and living blend seamlessly. Rooted in her work with the Wild + Free community, Arment offers a vision that has attracted tens of thousands of mothers craving a gentler, truer, and freer way to raise and educate their children.

The Heart of the Wild + Free Movement

At its heart, Wild + Free is both a philosophy and a community that celebrates two core values: the wildness of childhood and the freedom of homeschooling. For Arment, being wild doesn’t mean chaotic or unstructured — it means alive, connected to nature, and unafraid to explore. Being free doesn’t mean doing whatever you want; it means being released from conventions that don’t honor your family’s rhythms or values.

Arment’s vision pushes past homeschool stereotypes. Instead of seeing homeschooling as a retreat from the world, she frames it as a return — a return to simplicity, family, nature, and meaning. As she writes through stories of her own five children, homeschooling becomes less about academics and more about cultivating curiosity and responsibility, finding purpose, and rediscovering joy in learning together.

Why This Message Matters Now

Arment’s call comes at a cultural crossroads. She argues that today’s children are overstressed, overscheduled, and under-inspired — the product of a system that values test scores over curiosity and compliance over creativity. She cites studies like those from the American Psychological Association showing that children now report more stress than adults during the school year. The result is a loss not just of joy, but of identity. Arment believes homeschooling can heal this wound by reconnecting learning with freedom, belonging, and wonder.

The Wild + Free approach isn’t prescriptive — it allows for any child, any parent, any rhythm. Whether you lean toward classical education, Montessori, Charlotte Mason, or unschooling, Arment encourages you to find your “own meadow,” your unique way of nurturing learning through exploration and love. As she notes, the Wild + Free philosophy is about values, not methods — centering on nature, story, play, curiosity, and wonder as the foundation for lifelong learning.

From Burnout to Belief

Much of the book is written directly to mothers who feel overwhelmed, unqualified, or caught between societal expectations and maternal instincts. Arment reassures them that they are enough — that the most important qualification for homeschooling is not a degree, but love, consistency, and curiosity. She reminds readers that parents are already their children’s greatest teachers. From the moment we soothe a crying baby or answer a toddler’s endless “whys,” we are doing the work of education: guiding, modeling, and connecting knowledge to experience.

Through relatable stories — her son’s light “going out” after entering school, her family’s messy first homeschool year, and her own evolution as an educator — Arment reveals how homeschooling can transform both children and parents. She shows that what often begins as an act of courage soon becomes an act of grace. You don’t have to master every subject before you begin. You simply have to begin — and believe that learning is a lifelong journey you walk together.

What You'll Learn from This Book

Throughout the chapters, Arment dismantles the myths that keep many parents from homeschooling — myths about socialization, qualification, rigor, and college readiness. She outlines a spectrum of homeschooling philosophies, from classical to Montessori, and explores how families can discover their own style. She examines the seasons of homeschooling, from finding rhythm and creating family culture to cultivating nature-based education and using story and play as tools for growth. Finally, she lays out the five pillars of the Wild + Free philosophy — Nature, Story, Play, Curiosity, and Wonder — as the natural curriculum of a well-lived, well-loved childhood.

In the end, The Call of the Wild and Free is not just a homeschooling manifesto — it’s a vision for a new way of seeing education, motherhood, and childhood itself. It’s an invitation to anyone who believes that freedom and learning can coexist, that connection is more powerful than curriculum, and that the world is still full of wonder — if we’ll only let our children (and ourselves) rediscover it.

Ainsley Arment begins by addressing a quiet crisis she sees unfolding in modern families: mothers who feel disconnected from their intuition and from their children’s natural rhythms. In the chapter “Reclaiming Motherhood,” she calls for a radical act of courage — to reclaim your motherhood from the cultural scripts that define what makes a “good mom.” For decades, mothers have been taught to trust experts over instincts, schedules over seasonal rhythms, and achievement over attachment. Arment invites you to do the opposite: to trust that you already possess everything needed to guide, nurture, and educate your children, especially in the early years.

Trusting the Inner Compass

Modern parenting, Arment argues, often begins with fear — fear of falling behind, failing, or being judged. This fear leads to outsourcing parenting decisions to institutions and experts. But the result is exhaustion, guilt, and a lost sense of purpose. Homeschooling, in this context, isn’t just an educational choice — it’s a means of healing the mother-child bond. “You are your child’s best teacher,” she insists, not because you know every subject but because you know your child — their quirks, dreams, anxieties, and rhythms — better than anyone else ever could.

Instead of focusing on performance or comparison, Arment suggests focusing on relationship and rhythm. This shift mirrors the wisdom of educators like Charlotte Mason (“Children are born persons”) and Julie Bogart (The Brave Learner), who advocate for learning as an extension of family life, not an artificial system imposed on it.

Letting Go of Guilt and Perfection

Arment candidly shares how societal pressures make women question their worth — whether through rigid parenting advice or competitive school environments. She recounts her own early motherhood experience of following every “rule,” even letting her infant cry it out because the books said so, only to feel heartbroken and disconnected. That moment became a turning point: if something feels wrong in your soul, she urges, it probably is. The real expertise comes from experience and love, not authority or algorithms.

The chapter closes with a call to freedom: release yourself from unrealistic expectations and external validation. Stop parenting according to other people’s checklists. As L.R. Knost, one of Arment’s quoted voices, writes, “Our children are children for such a small season of life. Let their laughter ring out.” Reclaiming motherhood is not backward — it’s revolutionary.

Defining Your “Why”

Homeschooling without a clear “why,” Arment warns, will lead to discouragement on hard days. She encourages mothers to articulate their personal vision for homeschooling: to protect childhood, deepen family bonds, or nurture creativity. Knowing your “why” anchors you when challenges arise. Arment even provides reflective questions — What do you want your children to remember about this season? What matters most in your family life? — that help you design your homeschooling philosophy around your values, not external pressures.

This key idea captures one of the book’s central messages: homeschooling isn’t an escape from the modern world but an act of reclaiming your innate wisdom as a mother. It’s about choosing connection over compliance, intuition over intervention, and joy over judgment. When you trust your instincts, you break the cycle of fear and rediscover the deep, slow magic of raising free and wild children.

In “The Call to Homeschooling,” Arment explores what it means to truly answer the whisper that something about conventional schooling feels wrong for your family. Through deeply personal storytelling, she paints homeschooling as a sacred return — not an alternative education plan but a choice to live differently. For many mothers, she argues, this call begins not in ambition but in heartbreak: the moment they see “the light go out of their child’s eyes” after being consumed by the pressures of standardized education.

From Fear to Freedom

Arment recounts her own experience of sending her five-year-old son, Wyatt, to school — the morning bus rides, the loss of play, the way his curiosity dimmed under repetition and long days. That grief became her awakening. Homeschooling offered a way to reclaim what had been lost: time, joy, and presence. For anyone on the fence, Arment reframes homeschooling not as withdrawal but as engagement — an intentional act of freedom grounded in love.

Drawing from thinkers like Ken Robinson (The Element) and Peter Gray (Free to Learn), she positions homeschooling as part of a larger movement to reimagine learning in a post-industrial age — one rooted in creativity, self-discovery, and meaningful work rather than compliance.

Individualized Learning

Half the beauty of homeschooling, Arment explains, is its flexibility. There is no bell schedule dictating your days or arbitrary grade level defining your child’s worth. “Learning is life, and life is learning.” She shares examples from her own family: a son who wrote novels by fourteen, another who learned piano by ear, and a third who built contraptions from discarded wood. Each child thrived because education adapted to their pace and passions — not the reverse.

This individualized attention, Arment argues, doesn’t require specialized training — just observation, patience, and curiosity. She references Montessori and Charlotte Mason to show how hands-on, interest-driven education fosters mastery far beyond what worksheets can measure.

Answering the Whisper

For many families, the call to homeschool feels irrational at first — impractical, even intimidating. But Arment urges readers to listen anyway. “The whisper grows louder,” she writes, “until it becomes your own voice.” To answer it is to reclaim your birthright as a parent — to guide your children through life’s wonder, not merely delegate their learning to others. Homeschooling becomes the path toward freedom, family, and faith in yourself — one brave, honest step at a time.

Arment dedicates a full section titled “The Myths” to addressing the most common fears and misconceptions about homeschooling — the ones that keep so many parents from trying. These myths are familiar: What about socialization? Am I qualified to teach? Will my child miss out on rigor, learning, or college opportunities? Each chapter dismantles a different myth with clear evidence, data, and heartfelt stories.

The Socialization Myth

Arment and contributor Hannah Mayo confront the idea that homeschooled kids are “weird” or “unsocialized.” In reality, she says, homeschooling exposes children to more diverse social interactions — across ages, settings, and communities — than traditional schools can. They make friends through co-ops, book clubs, Wild + Free groups, and daily life. Mayo quips that what society calls “weird” is often just authentic individuality. Homeschoolers aren’t shielded from life; they live it fully. As Peter Gray’s research confirms, free play and mixed-age interaction produce more capable, creative learners than age-segregated classrooms ever could.

The Qualification Myth

In Kristin Rogers’s powerful essay “The Qualification Myth,” we learn that academic degrees are not prerequisites for great teaching. “If you can parent,” she writes, “you can homeschool.” Forty of fifty U.S. states require no educational qualification for parents at all. What matters is commitment, curiosity, and the willingness to learn alongside your children. Rogers notes that even certified teachers often have to “unlearn” classroom habits when transitioning to home education. Homeschooling, she says, is less about expertise and more about presence.

The Rigor and College Myths

Bethany Douglass, in “The Rigor Myth” and “The College Myth,” flips both concerns on their heads. She argues that homeschooling’s flexibility leads to deeper learning — not less rigor — because students dive into subjects that matter to them. Learning through “meaningful work” replaces busywork with mastery. And far from limiting college options, homeschoolers often outperform their peers on standardized tests and thrive at top universities. Douglass cites data showing homeschoolers graduate at higher rates (66.7% vs. 57.5%) and notes that even Princeton and Harvard now have dedicated homeschool admission guidelines.

Through these myth-busting chapters, Arment reframes homeschooling as not an inferior alternative but a powerful, proven path. It’s not about what your child misses in school — it’s about what they gain in freedom, creativity, and relationship.

In “Discovering Your Homeschool Style,” Naomi Ovando reminds readers that there is no single right way to homeschool. “No two homeschools look the same,” she writes — because no two families are the same. This chapter liberates parents from the pressure to fit a model, arguing that diversity of approaches is a gift, not a flaw. Through vivid examples of different methods — Classical, Charlotte Mason, Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio Emilia, and Unschooling — the book helps families find their rhythm and unique educational identity.

Stumbling into Your Style

Arment’s own story illustrates this process: she began with a boxed curriculum to “legitimize” her efforts, only to find it stifling. Eventually, through trial and error, she discovered that reading great books and embracing everyday adventures created more meaningful learning moments than rigid lesson plans ever could. As she puts it, “When the method and the child don’t agree, believe the child.”

This idea echoes Charlotte Mason’s famous words, “The children are the curriculum.” Education is not a checklist but a journey of relationship and curiosity. Finding your style, Arment explains, is less about labels and more about alignment — discovering what brings both you and your child joy in learning.

A Tribe of Many Voices

Wild + Free distinguishes itself by uniting rather than dividing homeschoolers across philosophies. “What unites us,” Ovando writes, “is greater than what divides us.” In this community, you might find a Charlotte Mason purist alongside a Montessori-inspired worldschooler — and both are celebrated. This inclusive spirit eliminates comparison and fosters freedom. You are encouraged to blend methods, adapt rhythms, and, most importantly, let your personality lead. There is no official uniform for homeschooling — only authenticity.

In one of the most beloved chapters, “The School of Nature,” Bethany Douglass brings Arment’s philosophy to life through a vivid portrait of learning outdoors. She asks a provocative question: why do we confine children indoors when nature itself is the richest classroom imaginable? Douglass contrasts two educational experiences — one inside sterile walls, one outside among trees and tides — and the choice is clear. Nature, she writes, “awakens children’s minds, centers their hearts, and gives them depth of soul.”

The Science of Nature-Based Learning

Drawing on research from Richard Louv (Last Child in the Woods) and Scott Sampson (How to Raise a Wild Child), Douglass outlines the measurable benefits of nature: improved concentration, lower anxiety, better physical health, and stronger observation skills. Studies even show that unstructured outdoor play boosts problem-solving and creativity. Charlotte Mason called nature “an indispensable part of education.” Arment and Douglass echo her conviction: children need green time as much as screen time.

Creating a Family Culture of Nature

The chapter offers practical ways to weave nature into daily homeschooling life — from nature journaling to hiking, gardening, or identifying birds at a window feeder. Douglass describes families in every environment — even city dwellers — who find creative ways to touch the wild: sketching weeds on sidewalks, keeping balcony gardens, or exploring urban parks. The constant theme is accessibility: “If you can’t give them everything, give them something.”

Children, Douglass reminds us, don’t need pristine wilderness to grow — just opportunities for curiosity. The earth is the original curriculum. When you turn off the devices and go outside, you give your children a gift no textbook can replicate: awe.

In “The Power of Story” and “The Pedagogy of Play,” Arment shows how imagination is not a distraction from learning — it is learning. Through storytelling and play, children internalize values, language, and creativity long before formal instruction. These chapters explore storytelling as curriculum and play as pedagogy, breaking down how children learn best when their joy leads the way.

Stories that Form Souls

In Rachael Alsbury’s contribution, books become “food for the imagination.” Families are encouraged to replace textbooks with “living books” — works rich with character, beauty, and truth. Arment draws on the teachings of Charlotte Mason, Sarah Mackenzie, and Jim Trelease to remind us that reading aloud is the most powerful educational practice a family can adopt. Stories form empathy, inspire curiosity, and create lifelong memories of connection. One mother recalls, “My children will never separate the voices of Laura Ingalls Wilder from the sound of my own.”

Play as Serious Work

In “The Pedagogy of Play,” Hannah Mayo challenges the notion that play is frivolous. Citing developmental psychologists like David Sobel and Peter Gray, she argues that play is nature’s built-in mode of exploration — the foundation for emotional, intellectual, and social growth. From mud puddles to cardboard forts, play trains children to problem-solve, take creative risks, and imagine boldly. “Work that feels like play,” Arment writes, “is the truest form of learning.”

Together, story and play form the emotional core of the Wild + Free philosophy. They remind you that meaningful learning happens not through worksheets, but through wonder, laughter, and shared experience.

The final chapters, “The Curriculum of Curiosity” (Naomi Ovando) and “The Magic of Wonder” (Hannah Mayo), summarize what Wild + Free is all about: cultivating curiosity and preserving wonder. Arment and her contributors insist that curiosity isn’t a trait some children have and others lack — it’s an innate force that needs only the right conditions to flourish. Wonder is not taught; it’s protected.

Making Curiosity the Curriculum

Ovando redefines lesson planning around curiosity. Instead of asking, “What should my child know by this grade?” she suggests asking, “What are they curious about right now?” Using the “Loose Parts Theory” of educator Simon Nicholson, she encourages parents to fill their homes with open-ended materials — art supplies, nature finds, tools, books — that let children explore freely. From beekeeping projects to self-taught animation, her stories illustrate how curiosity leads to real expertise.

Homeschooling, in this view, becomes not about filling time but about igniting passion. You create the environment; curiosity does the rest. This approach echoes Ken Robinson’s call for personalized education — building achievement upon discovering each child’s natural talents.

Preserving Wonder

In “The Magic of Wonder,” Mayo turns from curiosity to its close companion: awe. Wonder, she writes, is “the lifeblood of learning.” She urges parents to slow down, allow boredom, and resist the temptation to over-schedule. Boredom, far from being an enemy, is “the wardrobe to new worlds” — a portal to creativity. Whether it’s catching fireflies, building cardboard bears in the kitchen, or moon-watching, wonder thrives when you create space for discovery.

Ultimately, curiosity and wonder are not electives — they are the curriculum of childhood. The Wild + Free philosophy reminds us that joy is not the reward of learning; it’s the fuel for it.