Home-schooling? So over. Try city-schooling your kids at the Met and trendy bars. That's what The Professors' Wives' Club author Joanne Rendell is doing. How does an un-schooled Manhattan five-year-old spend his days? It has its advantages: "Un-kindergarten for us means Benny can sleep late so I can write. It means we don't have to worry about bedtimes and can go out on the town with friends any night of the week. We can go to Europe and visit my family when the flights are cheap..."Heh. It's like she's trying to provoke criticism from the blogs.

"Now, in the warm afternoon sun, Benny is playing with two other kids in a strip of mud in a small backyard. His two friends are completely naked. Benny has on his underpants and a pair of socks. Almost every inch of childish skin, cotton, and hair is covered with wet, sticky dirt. The kids are completely absorbed in the task at hand: burying a bobbing-eyed baby doll in the dirt. At the moment, the doll's torso and legs are completely submerged. Her head is exposed, but one eyelid is held down by mud. An earthworm wriggles just a couple of inches away from the doll's shining plastic scalp.

We mothers and one father sit nearby drinking cool beer..."

Confused. Is the burying the doll in the mud part a metaphor? Because that's metaphorically what we do all day at work, too. Unschooling [Babble]