That sounds really good. When we were looking for a kindergarten for our son, we first heard about the "age-mixed concept". I never thought about mixed groups before. But it makes sense, because people have always grown up in social groups that spanned all ages, including adults. How old are your girls?

I am the youngest of six children and grew up in a small town surrounded by relatives. I had many friends in my school days with whom I had very intense good and bad times. I remember the competition in the classroom very well and didn't know at the time that the school system shaped competition and neglected cooperation. Today it's different with my son, who is in the 8th grade. The children are much less competition-oriented, at least in the environment in which my son moves, but it is of course still something different than home schooling.

State schooling is only a logical consequence of the externally supplied societies in which we live. Exceptions rather confirm the rule, because it is always minorities who choose a different form of lifestyle. The majority ensures that we get everything we need to live, often more than that. Self-sufficiency reveals a value chain much more quickly than external supply. The effort spent on food, roof over one's head, transport, etc., can be learned and understood more quickly by children in small, self-sufficient communities. In modern societies, children must gradually realize this abstract intellectual achievement and this often leads to them not really understanding what world they are in.

Your community seems to move exactly between these two worlds and to draw the best from each. This is a feat and at the same time a privilege that you have certainly worked for. Nevertheless, you benefit from the external supply, because such existential things as salt, sugar, flour or other staple foods have to be bought, just like clothes, building materials etc. What percentage, would you say, are you self-supplied and how much externally supplied?

I think the most difficult task in modern people's lives is to learn to accept the habit of their own existence, while advertising and the media keep telling you something else: that you can bring it to greatness, glory and wealth. It is this contradiction that causes many people misfortune, because they are inevitably irritated by the fact that they themselves lead an average life, while it looks as if everyone else is not doing so.

I am in the middle of this modern city rather an exception and lead a simple life with very little money, but an inner wealth. I benefit from those who provide me with everything: mobility, electricity, heat, food, clothing, garbage collection, sewerage, etc.

It's a world where it's difficult to express thanks, because you don't meet the people who make sure everything runs smoothly. People get paid to do that, but if you ask a truck driver if he is sure of the gratitude of the people who unpack at home what he transports on the highway, he might not be really convinced. It is said that income and money would be a sufficient incentive, but I don't think it really is just that.

I think you could say that usually people always directly and indirectly do much more for each other than they are aware of.

May you continue to get interesting guests who show you and your family something of interest and value. Greetings from Hamburg.