By Ryan Newby

I was born to two very irresponsible people. My dad, by all accounts, was a pretty good farm kid who liked to party too much. My mother was not a good kid by most standards. She grew up well-to-do in a small town and had a father that covered for her bad behavior.

They were just 19 when I was born and I think they quickly realized they were too young to be parents. My mother was cruel to me, often yelling and hitting me for doing things that average toddlers do. I was placed into foster care for a short period as the result of an incident that I speculate was shaken baby syndrome, my grandfather was able to influence the courts so I was returned to the same environment.

Luckily, at some point when I was four years old, my mother left while my dad was at work and she moved back to the Midwest. My parents quickly divorced and my dad was awarded full custody.

At 23-years-old my dad was a single father, working a full-time job and partying nearly every night. As a result I rarely had any supervision as a child. Adults appeared to me like they do in Charlie Brown cartoons, muffled and barely part of the story. Lack of supervision coupled with physical and mental punishment led me to being very skeptical and fearful of authority.

In my school years, I lived a Huck Fin boyhood of sorts. I spent most days that I can remember outside exploring and doing whatever I wanted to do. I went to school but I don’t remember any of it. I think I got labeled a bad kid or an under performer and as a result no one paid any attention to me.

Growing up in a kids’ world is the reason why I’m a voluntaryist. In a kids’ world you’re not subjected to a bunch of weird authoritarianism. Bullies exist for sure, but you can stand your ground and fight or walk away just as easily and only suffer the consequences in the moment. I don’t recall any incident that I thought about for more than a few minutes afterward. No jail time or threats of grounding. In a kids’ world, if you want to have friends you have to be kind, and be willing to compromise and demonstrate integrity. There are only so many kids around so social consequences could be brutal.

I was in my mid 30s before I ever heard the term voluntaryist or libertarian for that matter. As I researched the subject I remember feeling an immediate sense of relief and comfort reading a philosophy that described exactly what I knew to be true as a kid.