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Editorial ~ Back Issues

by Veronika Sophia Robinson

The Apron Strings

May/June 2008, TM28

It’s often said, by those in our culture who believe separation of mother and child should happen as early as possible, that it “can’t be good for children to be at home all day tied to their mother’s apron strings”. Well, as someone who wears those apron strings, I’d like to share a view from the other side.

A couple of months back, I appeared on a US tv chat show, where the topic of discussion was stay at home mothers v. working mothers. I pointed out that every mother is a working mother. However, the audience was very split. It seemed you could only be one or the other. How odd, I thought, when some of the most successful career women I know are those who are also full-time stay at home mothers. And what about all those mums who are able to take their children to work with them? Why does it have to be one or the other? Why do we have to have a war among the sisterhood? And why, in all these discussions on women’s rights, do people fail to address the rights of the child?

The career mums in the studio audience were adamant that a mother would ‘lose herself’ if she didn’t go back to work: something she’d always regret. They also chanted (as if under mass hypnotism) that “children NEED daycare”. Whoah!

In my twelve years of being a full-time stay at home mother, I couldn’t disagree more with the statement that children need daycare or that a woman will lose herself by staying at home with her children. I have changed enormously through being a mother. I’ve changed in ways that would simply have been impossible by being a career woman, no matter how spectacular or dazzling a career. And though I’ve had hellish days, I know for certain that going out to work wouldn’t have made me a better mother or woman. The whole ‘quality time’ thing is, to my mind, a myth; something used when people wish to justify the adult part of the equation. Anyone can be nice if they’re only with their child/ren for a limited time, but is that all we want our children to see of us? A mask? An act that we perform for a couple of hours? A perpetual parental-child courtship? Where’s the integrity in that?

My children have seen all sides of me (some not so pleasant!), and yet they still fully embrace and love me. They are under no false illusions about who I am as a person. But it works both ways.

Yesterday, my ten year old daughter, Eliza, and I were curled up on the sofa reading Indigo for Girls, a magazine she gets from Australia. Her favourite parts of the magazine are the reader profiles, where Indigo girls answer a series of questions. One such question is “Who inspires you?” I’m often intrigued, too, to see which well-known person’s life has had an impact on these young girls’ way of thinking.

In the kitchen last night, I said to Eliza that she could do the questionnaire herself, and then asked, as an example, “Who inspires you?” Without batting an eyelid or pausing for breath, she said, “You inspire me mum because you still love me even when I’m being horrible.” The truth is, I probably learnt that from my girls. They’re incredibly forgiving of my weaker moments. They always have been, and perhaps it is what has helped me to grow the most: my evolution hastened because they’ve presented me with forgiveness in action.

Author, Eckhart Tolle, wrote in his book A New Earth ~ Awakening to your life’s purpose, that to find out if you’re enlightened, try spending a week with your parents! Well, that made me splutter my tea all over myself. Ok, I can live with my mum very easily, but I’d be challenged to spend a week with my dad (much as I love him), so diametrically opposed are our views on just about every aspect of life.

It had me thinking though, how will our children feel about us when they’re adults? Will they comfortably spend a week with us? Will they want to run for the hills?

As the one wearing the apron, I know that my mothering job is far from over; however, I also know that if I were to leave this earthly life tomorrow, my girls have had such an incredibly secure foundation to their own lives precisely because they’ve been able to tug at my apron strings, pull on them, dance with them, trip me up with them, and leave their little finger stains upon them. They’ve been raised to know, without an ounce of doubt, that they are loved as much as is humanly possible. My actions have spoken far louder than my words.

I’m not a perfect mother. Far from it, much to my great disappointment. I have ideals as high as the heavens, and a parenting reality somewhere near mud level! So often I was busy looking for my gum boots (wellingtons) that I failed to notice that deep within the squelchy mud I was trying to avoid, my girls found pleasure in feeling it ooze between their naked toes. They built castles from the mud. I dare say they’ve tasted the mud, and they’ve used that mud to furnish the love in our home. The mud has been their growing soil, their nourishment, the fertility upon which their imaginations grew. It is the spring water in which they joyously bathe and drink ~ and all this because I chose to let them hang onto my apron strings.

At the swinging end of the apron strings, my girls have learnt about life, not been hidden away, as common thought would have it. From the earliest ages, my girls knew about the menstrual cycle, how babies were created, birthed and fed, what it meant to live on a budget, how herbs are nature’s medicine cabinet, how to grow fruit, vegetables and herbs. They can make a great meal for a raw fooder, or vegan; they can cater for people on wheat-free diets.

The apron strings gave them a first hand look at life when parents ‘fail’, and then have to brush off their knees and start again. My girls have witnessed me go through some painful losses and come through the other side. They have celebrated my joys and triumphs. Most importantly, they’ve witnessed that life is cyclical. They haven’t been sheltered, they’ve been witnesses. They’ve learnt far more about life, and from life, by dancing near my apron strings, than if they’d been separated from me several days a week.

As for losing who I am because of staying at home with my children, I’ve found the opposite to be true. Being present with kids 24/7 is the quickest way to discover who you are. It’s the ultimate personal growth workshop. Children will bring up every last part of you that needs healing. This scares the life out of many people and they will use any excuse to remove themselves from their child’s orbit.

To suggest a woman reduces her potential for self-expansion and identity because she chooses to stay at home and raise her child with motherly love is to be completely ignorant of what a mother and child need. It also fails to recognise that ‘who we are’ is never about what we do for a job, and indeed, can not be defined by a label. Our children know this; but most adults don’t.

Bonding is in the realms of extrasensory perception. It isn’t something which would make a lot of sense on a resume. And like parenting, it is an unpaid job. What price can you put on being there for your child all day, every day? How do you measure love? How do you define the undefineable? You can’t.

The apron strings of mothering are linked to our heart. They tell our stories, fill our children with tender moments, and act as the visible umbilical cord to our destiny link.

Mothering my two feisty daughters has revealed the incredible potential in me as a human being. They daily challenge me to be more of who I am. There is no room for shrinking back, hiding away. My girls demand the best from me. I wouldn’t have ever traded a single smile or cuddle, grazed knee or two-year-old meltdown from either of them for a day in the ‘real world’. And I dare say they’d not have traded a day of apron strings for a motherless daycare centre.

What happens in the home, at the end of a mother’s apron strings, shapes our world. They say charity begins at home, and so too do joy, fun, laughter, companionship, humanity, compassion, kindness, humour, happiness, peace, satisfaction and love.

I may not have known how to wear the apron of motherhood, had I not had a childhood witnessing how beautifully my mother wore hers.

A time to wean

March/April 2008, TM27

Many a lactation consultant or counsellor uses the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) breastfeeding guidelines as part of her battle cry. It states: “Exclusively breastfeed for six months, and then continue breastfeeding well into, and beyond, the second year of life.” It has become one of those statements that’s been parroted around the globe without people actually stopping to give conscious thought to what it means, and the implications of following such a statement.

I have deliberately weaned myself from using WHO’s guideline, because I believe it isn’t adequate for fully meeting a child’s needs. Its official advice is distinctly flawed.

If the World Health Organisation says you can start weaning at six months, it must be right. Sadly, most women take official information from apparently reputable sources, and consider it gospel. After all, why would you question the World Health Organisation? This omnipotent power surely knows more than a mother’s instinct.

As with the UK’s Department of Health breastfeeding policy, such things are usually drawn up by people who don’t actually have experience of breastfeeding, and certainly don’t have an in depth knowledge of a child’s brain development, or how the immune system develops; why the heart cells of the baby depend on the mother exclusively breastfeeding on cue for at least nine months; or the emotional needs, and many other factors which are dependent on exclusive breastfeeding for optimal development. Very often, the people who provide such important information in policy making are the ones whose own education on infant nutrition has been heavily influenced by the commercial baby food sector.

I firmly believe the World Health Organisation needs exposing for its limp breastfeeding policy. At these highest levels of medical ‘power’, information trickles down which can make or break a society. Following WHO’s breastfeeding guidelines is humanity’s path to self-destruction. Sadly, four out of every five babies in the UK don’t even meet these flimsy guidelines.

I can’t let another year go by without challenging this standard information, which gets repeated ad nauseam. For example, why does WHO recommend six months as the time for exclusive breastfeeding? Where is the scientific, medical, anthropological or psychological basis for such important information? There is none. At six months of age, we’re told (repeatedly ~ and especially by the artificial milk companies) that a baby is no longer receiving an adequate amount of iron from his or her mother’s breast milk. Indeed, well-known children’s cookbook author, Annabel Karmel, recently stated that babies should be weaned at four (4!!) months of age, and fed beef and fish, as they have adequate iron levels!

How bizarre that Mother Nature would suddenly drop off the iron in a mother’s milk at a time when the baby’s body isn’t capable of optimally digesting anything other than breast milk. Nature isn’t stupid. She has a clear timetable of infant and child development. She wants us to exclusively breastfeed for at least nine months, for many reasons.

Clearly, whoever put together the WHO guidelines doesn’t know an awful lot about when the digestive enzymes in the body develop ~ that is, at NINE months of age, not six. We see evidence of Nature’s timetable not just in the way the digestive enzymes don’t develop until then, but also in the way the heart takes nine months to fully synchronise with the mother’s heart ~ the latter can’t happen if breastfeeding is replaced with other foods or bottle-feeding.

Our breasts are right next to the heart. Mother Nature planned it this way so our pulsations could synchronise. All mothers need this in order to bond with their babies fully. All babies need this to come fully Earthside. This must be constantly repeated during the external gestation phase (nine months). The baby’s heart requires this experience to be brought into life. The stress created to the infant if this does not happen involves the release of cortisol, which is extremely toxic. The neural pathways suffer irreversible damage from excess cortisol. Mother Nature hasn’t planned for failure. She hasn’t planned for us heeding the advice of the WHO or male-run governments or ill-informed doctors, midwives or health visitors.

Artificially created milk contains acres of iron, we’re told, so your baby won’t miss out. The reason companies put so much iron in fake milk isn’t because the baby needs a huge amount, but because, unlike the bio-available iron in breast milk, iron in formula isn’t easily absorbed by the baby’s body. By loading up fake milk with synthetic iron, the manufacturers are hoping ‘some’ of it will be absorbed.

Never underestimate the power of advertising to undermine a woman’s success and confidence at breastfeeding. Ads are deliberately designed to make a woman feel inadequate. If you care to dig a little deeper, you’ll find WHO’s information on iron levels was funded by no less than Nestle ~ the world’s largest producer of infant foods. Am I surprised? No.

Do a little more digging and you’ll find babies who exclusively breastfeed for at least seven months (that is, one month longer than the WHO recommendations) are babies with iron stores for life! Why isn’t this information ~ which has life-long health implications ~ getting out to the masses? Is it just me, or do you think women (and their blessed babies) are being duped all the way to the artificial milk companies’ off-shore bank accounts?

When WHO states “breastfeed well into, and beyond, the second year of life”, it is failing to give out very important, life-altering information. It’s almost as if, according to WHO, once you’ve ‘done your time’ with six months, the final weaning age doesn’t matter. I strongly disagree. Cultures which breastfeed for 2.5 years, or longer, are more peaceful and have significantly reduced levels of violence and depression. By weaning our children before this age, we greatly increase their chances of violence ~ violence to self, to society and to the Earth. There is major brain development happening between the age of two and two and half which can make or break us as potentially peaceful, loving and contented beings. Nature requires that breastfeeding continues through this THIRD year of life, because many of the synapses in the brain are still being formed, and rely on not only the superior ingredients in breast milk, but the physiological aspects of affectionate mother-love. WHO must be transparent, and state categorically that breastfeeding should not end before 2.5 years.

Why does WHO encourage premature weaning ~ something which has the potential to sabotage not only an individual, but the whole of humanity? Is it any coincidence that the World Health Organisation is actively looking for ways to reduce the human population? Call me a cynic, call me suspicious, but I don’t see any supreme efforts by either the World Health Organisation or major Western governments to actively educate and support women in giving babies the only start to life which will help them develop optimally. You have to ask why this is the case. Who benefits from premature weaning? Certainly not the child or his/her mother...

I also struggle to understand why the well known breastfeeding organisations also promote the WHO guidelines. Inadequate breastfeeding creates yet another generation dependent on the holy National Health Service. Clearly, following WHO’s guideline is better than not breastfeeding at all, but endorsing it, severely short-changes our children.

Breastfeeding supporters shout that “breast is best”, but breastfeeding is in a league of its own. There is no competition! Why doesn’t anyone state the simple truth: a mother’s own breast milk is the only milk suitable for her child’s optimal nutrition. Receiving this milk directly from our mother’s breast, as nature intended, for as long as the child requires it, is the only path of action which will lead to a peaceful world. Our parenting is the foundation of society. Breastfeeding is never just about ‘the milk’ ~ it is so much more. When we choose to understand how the emotional and physical interaction between a mother and her breastfed child dramatically enhances health and well-being, for LIFE, then we see that the milk of human kindness really does start and end with the mother. Any organisation or government which fails to acknowledge the necessity of this bond is taking steps to undermine humanity’s health and well-being.

If you are thinking about when to introduce foods other than breast milk, or when to end the breastfeeding relationship, always follow your heart and instinct, rather than information set out by a faceless organisation, or a health visitor with a weaning agenda.

Our children are always the best judges of the right time to wean. Your job, as a mother or father, is to keep your heart open, and trust your child. It may not sound much, but it’s the most important job in the world!

Saving Childhood

January/February 2008, TM26

Have you heard about the British government’s plan to kidnap babies and toddlers? It’s not the kidnapping of ropes and mouth gags, but a kidnapping which steals children for a lifetime ~ and it will be done right under everyone’s noses (if we don’t stop it). It’s called the Early Years Foundation Stage and it’s an insidious exploitation of children’s minds, bodies, and for those with a holistic understanding of childhood, their souls.

Under the camouflage of early learning, every registered pre-school setting (including registered childminders!) will be under a legally enforceable set of learning requirements that consists of no less than politically-sanctioned child abuse. Around 80% of children in this age bracket are in such settings.

Ten years ago, the government used relatively benign terms, such as ‘desirable outcomes’, so they could get people on board with their long-term plan of compulsory pre-school education.
Like the ducks and geese overfed in order to produce unethical foie gras, our children will be force-fed beyond their ability to consume.

The Early Years Foundation Stage booklet outlines the expectation that four year olds should be reading and writing and using punctuation. There are many other requirements expected of these toddlers.

I adore language, and the effect words can have on me, and others. I love to read. Does that mean I encouraged and taught my own children to read when they were little more than dots themselves? Not a chance!

Reading is not a natural activity. It utilises the neocortex (new brain) and should only ever be encouraged at the time milk teeth are coming out ~ a time when there is a huge developmental shift in the brain. In much the same way that logical language should NOT be introduced to a woman in labour (because she needs to activate the [reptilian] old brain in order to birth easily and successfully), our children need to spend their early years in an environment which amplifies what is natural for them at this age ~ free play, rhythm and music, natural movement, and imitation. Mankind’s biggest problems in life come about because of an over-emphasis and stimulation of the neo-cortex. We humans ignore this to our detriment.

We can encourage the love of reading by being living examples. Being seen to love reading, and reading to our children every day, helps them get a feel for intonation, the flow of words, the use of punctuation. By reading, we are letting our children absorb language in a way that is suitable for the part of the brain which is developed. My own children have taught me well that reading comes naturally when you show passion for it.

My girls taught themselves to read at the age of seven, and in a matter of weeks went from simple Lady Bird books to novels. Why? Because they were ready. Recently, my nine year old daughter, Eliza, was ‘judged’ to have a reading age of a child 11 years and three months. Of course, only an institution would measure such a thing. As a mother, my observation of her reading is that she loves it, reads fluently, and if she doesn’t understand a word, will look it up in the dictionary or ask a parent.

When my girls were younger, I often heard comments from well-meaning friends, who, ironically, were school teachers, such as: “What, they don’t read yet?...I could read when I was four”. So bloody what?! Life isn’t a race. It doesn’t matter if your child is twelve years old and not reading. She’ll learn to read when she’s ready. And when the spark is there, boy will that fire turn into an inferno. But alas, Slow Childhood is counter to our culture’s expectations, and so we have our work cut out educating the adults that when it comes to childhood, slow and steady always wins the race.

The UK government’s implementation of an Early Years Foundation Stage is an abuse of human rights. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

Free play is vital to childhood, reading is not. Play helps develop emotional intelligence, caring, empathy, imagination, physical balance and co-ordination; premature reading does not.
Boys, in particular, are wired differently to girls, and really need to be allowed more time before attempting reading. (I urge you to read Joseph Chilton Pearce’s Magical Child for further important information on this). We do our children such an injustice by making them good consumers of someone else’s expectations.

Author, Sally Blythe, from The Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology, says that almost half of all children in the five to six year age group still have traces of infant primitive reflexes, which should not be evident after the first year of life (together with immature balance and co-ordination skills). Such children are going to suffer academically in school. Her research questions modern childcare practices and lifestyles affecting the physical development of children. So, if evidence shows that for many young children the physical body isn’t working optimally, why on Earth is the government wanting to legally enforce compulsory ‘intellectual’ standards on young children? Either the people who put together such ridiculous learning requirements don’t know the first thing about childhood development, or the government has a hidden agenda.

David Cameron, leader of the Opposition, has recently said very positive things about childhood and family life (for an MP), but has managed to undo all his good work with the statement that all children should be reading by six. Mr Cameron, they should NOT! Children, six and under, should be playing, not immersed in any sort of academic pressure cooker.

The Early Years Foundation Stage is a blatant attack on a child’s human rights to grow and develop as nature intended. It’s a complete denial of a child’s and parents’ fundamental freedom, not dissimilar to compulsory vaccination and the ‘gun-point medicine’ now manifesting in the USA.

There is so much scientific evidence to show that before the age of seven, children are still going through major developments ~ physically, intellectually, emotionally ~ even their immune system is still trying to mature. You simply can’t fast-track childhood and expect the consequences in the short or long term to be good, desirable or healthy. We must remember that Mother Nature had very good reasons for how we develop ~ and our job is to trust the process, not fight, control or hasten it.

The question now is what are parents and educators going to do about it? How will we stop this going ahead? We’ve got just eight months left to make sure it isn’t implemented. The power has to lie with the public, the voters. We can not ignore this, because once it is introduced, there’ll be no turning back. And once the damage is done to our young children, it will remain with them for life.
Never before have children been under so much pressure to perform, to measure up, to reach targets. Why are we sitting back and allowing the government to sneak in legislation that was achieved under ‘controlled consultation’ (i.e. the information was not produced for public consumption)?

It would be all too easy for people with older children, or those who home educate, to think, ‘it doesn’t affect us’, and to not be part of the campaign. I urge you to overcome such a belief and to remember we’re all connected. These children will marry your children, they’ll work with them, socialise with them, make laws with them ….the world is one big melting pot. One child’s suffering, is everyone’s suffering. And believe me, the little children will suffer if they’re forced into this abusive curriculum.

Please, join our campaign at www.savechildhood.org. It won’t cost you anything but a few moments of your time. Let the government know you care. We live in a world where it is far too easy to feel we can’t make a difference. I can assure you, this is something we do have power over. We CAN stop this happening. Let’s start this new year with a passion for the well-being of all children, not just our own. Let’s make 2008 the year they look back upon as the year we saved childhood.

~ Veronika ~

Cuddles are compulsory

November/December, TM25

My girls have decided to leave school and return to home education.

The past eight months have been an interesting and sobering journey, both for me as a mother, but also for us, as a family. The silence in the home has felt like a fabricated, if not superficial, peace. For me, each day they were at school held an undercurrent of angst. I imagined my daughters in a loveless school room, being taught things which, for the most part, were totally irrelevant to healthy, vibrant, conscious living, and at odds with our family's vision of life.

The decision to opt for home education again has come from them, not me or their dad, though clearly the whole family has been involved in various discussions and considerations.

This past term for Eliza has been based on a curriculum of learning about World War 2. The UK government clearly thinks it is important for nine year olds to have their days filled with images and stories of gas marks and concentration camps. As a  family, we don’t focus on war, but look at how humans can live in peace, within their own mind and, also, within the world.

Bethany made a loaf of bread in school earlier in the year. This involved weeks of work; writing and designing the loaf of bread and umpteen other bits of curriculum-related written work all in order to satisfy a government check-list. In real life, you just get on and make a loaf of bread. In our family the main requirement for bread making is for the baker to be in a good mood so she can ‘grow’ the dough with love. That’s not technical or scientific enough to make it on the national curriculum.

In secondary school, Bethany’s class was taught how to ‘cut an apple’ (yes, you read that right!). It begs the question “what’s happening in homes up and down the country that the government believes children of eleven and twelve years of age need a lesson in apple cutting?” The curriculum also includes how to make a sandwich. Bethany’s sandwich of brazil nut and linseed rye bread, filled with hommous, grated carrot, cucumber and rocket, will have been completely out of place in a room of white bread sandwiches filled with chocolate spread.

My children have been doing these very basic skills for many years.

The UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, is seeking to create world class schools in the UK. It’s very admirable, however, he’d do well to actually spend some extended time in a school room, experiencing it through the eyes and heart of a child, and then he might see where the improvements need to be made.

Like the children, I suspect many teachers have had their humanity squashed out of them in order to survive in the system. A loving respect for children seems largely missing, as does an awareness of holistic child development, health and well-being. I’m ever so glad my girls were nine and 11 before they tried out school. This gave them enough awareness and understanding of life and consensus reality to see through a number of issues.

When they started school in March, both girls bounced out of bed in the mornings with excitement; they jumped off the school bus in the afternoons itching to tell me all about their day. They couldn’t tell me quickly enough about everything they’d done. I started to question if I’d been wrong to home educate them for so long.

As the weeks turned into months, the sparkle started disappearing from their eyes. The end of day reports were narrowed down to ‘didn’t do anything in school today’ or ‘science was boring’ or ‘the teacher spent the whole time yelling at the naughty boys’. The bouncing out of bed at 6am became “Eliza, it’s eight o’clock, time to get up, there’s only half an hour left till the bus is here.” It’s not surprising that she’d had enough. I certainly wouldn’t enjoy spending six hours a day listening to someone yelling. What a stressful environment. No wonder she came home with headaches.

For Bethany, entering secondary school has turned out to be far different from the idealised image portrayed in Harry Potter and the Jacqueline Edwards books! She’s quickly come to question why she should only be allowed one art and one music lesson a week, when they are clearly her favourite subjects and in the direction of what she believes to be her life’s purpose. “Why should I learn algebra?” (my sentiments exactly, honey!). “What’s that got to do with being an artist?” When she started school, we helped her along by having some weekly maths tutoring. This option, to help her learn real life maths, will be revisited as and when she desires. At the moment, she needs to detox from “I hate Mondays, we’ve got maths.” The prime minister wants to increase the number of hours a week that children do physical education ~ not a bad thing at all, but at Bethany’s former school that means subjects like art will be sacrificed to make time for it. She was outraged.

One of the drawcards for attending school was to develop friendships. The reality is, there is very little time for playing in school. They both plan to see their school friends after school and at weekends, and rejoin the local Education Otherwise (home ed) group, as well as joining other groups.

It’s a blissfully sunny Autumn afternoon, and the girls are in the back garden playing with three children from the village. This play time can go on for hours and isn’t dictated by a bell, and having to gulp down lunch in order to grab a few minutes of play.

A friend of mine always says, “if it ain’t fun, I ain’t doin’ it!” Lest I forget, this quote is on my vision board and the girls have adopted it as their home education motto. This is clearly seen in their delightful and carefully thought out personal curriculum.

Watching the girls make plans for an individualised map of learning has been fascinating and an absolute joy. A few times, I’ve caught my breath at the sheer delight and empowerment they’re experiencing in choosing their learning path. Eliza and Bethany love to learn. They thoroughly enjoy doing projects and being immersed in activities. They’ve come to realise though, that this time is better spent planning their own lessons than having it, or their time, dictated for them. Bethany’s class was given mass punishment because of two disruptive pupils. “Why should I give up my lunch break if I didn’t do anything wrong?” Is this how our schools teach justice and fairness?

Home-based learning allows a child to trust in his/her ability to find a path of learning which reflects their uniqueness, creativity, interest, curiosity and spontaneity. Our job, as parents, whether we home educate or not, is to offer a rich environment so that the child will easily find what she needs in order to learn. If a child desires to learn, then she will enthusiastically absorb that information. This is the polar opposite of the rote learning and memorisation of subjects which occur in schools. Our culture severely underestimates the impact of imposingeducation upon children.

If Gordon Brown really wants to create world class education, he needs to understand that it’s a far greater skill to ask questions than to know the answers to everything. Implementing this idea, however, would turn formal, state-run education on its head!

Bethany has been spending seven hours a week travelling to and from secondary school. That’s almost a whole working day. As a home educated student, she can now spend those hours in productive, creative pursuits of her choice whether it be playing violin, belly dancing, learning German and French, studying artists, preparing wholefood meals, attending her graphic art for teens sessions at the library, pulling the amplifier out for a singing session, writing stories, chatting with, and learning from, women of all ages at the local knitting café, composing music at the piano, or watching Eliza having horse riding lessons with a teenage friend in the village.

When I pulled out my copy of School is not compulsory, to remind myself of the legal requirements when withdrawing a child from school, my daughters told me that home education means I mustn’t forget that “cuddles are compulsory!” Fancy the little rascals thinking I’d forgotten that? So, I’ve got eight months of cuddles to catch up on ~ that should get me through an English winter!

Blessings,

~ Veronika ~

"The Old Pepperina Tree"

September/October, TM24

During the summer, my daughter Eliza wanted to show me how good a climber she’d become, so I watched her go to the top of a cherry tree in our village.

I was struck by how confident and agile she is ~ rather like a monkey, but without the tail! ‘When did she learn to climb like that’, I wondered. ‘What was I doing that was so important as to miss this particular milestone?’

Most of the children in Britain don’t get unsupervised, spontaneous play. My children consider the village to be their back garden and go playing for hours. That’s where they learnt to climb trees after they graduated from the plum tree in our garden.

Although I spent a lot of time up Enid Blyton’s Magical Faraway Tree, my own magical tree was the imposing pepperina in our front garden.

My childhood surroundings in Queensland, Australia, were a paradise for tree climbers ~ hundreds of acres, including mountains covered in eucalyptus, pines, wattles and pepperinas. There were the occasional wild apricot and lemon tree, too.

Despite being the middle of eight children, I spent the vast majority of my childhood play-time on my own, captivated by my imaginary friends and the world I invented for myself.

The pepperina was a sanctuary; a place to escape, day dream, create, write poetry and love letters for undeserving school boys, and, last but not least, a place to spy on my siblings!

My bird’s eye view gave me a 360 degree lookout and afforded me ample camouflage from the outside world. The tree’s willow-like leaves disguised me time and time again.

If I was ever in trouble with my parents, which, given my mischievous nature, was rather a regular occurrence, I’d head straight for my other home.

It was, without doubt, one of my favourite places in childhood. I couldn’t have claimed it as mine, however, unless I’d taken the risk to climb ~ to move away from the safe and familiar earth beneath my feet.

I had to risk falling, being hurt, being told I was reckless, scraping my knee, getting covered in sticky sap, breaking an arm, meeting a tree snake or being bitten by a wasp. I don’t remember actually ever giving much thought to these possibilities ~ my focus was always on navigating the hard-to-reach bottom branches so I could journey to the very top.

My beloved pepperina tree is a metaphor for my life as a parent. By choosing to climb up and away from the familiar parenting culture of our western world, I discovered a new view. At the top of the holistic living tree, I found I could birth my baby in water, at home, by candle light. My mother carried the candle up the tree for me, by birthing her last three children at home, unassisted.

By sharing the tree with my mum, I knew that breastfeeding was the only option for my children. I learned that I could breastfeed my daughters until they’d had their fill ~ which they took advantage of for seven years apiece! Society didn’t like this one little bit. They called me sick, selfish, stupid. Ah well, never mind. From my tree-top look-out, I could see things that were impossible to witness from down on the ground. One day more people will be brave enough to climb the tree. And then they’ll know...

My daughters didn’t get sent off to nursery at three years of age ‘like all the other children’. I ignored the voices manically calling to me from the bottom of the tree, and chose to let my girls ‘wake up gently’ to this world.

George Bernard Shaw said that trying to explain vaccination to a doctor was like discussing vegetarianism with a butcher. So I didn’t invite the doctor anywhere near my children. At the top of our tree of life, we nurtured our girls through love, an optimal in-arms gestation, child-led weaning, pure water, slow parenting, plant-based whole-foods, cranial osteopathy, chiropractic care, and quantity time.

Life at the top of the tree isn’t to be confused with being on a pedestal, or up in an ivory tower. Far from it. Choosing this way of life comes with its own set of challenges. It is, indeed, the road less travelled, or the branches few choose to climb. A perfect life is not guaranteed. And, it can be very, very lonely.

I doubt I’d have absorbed the enormity of what our culture does to us had I stayed on the ground, or even the bottom branch. There’s simply no scope for perspective unless you can see the whole picture.

Climbing up, and away, and literally going out on a limb, is an absolute pre-requisite to conscious parenting in this modern world. We may be more technologically advanced than in any time in our known history, but we couldn’t be more backward or more blind, as a culture, if we tried!

I’ve found the view from the top, at times exciting, exhilarating, sometimes terrifying, and, at other times, downright depressing. At the top of the tree we see how brain-washed people are by the media, health ‘care’ systems, institutionalised education and government diktat.

The ascent can be challenging, precarious, and, for some, rather scary, but unless you do it, despite everyone at the base of the tree calling you back down, you’ll never know how liberating the complete trust in yourself, and your family, can be. The most beautiful part is when you feel confident enough to reach to another, and give guidance along the branches..

I’ve often felt that parenting has stopped me taking risks; that I’m no longer the girl I used to be ~ the one who’d fly to a new country, on a one way ticket, with less than a tenner in her pocket, just ‘knowing’ everything would be ok.

My mum’s advice throughout life has been “Just jump, the angels will catch you”. And you know, I believed her! My mother was the perfect mother bird, guarding her nest at the top of the tree, knowing the right time to push her little chickadees out …“Fly”, she’d say.

I often hear her voice in my head, and upon reflection, I realise I’m no less of a risk taker now than I ever was. My day to day choices are seen as risks, to modern culture, but to me, well, they’re just part of everyday life, like breathing. Stepping away from mainstream thinking is as big a risk as we’ll ever take. Personally, I think it’s a far greater risk not to step away.

Tree climbing is an interesting experience upon which to draw strength and belief in one’s self. It’s perfect that this happens in childhood.

It’s good and right that my girls have learnt to climb trees without me nearby wondering if they’ll fall down!

I don’t know if my magic pepperina tree is still standing, but I’d love to think another child spent time there, hearing the Divine Whisperer beckoning “climb higher, my friend, climb higher”…

Until our paths cross again, climb high!

With my best wishes, Veronika

"Why am I so ugly?"

July/August, TM23

I learnt not to eat breakfast when I was in secondary school. Who has time for breakfast when you've a date with the mirror each morning? My mother would squeeze me a fresh orange juice so I had something in my tummy, but I certainly didn't have time to sit down and eat. This habit has stayed with me throughout adulthood. Eating breakfast isn't something that comes naturally to me.

Now my girls are in school I can't believe how much time they spend in front of the mirror in the mornings. We never had this before, when they were home-educated. Mirrors were for parading in front of with full dressing-up attire, not for examining facial features and brushing hair one hundred times.

Eliza's been asking me a lot, lately, "why am I so ugly?" I don't know if there are many other words that could break a mother's heart so easily. Throughout my pregnancies, and from the day both girls were born, I told them how beautiful they were. Both Paul and I have always affirmed their beauty, physical and spiritual, and honoured them for who they are, not what they do.

All these years of affirmations are being eroded by other voices. Both girls love school, and yet the insidious elements are creeping into our lives on a daily basis. I find myself breathing deeply, counting to ten and then throwing my hands up to the gods in exasperation, saying "now what?" I often feel like I'm in uncharted waters, completely at a loss as to how to affirm my daughters when the 'world' is giving them contrary messages. As parents, we're like a lone voice in the wilderness.

The messages the world gives me, as a mother, are along the lines of "it'll toughen 'em up for the 'real' world when they're adults". I always wonder what pain people are hiding when they regurgitate that myth. Who are they trying to convince?

In my garden I find that if seedlings and saplings are nurtured, nourished and accommodated according to their biological needs, they will flourish and grow ~ their blueprint is to thrive. If I was to provide hostile conditions in their growing environment, they might still grow, but they certainly wouldn't thrive as is their true nature. Common sense dictates that this is no way to raise seedlings.

What makes people think our children, as living creatures, are any different in design? How can crushing their souls toughen them up? My soul and being was knocked into shape through childhood bullying and insensitive teachers, and, I can say without doubt, that it hasn't prepared me for the real world, hasn't made me a better person. It never has a positive influence on our personal evolution, and to suggest otherwise is ignorance of our true nature ~ what it means to be divine beings.

Every adult I know who was bullied at school is emphatic that the wounds are still there within them and they are not the person they could have been as a result. Achieving our potential and being inspired to reach for the optimum comes through nurturing, not torture and tyranny.

It's nothing more than a collective duping, a dumbing down, that has us believing that toughening kids up is a good thing. Of course, no-one likes to be challenged on such core beliefs, as it threatens their whole way of being and living. It's far easier to live like sheep than to step aside and question cultural norms.

So, while my daughter questions her physical appearance and her emerging personality, based on jibes from school children, I wonder when she'll start doubting her inner beauty and strength, too.

When I questioned her as to why she hadn't shared with me, or a teacher, about one persistent bully, she replied that "the children lie, and say they didn't do anything, so there's no point in telling a teacher, because it makes me look like a liar."

Is this where we learn to hide our own truths? Does authenticity die when we don't see it mirrored in the lives of those who inhabit our environment? Do we retreat into our deepest, innermost self and then shrivel away?

I know that as Eliza looks into the mirror each morning, she's trying to see her self whole again ~ trying to recapture what I've always told her, rather than the broken mirror held up to her each day by peers.

Both my girls are of an age where they desire to grow away from me. This is natural ~ another milestone in our family's journey.

On my wedding day, in my late twenties, my mother revealed that she 'could finally stop worrying about me.' I was shocked. I'd left home twelve years earlier, as an independent sixteen year old. What had she been worrying about? And, now I'm a mother, with a different perspective, I'll bet she still worries about me when my life isn't going smoothly. We may stop carrying our children on hips, but we always carry them in our hearts.

As for my daughters, I want them to grow up and fully embrace the world, just as I have. My goal is not to protect them from life, as many people seem to fear. Rather, it is to have them emerge from childhood as strong, secure and well-loved as possible. The greater our self-love, the richer our experiences of love and life.

As parents, we need to remind our children to come back to themselves; to close their eyes and feel their beauty, strength and spirit. That coming back into themselves and listening to their own song is the best validation they'll ever have of their own beauty.

I know women, gorgeous women, who were given such negative messages about themselves as children. Either their hair was too red and curly or they got A instead of A+ in their school report. Some women had too many freckles, or skinny arms; others were more artistically orientated than mathematical, which led to parental disappointment. Personally, I can't imagine how a parent could imprint such prejudice on their child, and yet it happens the world over. "You talk too much." "You should have been a boy." "I hate your hair colour." "I don't know how you ended up in our family, you're not like us!" "I wish you were more like your sister." Recently, a lunch time supervisor at my daughters' school was reported to have said to one young student, "no wonder your mother hates you!" How on earth does a child become more of who they are with such invalidation?

Parenting is always about leading by example. All of us can be a living vision of what self-love in action looks like. It begins with self-appreciation and loving everything about yourself. The Breathmaker created all of us beautiful. Sadly, this isn't on the National Curriculum.

Every time we look outside ourselves for validation, or sense of self, through clothes, make-up, material possessions, companions, etc., we're not able to see who we really are.

Those who don't see our beauty, haven't seen it within themselves.

Walk in beauty today, knowing that it is impossible, by nature of your divine heritage, for you to be anything else. In mothering,

Holding on, letting go

May/June Issue, TM22

I'm currently going through a rather life-changing experience of letting go; not just of my daughters, or a way of life, but of a set of beliefs. The process is very much like that of going through the stages of grief. I look to Mother Nature, always my guru, to see what I can learn from this emotionally difficult time.

When we co-create with our partner to conceive a much longed for baby, we hold on to each other and the wish for conception. In a place of trust, we have no alternative but to let go. The sperm meets the egg and together they hold on. And then, a letting go must happen for the embryo to travel up the fallopian tube.

Our womb holds tight to the placenta, and we let go of it at birth. Already our parenting is taking on a pattern; an eternal breath of inhale, exhale.

Our baby arrives, and if our intuitive mothering is intact, we hold on. We might even hold on for six or so months, like the Balinese women, before putting our child down to touch the ground. Eventually though, we let go so our baby can feel the ground and learn to crawl. They will crawl away from us.
Our whole parenting path is based on these two diametrically opposed acts. Holding on and letting go. Somehow the holding on doesn't create the same dramas in our life. Yet both experiences are equally valid and entirely necessary for evolution. If we don't grow, don't blossom, we eat into ourselves and die.

As a passionate advocate for child-led, human-scale education, our family way of living was rocked to the core by my daughters' decision to 'try out school'. Living rurally has impacted on the availability of friendships for them. They do have friends, but not nearly as many as they'd like.
How in my heart could I reconcile everything I understand about how children learn, with them deliberately placing themselves in an educational setting far removed from my ideals? To say I was challenged doesn't even come close to how I felt, and still feel.

What I have learnt over the years is that the greatest gift we can give our children is that of trust. And trust, I have…

Each day that my children climb aboard the school bus, I trust they will experience the day in a way which opens their mind, heart and soul. I trust that their teachers recognise them as humans, rather than as numbers on a government supplied statistic sheet.

As I write, just five weeks into their school experience, they've both made comments about choosing home education for secondary school. For Bethany, that means this September, which is rather ironic because her desire to try out primary school was to give her some school experience before entering high school.

My experience of the girls being in mainstream education includes the shocking realisation that the 'system' isn't something I can change or control in any way, at least not on my own. That the school actually doesn't want input from parents, or to be told how to educate, is restrictive to say the least. Ok, I knew this already, but you can't blame a mum for trying!

Mainstream education needs a radical overhaul. These changes won't come from above. The government has targets to meet and that is their concern. Our concern, as parents, goes far deeper and it is from here, that we can act. If... if we act together. It simply shouldn't be acceptable to have 20+ children piled into one classroom. How can they possibly have their needs met this way?

What sort of culture do we live in where you have to buy education if you don't like what's on offer for the masses? Why is it that home educators don't get tax reductions, given they're not using the resources their taxes went towards? Why can't governments fund alternative schools? The money is still allocated for your child, so why should the government determine which school your child should go to in order to get the benefits of YOUR tax money?

Why isn't anyone speaking up about this? Why are we such an apathetic nation?

There are so many reasons why I don't want my children in school and I simply can't see how the benefit of a few extra friends can possibly outweigh the deleterious effects of a factory farm approach to education.

My daughters, known for their love of food, have cut their daily food consumption in half because they don't get enough time to eat at morning and afternoon break and most importantly, for them, there is nowhere to sit down and eat! This contravenes the very nature of our digestive process ~ the need to be in a state of relaxation. Children are encouraged to run around while they eat an apple ~ ironic with the health and safety red tape which strangles the system. Most days, in amongst the fun elements of school, the girls complain about how much time is wasted by the teacher yelling at the disruptive pupils. I try and explain that these children are seeking attention, most likely because they don't get it at home from their parents. The chances are they'll spend their waking hours at home glued to a tv or computer screen.

I've been horrified by how much time at school is spent by children playing computer games or watching dvds ~ all under the fancy title of media studies or ICT (information computer technology). Who are they trying to kid? What does my daughter get out of a computer game? Call me cynical, but I feel this use of televisual stimulus is nothing more than a band-aid; an acceptable childminder in a school culture that simply can't meet the needs of 25 plus children at once. Bethany's class was due to watch a horror film ~ but FORTUNATELY the tv didn't work! She wouldn't be watching that sort of show at home, so what right do the teachers have to inflict violence on them at school?

Bethany is in year 6, a few short months till secondary school. When she came home with her spelling list and the word perfectionist was spelt wrong, I 'tsk tskd'. Fancy allowing a typo to go unnoticed, I thought. At least I assumed it was a typo. The next day Bethany said the teacher looked it up in the dictionary and then told the children to add an 'I' to the word when they got home.

At this moment in time, I've 'let go' of the need to keep my children out of regimented, institutional learning. They know that the option to be home educated again is always there. And likewise, if we move towards a position of living in an area with an appropriate, affordable, human-scale school, they can try that too.

For now, I trust that my children will be able to retain their free spirit, that they won't sink under the weight of the school's control and that they will always fly. I see their independent thinking blossoming amidst ideas we, in our family, find odd. When Bethany had an assignment to draw God, she knew that you couldn't put the infinite into the finite. And perhaps it is, too, with my children, that their soul will never be suppressed in this culture; that they've touched freedom for enough of their childhood to not be drawn into the myth of what most people consider to be education.
As for me, after the initial adjustment, this has come to feel like a well-earned break after 11 years of full-time parenting. My days are filled with writing a book, walking, editing TM and gardening. I do believe that the western world is waking up to realise that less is more; that a life well lived isn't one of accumulation, but of what we give away. Not of what we hold onto, but of what we let go.

Growing Pains

March/April Issue, TM21

I distinctly remember the growing pains I had in my legs as a child. My mum had to massage the pain away. I still have growing pains, but they're of a different sort now. It's the pain of being a mother and watching my child go through life's painful experiences.

Just when I thought I'd got the parenting thing licked, just when I thought we were coasting along, I feel like I'm back at square one, learning how to be a mother again. And it's hard!

I catch myself, some days, wondering about the high emotional price we pay when embarking on this journey. When we go into parenting, most of us do so quite misty-eyed. So caught up in the magic of first smiles, first laughter, first teeth, first wobbly steps, first everything; why doesn't anyone tell you how painful it is when your daughter starts living through the ghastly years between young child and adult?

Bethany's eleven in March; her body filled with ever-changing hormones. Up until now, I've taken it all in my stride and really just expected that there might be a few outbursts here and there, but really, nothing can be as bad as toddlerhood, right?

What I hadn't counted on was the depth of feeling involved in raising a highly sensitive child through the highly sensitive pubescent years. I catch myself wondering if I'd have become a parent if I had really known how hard this would be.

Bethany's emotional pain is so real that I can touch it, but I can't do anything to ease it. Impotence, as a mother, is life-changing. Sometimes I don't know who is in more pain, her or I.

One moment she's fretting because the bow for her violin is made of horse hair, and she feels like a hypocrite calling herself a vegan. Another time she gets upset because all the clothes locally, for her age, are made in sweat shops overseas, exploiting children as young as she is, or younger.

On our long walks together, she confides in me about boys. The questions can't leave her mouth quick enough, and in no time I find myself back in the tortuous teenage years, a place I'd hoped not to revisit.

I share with her my first major heartbreak, at fifteen years old. The love of my life, Kevin Bourke, left school without warning to start an apprenticeship. His friends were all envious that he no longer had school to contend with. This was the end of my world, not so much because he left school, which was tormenting enough, but because he left to become a butcher! What's an ethical vegetarian girl to do with such heartbreak? I remember pouring out my heart to my mother, but the look in her eyes didn't reflect the pain which consumed me. It was here, at the tender age of fifteen, I learnt that heartbreak is something you truly go through alone.

"Is it possible to love two people at once?" Bethany asks.

"Yes," I reply.

"Have you?" she probes.

"Erm, yes." I find myself getting edgy. I like to be honest with my children, but is this a route we really have to go down? She wants to know everything about the men who've gone before her dad. Hmmm, this could take a while!

For all the times Bethany and I don't see eye to eye, this challenging time in her emotional life is bringing us closer. We have something in common. I can relate to her pain and she can see that I'm human, something she occasionally doubts! And in a strange way, she is inviting the hidden narrator of my life to come forward and tell her so many stories she'd otherwise be unlikely to ever hear.

She wonders why boys tease girls when they fancy them. "Why can't they just tell them they like the girl?" Bethany wants to know how the men in my life asked me out. This has me raising my eyebrows somewhat. I've asked every man out! "Honey, if I waited for men to ask me out, I'd have never gone on a date, at least not with the men I fancied! And as for your dad, I'd still have been waiting!"

I explain to Bethany that life is different to the gloriously romantic, olden days. Men are different. Women are different. Expectations are different.
Bethany's heard a whole list of heart-breaking and hysterically funny moments from the first ten years of my adulthood. The Dixie Chicks could have written their title song, Taking the long way, based on my life.

Even if I was the most powerful woman in the world, I couldn't for one second stop Bethany going through those experiences which often-times make up the teenage years.

Bethany's hormones are developing a life of their own. She wants to know why she cries for no reason. Many women probably want to know the answer to that question about a week before their period begins! I suggest foods and supplements which will help to ease some aspects of hormonal function, but there's no magic cure for feeling sensitive to life.

Some of us are ultra-sensitive to everything around us ~ bright lights, caffeine, the wrong look from someone, noises, smells, etc. We have to allow our sensitivities to become our strengths, and we do so first and foremost by honouring the body and soul we're in. The journey somehow becomes easier when we submit to this path, rather than try and avoid it. After all, duvet days are ok occasionally, but we can't spend our whole life under the covers or we'd never find out how much joy there is in the world.

When we take the risk to love, we risk everything. And as much as I hate the saying, 'tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all', the truth is, it is absolutely true. We risk everything by loving, but we gain everything by loving too.

When I was a child I prayed to God asking that I die before my mother because I couldn't bear the thought of her dying first. I still can't!

Now I'm a mother, my prayer is for my daughters to outlive me, for it is a pain I truly know that would rip me to shreds. I've seen what it has done to friends of mine who've lost babies and children. One friend, nearly fifty years later, still works night shift to avoid going to sleep. Sleep is the place of nightmares and pain. And why should anyone have to constantly relive the pain of losing the child they've brought into this world?

My life is a comfortable, content and happy one compared to millions of mothers on this Earth. I try to retain this perspective when I watch Bethany struggling with her angst. But why does it hurt so much watching her go through this? It hurts even more than when I went through it...

There's a song by Garth Brooks called The Dance. The chorus sums up the risk we take when we love, and how I feel about being a mother.

And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end
the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss the dance

And it's that dance that we so need to have, regardless of the pain. Kahlil Gibran wrote "Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain."

He goes on to say, " Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity; for his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen, and the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears."

If you are going through pain in your life, try to remember that even on the darkest day the sun shines above. In time, the clouds of grief, heaviness and despair do give way to light, and sunshine can again warm the soul.

From all of us at The Mother, we hope you thoroughly enjoy this issue!

With my very best wishes,
Veronika

Protecting children from modern culture

January/February 2007, TM20

A few months back, leader of the Conservative Party in the UK, David Cameron MP, spoke of the country's troubled teenagers and how their problems could be solved with love.

Not being remotely inspired by politics, I have to admit I did a double take when I heard that. Love? Whaaaat? Ears pricked, I stopped in my tracks.
Politicians like to espouse family values when they're leading up to an election, but to actually suggest that the 'L' word as a solution seemed, well, somehow out of place in English society; you know, land of the stiff upper lip and 'dignified' modes of emotional expression.

Prime Minister Tony Blair used his Queen's Speech to act the playground bully and mock Mr Cameron. "Love?" he snickered, almost choking on the word. Funny how you can really go off a person in a nano-second. Perhaps love is an alien experience in his family. Clearly he's not in a position to lead by example, if the fact his teenage son was found drunk and asleep in a London park late one night is anything to go by.

Kids will cry out to us for attention (eg. ADD or ADHD). Our job is to listen to their cues before it gets to this point. Just as an intuitive mother recognises when her infant needs to breastfeed (lips pucker, fist in mouth, etc), and offers her babe the breast well before crying needs to start, the same is true as our children get older. It is too easy to blind ourselves to children's basic biological needs simply because they don't 'cry', or worse, we're too busy to notice their cues. What is dysfunctional behaviour but a cry, a last ditch attempt to claim our attention.

The truth is, family life is eroding rapidly, and the consequences are not pretty. What happens in someone else's family has a ripple effect on the cultural pond from which we all drink.

Our collective, magnetic attraction to materialism is, in short, fast-tracking us to complete dysfunction and a collapse of society as we know it.
No government can legislate for family preservation. It has to come from the heart of the home. From our heart. We have to believe and experience the value of family to recognise its importance on a grander scale. Never mind midwifing the world, we have to consciously birth our own family into awareness.

I was asked, recently, what I'd change about modern childhood. That is, if I had to choose just one aspect, what would bring harmony and happiness back into family life. In some ways it was a tough question, because there are so many aspects to today's way of living which are all interrelated. And while I'd educate adults about the deleterious effects of a televisual culture for young children, eradicate junk food, mobile phones, nasty computer games, aggressive marketing and so on, the truth is the main issue is the most glaring, and would in many cases remedy the other toxic issues.
Kids need time with their parents. We have this idea that so long as kids get the odd patch of 'quality' time then everything will be ok. But when you're not with your child, you have to ask, "what is my presence being replaced with?" A tv in their bedroom? Strangers on an e-group? Texting? Structured play? Junk food?

Kids just want to hang out with their parents. They don't want structured activities or non-stop amusements to fill their every waking hour. They want their parents to interact with them, to acknowledge their existence ~ hugs, laughter, eye contact, a pat on the shoulder, talking, being. These are what kids need.

Children aren't stupid. And we need to stop treating them that way. They recognise when we're acting with integrity and know when we are really 'with' them.

Love is an exchange between living things ~ be they Divine, human or animal. It can be given, received and felt. Lives are transformed through love. It can't be experienced by or through inanimate objects. So how, then, do we expect our children to learn about love when we give them 'things' to compensate for our absence? And don't be fooled, we can be just as absent if we're physically present as full-time stay-at-home parents.
As for the dysfunctional teenagers being targeted by the government, they didn't end up like this by chance. At various points along the path of childhood, they've felt neglected in one way or another. It's misguided to perpetuate the myth of the generation gap. The issue is a communication gap, and that can happen at any age.

Today's children are mirroring the best and worst of modern culture. We can't band-aid the problems with yet more mobile phones, fast food outlets, computer games, more structured education.

What's needed is a revolution not just to save our children, but our culture. And it has to come from us, the parents. A generation of emotionally hungry children are showing us all the things that are wrong with our culture. The modern world might suit adults, but it's no place for growing children.
Many adults are feeling as if they're in a spiritual desert and that their own emotional needs aren't being met. They've worked hard for the house, holiday, techno-gadgets, cars and status, and yet something is missing. As adults though, we keep pushing and pushing thinking that we'll arrive 'somewhere' soon and everything will be ok.

One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is to recognise that success, happiness, love and peace can never be found outside of ourselves. It's an inside job. In a culture that advocates the polar opposite, we've got our work cut out for us. But you know what? We can do it!
Have a stunningly brilliant new year, and embrace the gifts 2007 bring your way.

In peace,
Veronika

Relaxed Mothering

Spring Issue, TM19

Occasionally I hear from women who, when they read The Mother magazine, feel as if perhaps they're not good enough mums. This is unfortunate and has made me realise that each issue should carry a disclaimer!

This publication is about an ideal, not a dogma. The highest goal, I believe, of our individual journeys is to aim for relaxed parenting. Showing our kids how to live from the heart, being authentic in all our interactions, and realising that it's a waste of time and energy to get upset about 'just about anything', is the most productive thing we can do as parents.

Editorially, I have certain criteria when deciding whether to accept a submission. However this is to do with my vision of a possible world. It has no reflection on where you should be in your own life.

My vision of a possible world is one where each child is conceived consciously, with love and welcome, and born as gently as possible into the arms of its parents. I dream that children are born into families which value the importance of raising humans with a nutritious, unprocessed wholefood diet; who practise preventative health care; parents who value the right of the child to spend their childhood free of adult orientated pressures. I wish more than anything for a world where children are treated as human beings, rather than a dumping ground for their parents' unexpressed needs.

I create, along with my team of writers, photographers and artists, a magazine which embodies a gift. The Mother is always given in love, and nothing less. How a reader perceives the publication is beyond our control.

Yes, some articles are hard hitting. Yes, some authors will present very challenging ideas. I don't apologise for this. We all need to constantly question our daily decisions. It keeps our lives in check and makes our path through life conscious, deliberate and well-lived. The contents of these pages are not published with the intention of judging families who take a more mainstream path, or who decline the more out-of-the-ordinary ideas we present. Our hope, in actual fact, is that more and more people will feel welcomed into the pages we publish, as society moves away from 'box thinking'.

We can always be good enough parents regardless of the parenting style we adopt ~ we can, in every moment, aim to be conscious of our thoughts, actions and choices. We always have a choice, even if it doesn't feel like it. Embracing choices allows us to discover the difference between enjoying the parenting path and hating it, or perhaps even worse, avoiding it by being absent from our children, physically, mentally or emotionally.

It's a rare parent who can honestly say they've not ever had a bad day parenting.

Have you ever noticed when you're having a bad hair day that brushing the mirror doesn't fix your hair? I find that washing my hair; brushing it, hiding it in a scarf, or putting it up in a ponytail or two plaits usually helps! If all that fails, I call my lovely hairdresser Helen with an urgent plea: "Come quick, before I murder the mirror!" And yet I know the mirror is not responsible for how I perceive myself!
Our kids are like mirrors. They show us the side of ourselves that other people don't tend to see. They manage to draw out our most hidden demons ~ our shadow selves. It may not seem like it when you're in Monster Mother mode, but what a blessing! How wonderful that a human being who loves us unconditionally can provide us with a key to release the aspects of ourselves which need healing the most.

Just as brushing (or hitting) the mirror won't sort out our bad hair day, it's the same with kids. It is ourselves we need to work on; to tend and mend. And when we do that, miraculously our kids will mirror the best that is within us.

My hope is that our articles, especially some of the more challenging pieces, will inspire you to attend to your 'hair', so to speak. Some people feel threatened, for example, when other families have had 'idyllic' birth experiences, while their own journey was downright depressing, terrifying or deeply tragic. It doesn't help any of us to be in judgement, regardless of what experience we've had in the birthing room or at the school gates. We can, however, all help each other to grow and learn. The greatest chains we wear are those that lead us to believe we don't have choices.

I feel the utmost empathy for my mother when I recall the moments in childhood when we'd pushed her too far. As a mother, I'm often pushed to my limit. When I have my 'what a crap mother I turned out to be' days, I pull my socks up again and tell myself I've no excuse not to do better.

I live a life of luxury. I have a roof over my head; my kids eat healthy food every day; we have a computer. This puts us in the top 8% of the world's population. I've been able to breastfeed my children, have a washing machine, and don't have to walk to get our drinking water. Given this, what excuse have I not to parent well? Not much. And yet, on a daily basis, I come up against as many psychological challenges as the next mum.

I've learnt many, many things in my parenting journey. Unfortunately, most of the things I've learnt have come with hindsight! And I can honestly say that the best of those ideas are through what I have learnt from other people in radical publications like The Mother magazine.

I don't beat myself up for my past ignorance. What would be the point? The past has been and gone. It can only hurt us if we let it.
The present is the best place for any of us to be. So if you feel inclined, use the best this magazine has to offer you and go forth and parent beautifully. If you find information here to be at odds with your own intuition, then leave it. The Mother isn't a rule book! We must never deny the innate intuitive wisdom which exists within. It is unique to every parent and is the best guide for their parenting situation.
My goal as editor is to inspire, educate, challenge and motivate parents and would-be-parents into making a lifestyle designed to support a healthy, happy family and a healthy planet. At The Mother we believe they go hand in hand.

I feel my future with this magazine is to redefine exactly what it means to parent holistically and consciously. The holistic path isn't just about using cotton nappies (or elimination communication), or recognising that breast is best. To my mind, these are surface things ~ tip of the iceberg issues. Wholism is a complete package. Mind, body and soul are the themes we explore in these pages. How we interact with our children and their other parent on a day to day basis is just as important as whether or not we choose to vaccinate, home-educate, dump nappies in a landfill or put our baby in a pram, rather than in a sling. Whatever steps we make towards a conscious life, we need to do so in ways that become natural and fulfilling for the whole family.
***
When I became a mother, my sustenance was found in the pages of the very radical Nurturing magazine, published in Canada. It pulled no punches and was very clear that children deserved our care, respect and love. (See www.nurturing.ca) Nurturing was brave, bold and daring. I loved it completely! Everything about it was so at odds with the world of parenting that existed around me. It spoke to my soul, mentoring me through my early choices as a mother.

I rediscovered the online version of Nurturing magazine recently, and oh my, it was so like coming home.
Nurturing magazine was born a month before my first daughter was, ten years ago, and I discovered it about that time. I was over the moon when they chose my pregnancy photo for one of their covers and published my waterbirth story. I remember this experience when mums tell me how excited they are to see their photos or articles in The Mother.

My absolute joy in rediscovering Nurturing magazine was dampened when I discovered they were considering stopping publication with their 10th Anniversary Edition. My first (selfish) thought was, 'how can I get hold of all the precious back issues?'

Niche, radical parenting magazines cater to such a minority readership. However, those of us at the helm of such publications also know the importance of existing as a strong and not-so-silent community for those who need it.

Some publications give in to the temptation of diluting their editorials, and slackening their advertising guidelines, in order to pay the printing and postage bills! Nurturing magazine never did this. The sad ending of their publication has been a wake-up call to me.
If you love The Mother, do consider telling a friend or asking your midwife, health care practitioner or health store to make it available. Give a back copy to a friend. Growth is life.

I regret that in my moves between countries, I didn't keep track of Nurturing magazine. The information in those pages was priceless, an honest and passionate advocate for our children.

It is so important to support the magazines which contribute to our growth as parents. There will come a time when our babes and bambini fly the nest, and other families could do with the wisdom and guidance that we've been blessed to have. That won't happen if we're afraid to share our 'radical' magazines around because we think the contents might offend someone, or worse, make them think we've lost the plot.

Sometimes people are just waiting for a torchlight to new ideas, and we'll never know what difference we can make to other lives if we hide the light!

* * *

The Mother magazine came into existence because of my love for The Compleat Mother ~ a magazine of pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding. (See www.CompleatMother.com).

I was blessed to receive a copy of this gutsty newsprint, grass-roots magazine when I first came to England. It was like having 'family'.
It is still going strong for those who want to learn more about natural, enjoyable vaginal birth and extended breastfeeding.

The Mother is now being published by the Art of Change. Regular readers will already know Anna, Sophie, Barry and Winnie through their regular column on the Art of Change, in The Mother. I'm absolutely thrilled that their involvement will mean I can focus 100% on the editorial side of the magazine. Please note the new address for any enquiries relating to subscriptions, advertising and wholesale orders.
The Mother is now a 'carbon neutral' publication ~ possibly the first parenting magazine in the world to be publicly accountable for its impact on the environment. To offset the environmental cost of publishing and transporting this magazine, we're investing in carbon neutral projects.

For this issue, we're working with a project in India and Sri Lanka which brings solar electric lighting to the people. It is eliminating the need for kerosene lamps, as they produce high CO2 and greenhouse gases, not to mention being very damaging to health. The improved lighting also increases the income for locals, who can earn money from basket weaving and sewing by having better light for working under.

Meanwhile, in southern Mexico, we're investing in a pioneering project to alleviate poverty on a variety of reforestation projects which see the planting of fruit and nut orchards, restoring the land to its original forested state. The trees soak up and neutralise carbon generated activities. Only eco-friendly farming techniques are adopted. The project provides a permanent income for the local community.
From the next issue, we'll be through your letterbox every two months, rather than three. Enjoy! In the meantime, may I wish you the brightest blessings for an Autumn filled with the crunch of golden leaves, invigorating winds, and baskets full of apples, and orange pumpkins. If you're in the Southern Hemisphere, enjoy those first glorious rays of Spring Sunshine.
Wherever you live, remember, NOT perfect parenting, but relaxed parenting!
Go in peace…..

Heart and Soul

Summer Issue, TM18

It's often said that life's too short to stuff a mushroom. I beg to differ. Life is made short by racing through and not being mindful of our actions and thoughts. Somehow our society has us believing that the journey through life is somehow meaningless if we deliberately take the time to be slow and savour our experiences.

Slowing down, having fun, being creative, centred, living in the Now, these things are what give meaning and richness to our life. So, why do we bust our backsides to acquire possessions which we can't take to our grave? It's senseless. Our possessions only have the meaning we give them. That meaning vanishes upon death (unless someone else chooses to bestow sentiment upon it).
Our culture is on the fast track lane. Everywhere we look the sign posts are almost ordering us to speed up. Don't slow down! Don't question anything! Don't daydream! Even our young children are the equivalent of stressed-out laboratory rats. Our cultural hot-housing of them is producing a generation of humans who aren't even given time to play! Unless, of course, it is structured play, set to a curriculum as stated by the government.

Children require parent-time; love; creative play and expression; daydreaming space. But if they're raised on a diet of television, mobile phones/text messaging, computers, substitute care-givers, processed foods, sugary drinks and too many extra-curricular activities, then how will they grow up to make decisions which adequately reflect their true needs? How will they know what nourishes them to the core if they aren't given the natural space and time to discover this for themselves while growing up?
If our lives are too busy to stuff a mushroom, then we're not living, we're existing. We're here on this planet to thrive, not just survive. And to thrive we need to nourish our soul through our physical vehicle.

Resisting consumer temptations and living within our means is one way in which we can have a direct experience in our own life. And then it follows that we should ask, what can we give to the world? Many of us have been raised in a culture of take, take, take. And our children are certainly part of this culture.

Aiming for an authentic life, rich in meaning, we do well to remember that we are not our assets, money, career, status or fame. Any of these illusions can be whipped from us in a nano-second. Who might we claim to be then?

Enjoy the day to day-ness of life. Discover in the beauty of each waking moment the artistry of your own ways. Stuff that mushroom! Create habits which nourish. Slow food is a wonderful way to discover life's meaning. Cast your eyes over the vast array of fresh, organic fruit and vegetables at your local farmers'market. Smell the coriander (cilantro) leaves as you break them and add them to an avocado, lime and tomato salad. Let mango juice drip down your chin and neck as you sink your teeth deep into its soft, inviting flesh. Taste cherries, warmed by the summer sun, and plucked fresh from the tree. Hear the pop and sizzle as you fry your onions! It is here, in slow time, that we live!

It is essential to a happy and contented life that we nourish our body and soul. I have found, however, that life is too short for some things ~ such as investing time and energy into superficial or ongoing negative relationships. They may fill in time, but they don't nourish.

Saying life is too short to stuff a mushroom is the same as saying life is too short to stop and smell the sweet scent of Jasmine clinging to the air on a hot summer's night.

In these modern, fast-paced times, it is not uncommon for people to diarise sex. Life, it would seem, is not only too short to stuff mushrooms but also to lie in the arms of your lover all night long. It must then go on to say that life is too short to stop and listen to the birdsong dancing upon a Spring morning breeze.

Too short, indeed, to stand, awestruck, as a star shoots across the black Autumn night sky. Too short to make a wish, even?

Ways to stuff your life with meaning, inspiration, creativity and simplicity

Create your own entertainment.
Start a dead poet's society.
Make eye contact and smile to a stranger.
Plant a fruit tree or six and adopt a few ex-battery hens so they can free-range in your mini-orchard and leave behind wonderful fertiliser for your garden.
Make your own hommous!
Let meditation be a daily habit.
Drink two litres of spring water each day so that you are functioning at your optimum level rather than in a desperate, dehydrated state. (Most people confuse thirst for hunger).
Grow your own sprouts.
Plant sunflower seeds in a pot and bring sunshine to your front garden.
Sew an old fashioned rag doll and make a child smile.
Bake sourdough rye bread with caraway seeds.
Make a huge pot of soup and invite some friends over for a soup and salad evening.
Make a ritual of having a fire each full moon. You can tell stories, sing or just enjoy the peace of the evening.
Start a women's/men's circle.
Eat from hand-thrown earthenware bowls.
Celebrate life with ritual, ceremony and meaning ~ birth, babymoon, blessingway, losing of first teeth, menarche, coming of age, housewarming, unions, transitions.
Give thanks at each meal. Don't eat in front of the tv, standing up or on the run! Sit down, light a candle, set the table with placemats, flowers and enjoy your food. Eat to Mozart.
Chart the moon's cycles. Chart your own cycle.
Make a nature table and use this as a focus to acknowledge the changing seasons.
Grind your grains manually.
Make a compost loo in your garden.
Cut up ALL your credit cards, close your bank account and opt for one with an ethical bank such as Triodos (in the UK) or with your local building society. Free yourself and your family from debt.
Make a meal from another culture. Expand your taste.
Use a manual lawn mower (no nasty petrol fumes for you or the earth).
Give a massage with sensuous essential oils like rose or ylang ylang.
Sit on a swing for half an hour. How high can you go? Swings aren't just for kids!
Take a daily walk in Nature (park, woodland, river's edge, nature reserve, wildflower meadow, beach).
Pick berries from hedgerows. Gobble them straight away.
Learn to identify and eat edible wild foods (enjoy them raw, don't cook them!).
Snuggle up with the cat and really feel her purr.
Learn/play an instrument (there are so many to choose from).
Make mud pies (especially if you weren't allowed to as a child because your mother hated dirty clothes).
Read aloud.
Write a poem. Share it with a friend, if you wish.
Draw with charcoal.
Make paper dolls.
Throw a clay pot.
Build a bread oven in your garden.
Make an aquatic wildlife garden.
Sew a dress.
Keep a dream journal.
Breastfeed.
Play Scrabble.
Sing, sing, sing!
Cuddle.
Have friends over for dinner.
Make a herb garden.
Hand write a thank you note.
Say I love you and mean it.
Sit by the fire and do nothing for an hour. If you don't have an indoor fire, have a small one in your garden beneath the moonlight. Listening to the crackle, pop and hiss of the wood is very meditative and brings out everyone's primal desire for simplicity.
Collect nettles to make tea.
Swim.
Learn a language.
Weave a basket (try growing your own willow too).
Picnic (anywhere).
Climb a tree.
Build a treehouse.
Get rid of your television.
Teach your kids to play hopscotch.
Learn one of the Divination Arts.
Write a list of ways in which you can be more authentic ~ both at home and at work.
Stuff a mushroom!

Good bye, Elizabeth

Spring Issue, TM17

In late November 2005, my mother-in-law, Elizabeth, dutifully had her flu vaccine. That night she went to bed ill, complaining of a fuzzy head. When Paul spoke to her on the phone and she said she’d had her flu jab and was sick, he said, “You know what I think of vaccines, mum.”

She spent the next eight weeks bed ridden, deteriorating. Barely a morsel of food passed her lips. Her kidneys weakened to the point of no return. Research on flu vaccine effects show that crystals in the kidneys develop, leading to dehydration.

She had the life force stolen from her with that legal, lethal dose of poison. Like most pensioners, she was hypnotised by government health officials into believing the flu jab would protect her health.

On Christmas Day, as she lay lifeless in her bed, we called a doctor to visit. He said she was just a bit run down and not at all dehydrated. His suggestion was to give her milk and sugar. Excuse me? You went to medical school and that’s the best you can come up with? He was most offended when we said her ill-health was the result of the flu vaccine.

“I’ve been a doctor for many years….” bla bla blardy bla. He wasn't having a bar of it. “It’s just coincidence,” he said, arrogantly. Well, I guess that saved him filling in an adverse reaction form.

After Elizabeth was transferred to hospital, I had a dream of her standing by the bedroom door waving us goodbye. She was healthy, smiling and happy. This didn’t fit the picture of the lifeless woman in a hospital bed. I could only take it to mean that she was ready to pass out of her body into one more fitting for someone on an eternal soul journey. A few days before she died, a hospital doctor acknowledged my vaccine accusation. Her voice softened and she said, “You’d be surprised how many elderly people are affected by the flu vaccine.” No, I’m not surprised!

Watching my mother-by-marriage so ill, so frail, almost unrecognisable, made it impossible for me to not think of my own mother. My heart completely split in two.

The last few days of Elizabeth’s life will be the ones we remember most fondly. She was never an overly emotionally or physically demonstrative woman. And yet, in her final days, something changed. She openly gave and received hugs, reached out to hold hands, and said “I love you”...three words that never came easily to her.

Blessed to have time on my own with her, I expressed my eternal gratitude that her first born son had truly made my life.

Later, Paul came in, and ever so gently and softly, sang her an old Italian aria she loved called Your tiny hand is frozen. Rather fitting given her body temperature was down to 35 degrees Celsius. Though Elizabeth could no longer talk in her final hours, tears fell from her eyes at the sound of Paul singing. The last music she heard was him humming ‘I love you because’…We were comforted by the fact that hearing is the last sense to go.

When Eliza gave her Nana a last hug, I told Elizabeth that her granddaughter was hugging her, and that she loved her very, very much. Elizabeth moaned affirmatively, acknowledging that she was feeling the hug. Her moans of pleasure will stay with me always.

I felt honoured to be part of the experience, and to hold her hand as she took her last, gentle breaths. Paul later described her last breaths as like the sunset. It just happens so gradually and seamlessly even though it is quick. And yet we know the sun is still shining, even though we can’t see it any longer.

In Elizabeth’s final moments, Paul and I were joined by two of his brothers and a sister in law. We gathered around Elizabeth’s hospital bed, our love transforming an otherwise sterile environment into a sacred and holy place where she would transition. The feeling as she left was not one of her dying, but of her moving on to somewhere else...another journey. Between us we whispered words of ‘fly’, ‘you’re free’. It was, without doubt, the most incredible and moving experience of my life.

My daughters had been angelically patient those last days...each reading Harry Potter, walking hospital corridors, and holding their Nana’s hand. I know many people would suggest young children shouldn’t be part of such a process, but we approached it like anything else in our life ~ with honesty.

I felt it important they be part of the transition experience...to know that the body is merely a glove for this earthly journey, and that life for Nana didn’t begin in 1922. And it wasn’t really ending now.

Strangely, a few minutes before their Nana died, another sister-in-law took them for a walk to stretch their legs. Though they weren’t in the room when she died, they did come in afterwards to see her and whisper ‘farewell’.

That evening we went back to Elizabeth’s house. Now, there was a time in my life when the thought of sleeping in the bed of someone who’d recently passed over would have filled me with horror. But you know, that night, as Paul and I cuddled up in Nana’s big, soft bed, I felt nothing but comfort. It was the most perfect place to be. There was nowhere else on Earth I would rather have been as we experienced both the loss of a wombyn we loved, and marvelled at the beauty and magic of her transition. She was right there with us. Love transcended our different dimensions.

As we lay in her bed, I saw, not in my mind’s eye, but with eyes wide open, Elizabeth in a hot air balloon, way up high, smiling, waving, healthy. The same happy image of her as in my dream a few weeks before. She was saying goodbye.

The next day, Bethany and Eliza, ran with joy on Nana’s beach. Half naked, despite the cold winter wind, they played and danced fully, enjoying life in a place their Nana had looked out over every day, for many years. She’d have smiled.

Nana’s funeral/cremation was traditional. Our ceremony for her, more reflective of our beliefs, will be to plant a tree with some of her ashes at Moondawn Farm (home of The Mother magazine’s family camps, and a placenta burial site). The girls are choosing to plant some of the flowers and bushes that grow in her garden, too.

There are many parenting publications, even those that promote natural parenting, which assume a political correctness by presenting the pros and cons of vaccination. Until MY dying day I will shout from the rooftops that there are NO pros to mass vaccination! I don’t expect you to believe me. I do, however, hope that you’ll have enough wisdom to do your own research. The information is out there. The truth, the facts, the research. It’s all there! Just don’t expect your doctor or the government or pharmaceutical companies to rush to your aid. They won’t.

Ask your doctor for the ingredients in vaccines. Ask them to sign a consent form agreeing to take full responsibility, financial or otherwise, if any reaction happens to your child or parent. Ask the manufacturers if they are prepared to do the same. And if any of them are, do give me a call. You may not be able to choose for your parents whether or not they vaccinate, but you are responsible for your child. It is their life at risk, not yours.

You, your children and your parents can protect yourselves from influenza by taking care of your well- being. Get plenty of rest, cut out junk foods, sugars, fats, drink two litres of water each day, make daily exercise of some description a priority. Keep happy company. Switch off the news.

Seek regular chiropractic care for your children. Chiropractors, the experts in spinal care, will tell you that “through your nervous system you perceive the worl