Kindred Mission Statement

Kindred Magazine's Continuum of Principle and Manifesto

Kindred recognises the call of humankind's biological imperative that we evolve and transform into our greatest potential. For our children, that potential is best supported by the practices of secure bonding and attachment. The content of Kindred, therefore, is selected upon its reflection of the following principles:


• Children are the mantle upon which the future of our planet rests, investing in their wellbeing is the ultimate sustainable and political act.

• Every child is wanted and welcomed.

• Pregnancy is a natural event (not a medical condition) and the importance of the mother's emotional, mental and physical wellbeing is recognised and supported.

• A natural birth affords significant benefits to mother, baby, father and family; therefore both the potential benefits and risks of any intervention warrant careful consideration.

• Parents have the right and responsibility to be fully informed about pregnancy, birthing, health and education choices.

• Optimal development for infants and children is fostered by full-term breastfeeding, baby-wearing, co-sleeping, maintaining genital integrity (no circumcision), and plenty of skin-to-skin contact.

• Children are by nature social beings, born with the drive to love and be loved, to learn about their world through spontaneous play, exploration, and participation/inclusion in the activities of their elders, to cooperate with others, and to contribute to their world. They are most able to develop their full potential when treated with care and respect.

• Children are born with inherent, physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs.

• Children depend upon their caregivers to protect them from violence, abuse, being left to 'cry it out', shaming, toxic food and toxic environments.

• Children depend on their parents to demonstrate and model to them appropriate ways of setting safe respectful boundaries and limits to inappropriate behaviour.

• The role of the father and mother is profound and not to be underestimated. Also important are the multiple attachments outside the immediate family.

• Optimal development includes supporting children's growth towards healthy sexual maturity across the physical, emotional, social and ethical dimensions of sexual wellbeing.

• Family-friendly political, economic, educational and social structures enhance parents' opportunities and ability to nurture and sustain a secure bond with their children.

• Community plays a vital role in raising children, both as a support system for this secure bonding and also as a source for secondary attachments.

• Parenting our children means also re-parenting ourselves. Self-discovery plays a major factor in the art of effective parenting.

• Imperfection is the lesson in how to be perfectly human. Allowing ourselves as parents to make mistakes, be transparently ourselves and emotionally alive in relating to our children, enables them to individuate and find their own separate and unique self. After bonding comes healthy separation, facilitated by our perfectly human inability to be everything to our children.

Understanding that there are immense and complex forces impacting our lives and shaping the choices we each make at any point in time, Kindred recognises that there is no single formula for meeting each person's individual challenges, and respects parents' innate ability to know and intuit what is right for their child.

Kindred explores the realms of parenthood that reach beyond the bounds of sentimentality and possession and into the arena of an ever deepening conscious understanding and appreciation of our relationship with life, each other, ourselves, our children and the world in which we live.

Kindred is an independent publication and is neither controlled by nor beholden to any organisation — business, political, religious or institutional.

Kali Wendorf
Publisher/Editor

The Kindred Manifesto and Continuum of Principle have been adapted in part from the Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Children (aTLC)'s Blueprint of Principles and
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