Letters in issue 15

Kudos

It’s an absolute pleasure to be resubscribing to byronchild. Both my husband and I enjoy your challenging and always passionate editorial.

You are in a privileged position, having such influence and evoking powerful inspiration amongst family life.
A thought…what makes some individuals question beliefs and values, while others proceed through life without a second thought of questioning the mainstream?
Keep up the great work.

Angela London
South Australia


Vaccination

Once again, I am blown away by the quality of the contents of byronchild magazine. And I have to admit, I am so pleased to see the coverage that the issue of vaccination is receiving in your pages as well. Unfortunately, parents who are not reading byronchild will not have access to these vital facts. It should be mandatory reading for all parents and parents to be!

The mainstream media owns the minds of the majority of us here in Australia. Magazines like byronchild can help us take back our rights and wake us up out of our medical/mass market stupor.

Please keep up the fantastic work — every issue is a gem and every article is worthy of reading not once but many times over.

Meryl Dorey
Australian Vaccination Network


I watched my best childhood friend as a child have her first fit in front of me. She wet her pants.  When she came out of it, she was confused, embarrassed and scared.  She thought I had played a trick on her, and she hit me in the face with a stick and ran home. My mouth bled. As I write this I can suck my lip and feel the scar.

Over the next months she was wrongly diagnosed with epilepsy and later rightly with complications from measles. She forgot how to do things like butter bread. Her memory started to dissolve. She became irrational and angry, then at 10… she forgot who I was, who she was, she fell into a coma. And she died.

A measles vaccination would have saved this vivacious beautiful, wonderful most treasured friend of mine whose death devastates me even now 25 years later whilst I type this.  It was the most horrible, gut wrenching death, to the most beautiful person I ever met.

Please do a comparison of dead and damaged children from disease vs. dead and damaged children from vaccination and compare the results.  Or even better, add MY experience to your magazine, as well as those who have had a bad experience with a vaccination.

Richard
email


Super nanny

Thank you for the latest and excellent issue of byronchild magazine. I particularly enjoyed reading your editorial about the ‘Super Nanny’ TV show and its implications. I watch very little TV these days, but, as it happens, I caught a trailer for the show recently during a commercial break in another program. That was enough for me. Notwithstanding the good points about it that you mention, it sounds as horrible generally as it looked at first glance.

As for the concept of ‘toddler taming’ — that dopey book would be the first one I’d throw on the bonfire. It will be a pleasure to mention some of the items in the latest byronchild magazine in my next issue of Parental Intelligence.

Bob Collier
Parental Intelligence newsletter


I have always enjoyed reading byronchild. Your recent editorial (June – Aug 2005 edition, It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Supernanny!) moved me to write. Within it you managed to articulate many of the reasons that my partner and I choose to parent in ways that are often different to that of the mainstream.

We have two boys and the eldest is especially active and vital. It hasn’t always been easy raising him in a society that doesn’t cater well for children, let alone those who are not often quiet and ‘well-behaved’. Our challenge is to try to support him in such a way that allows his spirit to blossom as well as to maintain appropriate boundaries so that he can learn to live well within his community.

Your magazine has given me many brilliant and creative ideas and the inspiration to continue on our path, which, by the way, we are enjoying very much.

Sue
Victoria


As usual you have produced a magnificent byronchild. I especially liked your editorial about ‘Super Nanny’, (June – Aug 2005 edition, It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Supernanny!).

I had been watching it closely, fascinated and repulsed at the same time. I was so relieved when you put into words exactly what I was thinking about it all. I could see that  ‘Jo’ had built a relationship with these children by actually playing with them and it disturbed me greatly that the show hardly portrayed the playing bit as being so incredibly important, which of course it is! It looked like the discipline was the thing that made the children comply. I think it sent a poor message to parents that naughty steps and mats are okay. Thank you, Kali, once again for setting the record straight!

I homeschool Lily who is nine years old and we have just had our first yearly interview and assessment by the Board of Studies representative. I was delighted that our extremely ‘natural’ type of homeschooling was passed with complete satisfaction and we were given two years registration.

I am proud that I was able to squeeze, push and manipulate the ‘natural’ form of Lily’s year’s work and present it in such a way that it fitted the guidelines!  Whew! I am attaching a photo of Lil and I that I love. Thanks again, Kali for such a labour of love that we all look forward to.

Patt Gregory
Mullumbimby


Kali Wendorf’s editorial about the super nanny (June – Aug 2005 edition, It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Supernanny!) came in handy during a recent visit from my mother. My mom and I planned to take my three daughters to ride a merry-go-round at the local mall, but the six-year-old snubbed the pretty cotton dress I picked out in favour of a pair of ragged, too-small shorts (which I vetoed on grounds of blood circulation and modesty, and then sent her back to the closet to try again). 

The three-year-old created a colossal pile of clothes on the floor searching for the perfect dress to match her favourite red ‘Dorothy’ shoes.  Even the two-year-old quickly undressed herself while my back was turned, and had to be chased and redressed in something more to her liking, which meant starting at square one in our never-ending quest to leave the house.  In a moment of frustration, I blurted out, ‘Why are my girls so difficult?  Why won’t they just wear what I want them to wear?’ 

It was a rhetorical question. Of course, in my dream life, my wise and loving mother would remind me that my children are not difficult, they are individuals with opinions about how they want to look and what feels good to them.  And since I am raising them to be independent thinkers and not conform to external standards of beauty, it’s inevitable that they will make a few messes and take a bit of time in their search for identity.  She might also remind me that it’s only when my ego gets involved and I try to force my agenda that dressing becomes a struggle.

But this is real life, and what my real mother said was, ‘Well, I’ve been trying to keep my mouth shut, but since you asked, it’s because you’ve never shown them who’s BOSS.’ I was dumb-founded. ‘Show them who’s boss?’ Of what? . . .Fashion? My mom went on to say that she’s been watching that nanny program religiously and she wishes I could see it (we eliminated TV from our home several years ago) because I would learn how to whip my unruly children into shape. My mother wishes they’d had such a program when I was a child.  (I shudder at the thought.)

According to my mother, this nanny person could not only make my children wear clothes they hate, but do it with smiles on their miserable little faces.  What that would teach them about making good choices, respecting their own feelings, and their right to sovereignty over their own bodies, I don’t know, but it certainly would be convenient for me. And that’s what parenting is all about, after all: convenience.

I whipped out my latest issue of byronchild and handed it to my mother, with an emphatic, ‘Read this, then we’ll talk.’ The strange thing is, my mom was not an authoritarian parent with me.  She blames it on being too old and tired when she had me, the youngest of her seven children, but I rather think the freedom she gave me to find my own path has had a lot to do with the choices I’ve made as an adult. Choices I’m proud of: homebirth, extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby wearing, gentle discipline, homeschooling, not vaxing. . . . How greatly we’ve benefited from the ability to distinguish between cultural conditioning and conscious living. 

How different our lives would be if I had only been taught to obey authority. I told my mother that I hope she doesn’t look back on my childhood and regret not disciplining me more. I told her that I’m certain I won’t look back on this time from a distance of thirty years and say, ‘If only I’d shown them who was the boss.’ Thank you, Kali, for affirming that it’s not my compass that’s out of whack. My compass is set on love, as you said, just as my mother’s was.

Callie Foulk
Los Angeles, CA, USA


Dealing with a child’s anger

When I receive my byronchild magazine I usually carry it with me, and grab snatches of it whenever I can. I love reading about everybody’s different ideas and stories, all with the same underlying purpose. In certain articles in the past I have had different opinions to the author, but have understood and accepted their point of view.

But, I have never read such drivel as I read in Parenting Ourselves with Lela Iselin, in the June – August edition. Among other things, Lela should have looked at two very important topics.

1. The grasp a two-and-a-half-year-old has on the English language
and
2. What type of language is being spoken between other members of the household for such a young child to know (even though he may not grasp the full understanding of the words spoken) that the particular statement would have an adverse effect on the mother.

I have read this particular page a few times to try to grasp the full content but it is such airy-fairy waffle that I get distracted, disorientated or disinterested before I can finish the entire page.

Let’s hope Lela can give better, age-related, parenting advice in the future.

Gabrielle Nardi
Swim School Director
Murwillumbah


I was compelled to comment on the Parenting Ourselves article from last issue, as replied to by Lela Iselin, in regard to Candice’s question about her two-and-a-half-year-old son’s forceful declaration of hate. Candice, your son doesn’t hate you. At two-and-a-half years old, Joshua doesn’t understand the implications and the meaning of what it is to hate. He knows he is feeling mad, has heard the word and felt the anger behind it when it was used, and has matched it with the current situation.

I am a mother of two attachment parented children, a two and a half-year-old and a four-month-old who is also doing elimination communication. I am also a qualified professional counsellor currently completing an advanced major in Childhood Development and Effective Parenting. So from that point of perspective, may I share my view on the situation.

Candice, what stood out the most when I read your letter was the confusion and devastation you are feeling right now. I imagine that Joshua is feeling you and the situation and reacting accordingly — emotionally, mentally and therefore behaviourally. If Joshua is your first child as well as your first time attachment/natural parenting, it is easy to get overwhelmed just from that alone. All sorts of dynamics come into play here including how much support you have from your family in this style of parenting, in your social and cultural context. It sounds like your tank is low. Put yourself in a situation where you can look at things from the outside, in order to see them from a fresh view. It may be as simple as Joshua seeing the effect of the words, ‘I hate you’, on you, and using them for the energy it gives him, especially if you are a time-poor parent. Good luck; I’d like to know how things are going if you can spare the time.

On another note, Lela, shame on you. Your reply shocked me: ‘It is such a terrible feeling to be hated by your own child…’ I cannot imagine how this reply would have been met by Candice. Is your role to support or instil further despair? I thought and felt that your account of the situation was indirect, grossly inadequate and did not address the needed advice, even though the concepts you spoke about I otherwise support and practise wholeheartedly. It was like you answered a completely different question, and that said, you didn’t even answer Candice’s direct question, ‘What do I do..?’ Are you writing this column for you, as it seemed to be the case — ‘I have recently discovered that I can feel the density and colour intensity of my thoughts and feelings...’ or your readers? It’s not about you, Lela. We write in and read your column for tangible help. No insult intended.

Kristy Vickery
Dip. Prof. Couns. M.A.I.P.C


Lela’s reply to Kristy

I would like to reply to your letter in two ways: one giving you a little more insight into my relationship with Candice and secondly on a more personal note about how your words affected me.

Candice, her husband and Joshua were staying with me for two weeks, while they were doing a yoga teacher’s training. What impressed Candice most about our family was how we are in moments we don’t like each other. How much real room there is for that and at the same time how seriously we take it. How we own our part not just mentally, but emotionally, and how quickly we find an equilibrium in felt love again.

At two and a half, Joshua’s world is such an intimately felt place still, and it is that intimacy to which he is calling his mom. I disagree with your advice to look at the situation from the outside; maybe for a moment, in order to get a new perspective, but not as a solution.

I stand firmly behind the fact that unless we can let our children feel that we feel them, they will develop strategic ways of behaving, one step removed from reality. We can only do that if as parents we uncover our own strategic ways of coping with life.

On a personal note, with regard to how your words ‘Shame on you, Lela’ affected me — my first grade teacher, an eighty-year-old nun, was the first person I remember saying ‘Shame on you, Lela’ for wearing pants instead of a skirt. In the same paragraph you then say, ‘No insult intended’. Is that how you talk with your children and loved ones when they do something you don’t like, or maybe you don’t understand? Do you lash out at them with an emotionally charged remark and cover it up with a cool, mental, ‘I didn’t mean it’?

What in you makes you see other people in a way that you feel the need to shame them? Living into that question might show you an aspect of your inner world that is hurt and would love your gentle holding. And I can accept that you have a different take on how Candice’s question should have been answered. You have assisted me by pointing out that describing my inner discoveries is not necessarily helpful. Thank you for that feedback.

Lela
Parenting Ourselves
 

Correction to Who Cares, childcare article.

In ’Who Cares — making informed choices about childcare’ (Mar – May 2005 ed) — an error occurred concerning the film/video A Two-year-old Goes to Hospital, which was made in 1952 by James Robertson, not John Bowlby as was mistakenly stated. John Bowlby acknowledged that he based much of his work and theory on observations made by James Robertson. James Robertson went on to do further research and make further films (‘John’, ‘Jane’, ‘Kate’, ‘Thomas’ and ‘Lucy’) with his wife Joyce Robertson. ‘John, for nine days in a Residential nursery’ is very relevant to any discussion of childcare.

For more information please see www.robertsonfilms.info and Separation and the Very Young 1989. byronchild apologises for this error.