Parenting
Each member of the family is respected and valued and has their place in the family. Central to this is long-term breastfeeding, home birth where possible, family bed sharing, baby-wearing, home education and never letting a baby cry. I try to give them the most secure foundation of love and security possible for them to fly off into the world when they are ready.
Parenting is the hardest job I have ever done, but it is also the most worthwhile. I feel very let-down by governments and feminists in this arena, neither of whom it seems to me have ever done anything to support mothers, or indeed fathers. I am glad that these days I have the choice of of becoming a mother or not, and that I can choose from a variety of rewarding pastimes in my life, including a career. However, parenthood is a vital job for everyone in society, not just those who are brining up the children. In fact, those who don't have their own children should be especially worried about supporting those who have, because it is these children who will be paying taxes and deciding how they will be spent, putting money into pension schemes to pay out for current pensioners, looking after them in their old age, and generally defining the kind of society we live in. Therefore, if for no other reason, it is in everyone's interests to treat children as real people with thoughts and feelings, and to give their parents the support they need to bring them up to be valuable and happy people.
I don't necessarily mean financial support when I talk about support, although obviously the means for one parent to be able to stay at home with young children, rather than childcare vouchers to allow parents to dump kids in institutions as soon as they can in order to work in mindless jobs, would be nice. What I really mean though is society's support. Motherhood is the least valued job you can do in current society, particularly if you're a stay-at-home mother. 'Just a mum then?' people ask, as if that is equal to 'nothing'. People really don't see the link, it would seem, between the way adolescents behave these days, the rising levels of depression, the lack of meaning so many people seemt o find in their lives, and the fact that parents rarely seem to see their kids these days, let alone actually enjoy their company.
So, cut down on commitments, stop rushing everywhere, spend time with your children yourself instead of spending all the hours at work in order to pay for someone else to look after them. If this sounds too difficult, then don't have children! There's absolutely no need to if you don't want to do this kind of thing. Or, if you don't fancy the 'baby' bit, you could always adopt or foster older children and avoid it altogether. These days there's really no excuse for becoming a parent when you don't want to be. And it isn't for everyone, fair enough. But it has become fashionable recently to display an 'urgh, get it off me!' attitude to children in public and a wish to banish them to primary-coloured, plastic, junk-food ghettoes rather than tolerate a bit of noise and mess (or 'life' as I prefer to call it) in public. Fine. Just don't complain when these children grow up, siphon off your pensions and put you in a primary-coloured, plastuic, junk-food-providing old people's home. They'll merely be doing what you taught them, after all.
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