Journey to a New Life

Fidelis found an old recording that was done when a visitor came to the farm with her two very young daughters. In this discussion with Bernard and Sunette as Lifi and Veno they open up points about children and parenting. I will be transcribing the interview and share in parts here. The following is Part 2. To read Part 1, click here. Enjoy!

Fidelis found an old recording that was done when a visitor came to the farm with her two very young daughters. In this discussion with Bernard and Sunette as Lifi and Veno they open up points about children and parenting. I will be transcribing the interview and share in parts here. Enjoy!

Okay, so we’re going to discuss children, parenting and related matters.
Jozien has got some questions and Lifi and Veno are going to answer them and see who pops through. Okay, your first question

Jozien: My first question is that, what I experience here, Sunette told me about Zina and Loulou – where Zina would always want to play with the toy which other kids are playing with. It doesn’t make sense for me to say to her like “It’s not possible”, she wants to play with the same toy.
Then Sunette said to me that because she wants to experience the same thing as the other kid and that actually she wants to experience the ‘equality’ if you can call it that. And that’s something that I never even considered as a parent. Because the only thing I did was trying to tell her “This is not your toy” or “you have your own toys” and just not understanding what she was actually asking. Does that make sense?

Sunette: Yes, I can see what you are saying.
Situations with regards to that is still – for example yes, the child would for example see another child play with its toy and would and they would kind of be seeing in a self-experience way what the child is experiencing with the toy and they for themselves would like to discover that experience, from that perspective. But, what that is actually revealing is how the child still at that age, is interpreting that experience to be related to or linked to the toy. It’s not yet linked to an actual self-expression experience. Meaning that, ‘who I am’ is not determined according to a toy, or the experience of me is not determined according to a toy, or the expression of me is not determined according to the toy. It’s the basic design with regards to how children are related in relationship to or towards physical manifestations of this world. Where they themselves are linked to something or where their experience of themselves is linked to something. It’s not a natural self-expression, here. However, the other side of the coin, is two perspectives. There’s two manifestations, two experiences which are happening. But the prominent one is the one where they are still linking experience to the toy. Underneath that though, what is being experienced is that particular point of self-discovery from a certain perspective, where they see the child playing with a toy, they see that experience, that expression that the being is going through and they would like to discover that within themselves. But, what is happening with the mind integration, is that it’s being linked to the toy. Not to self.

Bernard: Let’s look at the side of the coin.

What must also be understood is that the whole design of Consciousness as it exists is one of inequality. And the fact that one child plays with the toy and the other one sees it, and now desires to play with it or to experience themselves already creates a separation and a form of competition and conflict. The conflict will then manifest normally between the parent and the child, and not between the child without the toy and the child with the toy. The child will then ask the parent for the toy. They’ll sometimes try and take the toy to experience it, but they will also eventually blame the parent for not having a toy. Because they don’t understand why what is in this world is not equally available for all. And that is then simplistically slowly but surely being integrated and also the parent participates in that extensively then saying “But it’s not yours” – it’s a form of ownership and a form of separation and a form of inequality that is being taught, because we are in a system with many things but nobody can afford to have all the things and give their children all the experiences with every single thing.

Sunette: And understand, the child doesn’t see it as “It is yours / It is mine”.

Bernard: That concept doesn’t exist yet.

To be continued

This is a continuation to my previous blog: Day 87: Forced Learning

Another dimension I have come across as a parent in relation to learning, is that of 'Let Babies be Babies'. Where on the one side you have people who are more inclined to 'force' their babies/children to learn; there's also the opposite attitude where people are more inclined to 'let babies be babies'.

On this extreme end, anything which has got anything to do with 'learning' is pushed aside: "Babies are meant to have fun and play, why bring in this tedious topic of 'learning'?" "They will do penty of learning when the time comes that they go to school, just let them be and just this time of just fun and play."
Fasinatingly enough, there's even a dimension that parents fear they will develop a 'smart baby/child' who will be judged by his peers and they'd prefer their child to be 'normal like the rest of them'.

In this case, there's a negative connotation to the word 'learning', and whatever one believes constitutes this learning. And because you yourself as a parent had a negative experience with learning, we rather want to push it away, avoid it and postpone it.
Thing is that babies and toddlers are learning all the time, whether we are conscious of it or not. Whenever they observe something, hear, smell, taste, touch something - babies are learning about themselves and reality around them. Learning is not limited to what happens inside a school or classroom, and how things are taught/learnt at school is not the only way one can learn something.
Just as forcing your child to learn will lead them to experience learning negatively, so will the opposite of dismissing, avoiding and postponing it as your own bias towards learning will be carried over to your child.

When Cesar is learning about words, their meanings and how to read them - he doesn't access the same idea many have of 'learning' as being a negativly laden concept. For him it is simply an extension of what he is already naturally doing: exploring his physical reality, how it relates to him and how he can engage and participate with it. Learning is natural to babies, and 'letting babies be babies' then naturally implies providing an environment conducive to learning, prickling their curiosity and stimulating their natural explorative disposition.

Unfortunately we have made learning quite an unpleasant experience through limiting it to school and their factory-like setup. But it is up to us to re-create and reinvent what constitutes learning and to pass this on to our children.

Continuing from my previous blog: Day 79: From Farm Life to City Life | Don’t Touch the Walls

Within my previous blog we already established that the inside of the house was not a very pleasant environment to be; not so much because of the physical features but the mental limitations that were imposed within and unto the space.

So – whenever we could; we would go outside to one of the parks so Cesar could walk and play on the playground.

The one would we would go to the most was the bigger one which was furthest away. It had a nice playground which was also covered in sand that kids could play in.

Cesar loved sitting in the sand and picking up sand and placing bits of sand on random places and spots on all the various playground stations. He liked stirring sand with sticks, digging holes, finding little pebbles or rocks or just sitting and watching, observing other children play.

For us, this was natural. On the farm, we sit on the ground outside, we play in the sandpit, he plays with dirt, he plays with dogs – being outside, interacting with ‘the elements’ = you get dirty.

Being at the playground almost everyday, we noticed that the way we were playing and behaving at the playground wasn’t the norm.

The first thing we noticed, was that even though the playground was covered with sand – it was not something children were playing with. The second thing we noticed, was that adults/parents stayed away from the actual playground stations and left the children to play on their own. This isn’t that noteworthy for older children, but did get our attention for toddlers.

In terms of the sand, what became clear was that there was a general agreement that sand is very undesirable and should be avoided at all cost. Do not play with the sand, try not to touch it and dare not to sit in it. Other parents’ eyes actually became big as they saw us and Cesar sit with our bums in the sand, as if we were committing some type of sacrilege (didn’t we know we were gonna get sand all over our bums and maybe even in-between our clothes!!!!) as well as the realisation of fear that our (bad) example may tempt their children into disobedience.

The one time as we went into a shop and some sand from our playground trip had found itself on the shop’s floor; the owner had a fit of rage at the sight of a little bit of sand as this was simply ‘unacceptable’ and was convinced we were deliberate evil-doers.

Sand was no longer a medium of expression, something to be explored and played with – but a dreaded ‘dirt’ that would have to be dealt with. Did we not bring sand into the house and get it a little bit dirty? Sure – but it took only a few minutes to clean up as if it was never really there. It wasn’t so much the sand that was dreaded as the inconvenience of taking the time to clean it up. Parents would much rather forgo a child’s funtime and opportunity to play with the sand than having to sacrifice a few moments of their time to clean up after them.

The fact that children thoroughly enjoy sand and are able to do so much with it – completely bypasses parents’ minds. The only part which gets registered is how much ‘they suffer’ at the hand of sand-play and how they’re just not bothered to go there.

To be continued

A point I have mentioned several times on this blog, is how little gets shared of the ‘real story’ behind having a family/having a child or children.

Throughout my whole life, no-one every shared with me the true nature or the ‘raw deal’ of what is actually involved in having a family of your own and the challenges you face. At the same time, in how the world is moving – the true nature of parenting is getting forgotten as we all have been led to belief that life is about working and consuming. This means that being a parent and raising your own child isn’t a “thing” anymore, as we spend the majority of the time working while someone else looks after the children (whether a nanny or at school – schools end up being convenient day-care centres).

We are also not trained our taught to value and appreciate parenting, what is involved in child care, the challenges one will face, the sacrifices that need to be made. For many, there is this ‘idea’ of parenting and the ‘idea’ of having a family of one’s own. A picture created in your mind that makes you feel happy thinking of ‘what could be’. Then, a child becomes a reality and your whole world comes crashing down as you have no practical tools whatsoever to direct yourself, so let alone direct a child. With society and the entertainment industry bombarding us with the ‘Me-Me-Me’-ideology – where everything is about what YOU WANT and YOUR FREEDOM; it’s easy to just ‘give up’ on actual parenting and instead embrace the Me-Me ideology where you get to do what you want while having your children ‘in check’ whilst allowing them to play out their own Me-Me-Me-Ideology..

This is something I have been observing more and more, where an idea was created about ‘what it is like to have a family’ and then one it becomes a reality – it all just becomes about ‘managing’ it, about surviving it and waiting for ‘things to get better’.

When we think of having a family of our own, we think of the happy moments, the moments you share a laugh, baby’s first steps, birthdays, baby saying ‘mommy’ and all the other events that are interpreted to signify ‘love’. These moments as images however, are fleeting moments. They happen once in a while and then it’s over. So what about the rest of the time? The rest is spent supervising, cleaning, playing, participating and directing your child. I’m not saying that it’s not ‘fun’ – but it is nothing like the nice energetic feeling that gets brought up when we *think* about having a child/baby of our own. The main point is that you need to be available to your child in every moment. It takes focus, discipline, assertiveness, gentleness, understanding and everlasting patience to do this effectively. These words, are not easy to live – they do not come natural to most and are not values which are taught and transferred effectively in this day and age. Every day, every moment you need to force yourself, your beingness to change and move in a way that supports your child, even though it completely clashes with the life you used to have or the preferences you hold. Parenting is a full time job – and with fulltime I don’t mean from 9 to 5 – I literally mean *full time* as in the full 24 hours (ok, maybe you will get a few hours of sleep ;-)). So to every day face and walk something that goes against every grain of your being as the nature of self-interest – it can be quite daunting. Also consider that: there are no take-backs lol. Once you have a child, you have a child and this other person will be intrinsically interconnected and interwoven in your daily life for the next 18 years. That’s a huge commitment.

Not many manage to find it within themselves to completely dedicate themselves to their children and nurturing them to their utmost potential. Instead, babies and children become accessories. Much like having a pet – where people get a pet like a dog because they like the idea of it – but then end up spending minimal time with the dog in a way that supports the dog’s living experience, and become ‘just another chore’ that needs to be taken care of.

The child or children need to fit in to their schedule. They need to behave in a way that I like. They need to pursue things in life that I approve of, that fits with how I want to be perceived, that will add to my status. They will take credit when the child receives a compliment, but blame the child when negative feedback is received.

Children don’t fit into little boxes however, and tend to retaliate and throw tantrums to express their discontent. This then only feeds more fuel to the fire, where the parents will try and fit them into boxes of rules and conditions even more – and use this ‘despicable behaviour’ as an excuse as to why they need a break from their children, and why they deserve time for themselves and the things they like. Then it’s even more okay to hire a full-time caretaker, send them to boarding school, and immerse yourself into work and/or your social life.

This in turn, creates a pressure on the child as the child is experiencing a lack of freedom, a lack in the ability to express themselves which then overtime turns into an obsession and compulsion of ‘doing what I want’ – turning out just like the parents.

So while you may want a child or family with the best intentions, with having the ‘perfect family moments’ at heart – you end up with a deeply unsatisfied life and children who can’t wait to get away from their parents.

Having a child and starting a family is a serious consideration and not a decision to be made on a whim. Spend some time with families, talk to parents, spend time with children and see if this is something you truly want – or see yourself being able to change into wanting and living it. Having a child is a decision that affects a lifetime – not only yours, but also that of your child.

In my previous blog I laid out how one within compromise will start to develop a specific ‘give and take’ relationship with one’s child of one allows to indulge in a pattern where you decide to hold on to ‘what you want to do’ and consequently will not direct your child or give your child attention when the moment for it presents itself. Being aware that you are robbing the child direction it needs, one enters a cycle of feeling guilty which you will then seek to relief by ‘giving back’ to your child, but where this ‘giving back’ is not what is required of in a moment, and where you allow the child to hold on to ‘what he/she wants to do’, just as you had granted yourself this permission.

What I found quite interesting here as well, is how one will use past moments/periods of where things were hectic and where the parent went ‘the extra mile’ to justify why it is okay to hold on and want to have ‘personal’/’me-time’ because “look at all those things I did for you” and “I spent so much time on you, why can’t you just give me a break right now”,… where the parent draws on ‘fairness’ to justify their desires and their behaviour of pursuing it.

So the whole design of it is actually quite clever. Because you find yourself in a situation that is disproportionate, you have to put substantially more time in your child than you do towards yourself or anything else – which is just an outflow of the design of children/babies and the dependency that comes with it; it’s not like they ‘chose’ to deliberately take in a lot of your time. And then you have the parent who makes the deliberate decision to try and go ‘against’ the design and ‘capture’ a bigger margin of time/energy to go towards themselves which necessarily creates an imbalance which they constantly have to counteract by trading with the child/children by giving them things they want and desire so that at least things are ‘fair’ in terms of each one being allowed their indulgences.

So within all of this, what I found is important to realise is that: yes = things are not fair. Sometimes in life you’re on the end where things are really good for you and other times you’re on the end where things suck ass. The thing is that you can’t allow the design and structure of things determine ‘who you are’ and ‘what you’re going to do’. Say you really want to have a unicorn. Yet, by the design of things, we don’t have unicorns on Earth – what are you going to do now? Throw a tantrum? Be spiteful at horses for not having horns? Get yourself a horse and force a horn unto its forehead with God knows what consequence? I know – it’s a farfetched example, but it does very clearly show how ridiculous it is to try and get something which by design is just impossible. We can try having a unicorn by taking a horse and forcing a horn on its head, but we cannot do it without creating consequences, by creating ripple effects through trying to force something to exist – which goes the same for wanting and demanding some form of ‘fairness’ within your parenting reality to and with your child. You cannot manipulate and force your ideal/desire unto reality/your children without them being adversely affected by it. Because you are making real sacrifices to attain something unreal.

In the first few months with Cesar there had been moments where I found myself with a lot of inner conflict and where I couldn’t’ see straight as to ‘why am I experiencing myself this way’ because I was so ‘in it’. I would then make use of Osho Zen cards to do a reading and fascinatingly enough, the card which represents the issue would be the same one over and over again when I had that same experience which was: ‘the dream’ – and the solution was each time to ‘let go of the dream’. Where I was, without being much aware of it – holding on to certain expectations, hoping for things to go a certain way and where reality was not going the way I was expecting/hoping it to go. The nature of taking care of him at that stage was very intense and took a toll on my body – and I would hope/expect him to sleep a bit more or if he had started sleeping more, to ‘keep up’ with this pattern so that I didn’t have to spend as much time and energy in actively soothing him (as he was very uncomfortable back then considering the acid reflux and colic and needed constant ‘intervention’ to alleviate the pain/discomfort for him). So when I got to the point of walking him and bouncing him around for the so many-eth time at night – I would be going ‘pffffft’ and a build-up of energy would start to emerge. This was because I was hoping/expecting for this ‘not to happen’. So when I finally got the point and embraced that things were tough and weren’t going to change – (or maybe they were going to, but that would still be irrelevant), where I realised that I was only making things worse for myself by holding to a ‘dream’, as I am constantly contrasting what is happening to this dream and within doing so make reality look more dull while making the dream look more colourful; the only thing that is going to give me peace is just to be here in every moment, to take every moment as it comes without any expectation. And sure enough, I was more content than ever before and could move myself with ease and would actually explore more ways of assisting Cesar which I previously wouldn’t have even thought about. Because previously, I was so busy ‘suffering’ and just being in ‘automatic’ that such an option would’ve just totally slipped me by.

So this is how I’ve seen the role of Fairness play a point within parenting and being a mother and how it can turn parenting sour if one allows fairness to move oneself instead of self moving self for the sake of what’s best for all, and how dropping Fairness in a simple point such as not expecting things to go a certain way can go a long way.

I’ve written now two series (paranoia and fairness) on what I’ve identified as ‘problem areas’ within parenting which become apparent very early on in the parenting stage, and would like for the next series to take on solution/correction dimensions as we’ve now seen and understood the problem and so can transform our movement within and towards corrections to establish a new parenting paradigm as Principled Parenting.

This is a continuation to:
Day 38: Introduction | Motherhood Paranoia
Day 41: The Innocence of One Little Tiny Thought | Motherhood Paranoia
Day 42: Losing Touch with Reality, Losing Touch with your Child | Motherhood Paranoia
Day 43: And the Race Begins! | Motherhood Paranoia
Day 44: Sins of the Fathers and Mission of the Mothers | Motherhood Paranoia
Day 45: Wanting to be Right | Motherhood Paranoia 

So now, we have this design running where we have to keep procreating, and we women have this design running where we think we know how to run this procreation thing and raise respectable human beings – which by the looks of how this world is being ran: is obviously a joke; nothing can more clearly say *you are wrong* and *you don’t know how to raise a human being* when looking at the absolute vicious, cruel, degrading conditions this world is kept in.

So why are we still doing this?

Why are we still having children?

Everything is survival based – whether you are rich or whether you are poor. If you are poor, you are lost in the survival for physical subsistence, and if you’re rich you get lost in the clutches of your own mind, mental illness is everywhere in first world countries.

Everyone’s lives pretty much suck, yet we keep having children and passing down the consequences of our recklessness to them and their generations to come. Things aren’t getting better – so why?

If there was no way out of this, and things would just continue as is: I would not have children.

But there is a way out of this, and the way out of it is ‘out of us’, out of our accepted and allowed human nature. To change it, align it – to one that acts according to what’s Best for All. To teach this principle to our children, to lead them by example; to show them that there is another way, that we can have Heaven on Earth.

Otherwise, what’s the point? Is it so that we can for a short moment during our lives be happy about the idea that ‘I had a family’? So that they can live through more wars to come? So that they can grow up to become irresponsible adults who hasten the Earth’s demise? So that they can live their lives locked up in their own homes, in fear of their own neighbours? So they can enjoy our polluted air and withering nature? So that they can have their own children who will have to endure even worse conditions?

We have to admit, that we’ve failed, we FAILED BIG TIME in the parenting department. It’s time to face the facts; let go of righteousness, to forgive and to correct. So that we don’t just ‘reproduce’ ourselves, we already know where that leads and it’s a disaster – but to truly procreate – to truly bring forth something new, something worthwhile.

The tools are available

http://desteniiprocess.com/
http://desteni.org/
http://lite.desteniiprocess.com 
http://livingincome.me/
https://eqafe.com/

  

If you have or have had a baby in your life, you are probably acquainted with the concept of ‘developmental milestones’.
If you are not familiar with the concept, it basically refers to particular behaviors or physical skills seen in babies (and older infants as well) at particular stages in their life/development – hence ‘developmental milestone’. Whenever you go for a baby-check up, the doctor or nurse tending to your baby will want to assess where your baby is at by evaluating your babies ability or inability to perform particular actions. Particular months/weeks of a baby’s life are tied to particular milestones, which a baby would reach if they follow a ‘typical’ developmental path. These refer to averages and in general there is quite a margin for being ‘early’ or ‘late’ to reach a milestone without this being any point of concern.
While the use and reference to developmental milestones is supposed to be of a practical nature, I have found both in my personal experience and observing other mothers – that it can be quite an emotional topic.
When we speak and think of mothers, we very often see and present mothers in a light where they are overwhelmed with worries and concerns about their children. When it was known that I was going to be a mother, I got welcomed by a few people to a reality with ‘non-stop-fear’ or telling me to ‘get ready to worry endlessly’. It’s as if being a mother and living in fear is a given. Since I’ve been a mother I’ve faced my fair deal or fears, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the ‘worried mom’ phenomena starts right at the beginning with the developmental milestones.
Birth
In a way, birth itself it could be interpreted as a developmental milestone. When the baby gets born, one of the first things that gets done by the pediatrician that is present, is checking the baby’s Apgar score. The Apgar score is a method designed to evaluate the baby’s physical condition, and to quickly ascertain whether or not there is a need for special medical care or emergency treatment.

The factors that get looked at are: appearance of the skin, the heart rate, grimace response, activity and muscle tone and respiration. Each one of these factors is evaluated on a scale from 0 to 2 – and then added together, so that you have end score between 0 and 10 (10 being perfect). This scoring test gets done at 1 minute after birth and 5 minutes after birth.

This is the first instance where your child gets measured and is assigned a ‘score’, where you get to know ‘whether your child is normal’ – and so the perfect moment for motherhood paranoia to set in.

Next, your baby gets weighed and measured – again, the perfect moment for interpretation and paranoia to creep in: Is my baby too skinny? Is my baby too fat? Should I have eaten differently while I was pregnant? What’s wrong with me for giving birth to a baby that’s skinny/small/big/large?

On the other hand, if everything is ‘in range’ (which really only means that your baby hit the statistical average), mother proudness can show its face – who’s best friends with motherhood paranoia. Because instead of going ‘Oh no I probably did all of this and that wrong’, the mind goes ‘I must be such a good mother for producing such a healthy baby!!’.

It’s only day one – and you’re already on the road to becoming a mental case lol.
To be continued

When I go throughout my day and I see the reactions I have and the limitations I still live by - I go 'fuck, this is not what I want to teach this child.'

Children are the reflections of one's parents - and when I look at myself/my reflection -- I wouldn't want someone else to have to become like me. So then I go, well fuck I have a lot of shit that I better get to changing - so that this kid doesn't have to bear the consequences of my limitations. And then I am quiet for a moment and then I realise how screwed my reasoning pattern is. Because here I am, contemplating change - but only after considering someone else, only within the context of changing for someone else.

And then there is sadness, because I see how I was willing to live as a limited version of myself -- and how my reactions and limitations weren't so alarming when there was no-one else but me in the picture. So this implies no self-movement, no self-love, no self-care whatsoever. (Interesting, as I was typing this last sentence, I was biting my bottom lip - no 'self-giving').

And now that there is someone else to consider -- now there is movement. So this is quite problematic because I am only now willing to consider moving beyond my comfort zone for the sake of someone else, which would indicate that there's been a misalignment in my starting point within and towards process, and myself.

So this is a point I want to take on within my next blogs to correct my starting point and not fall for the trap of living for and through others.