Utterly Meaningless

Count me in as a midwife birthing, 2 year nursing, home educator. 🙂 And I know many of our homeschool group fall into that category too 🙂

Maybe add one more variable – vegan or something like that!

Jill

Helen Hegener did a wonderful interview with a midwife in 2004. You can read “Conversation with Michelle Wilbert: Living life “Close to the Root”” by Helen Hegener at:

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Well, I nursed one for ten months and one for three and a half years, so even if you average them I still make it to more than two years! And we used midwives both times, although in a hospital setting.

Isn’t it nice to be special?

One of my favorite homeschooling talks to do is called “Swimming out of the Mainstream.” Heads are nodding everywhere as I point out that homeschoolers are very adept at both making their way in traditional society and creating thriving families through choices that are seen as unusual by mainstream culture. This includes everything from home birth/midwife-assisted birth to home church to home cooking/sewing (this is not me; a domestic goddess I’m not) to home based businesses to home death/hospice. Throw in attachment parenting and all those long-term nursed children and you’ve got a bunch of people who are NOT succumbing to peer pressure! Meanwhile, there are also lots of “regular people” who make the decision to homeschool, and I tell them “beware — once you challenge the idea that kids have to go to school, all kinds of things might open up to your family!”

I really think that this is what makes homeschoolers frightening to some people, because they are concerned by anyone who challenges the status quo. I also think that many homeschoolers are responding to the idea that some aspects of life have been over-institutionalized, and we regularly prove that there are warmer, more connecting, and still-healthy (and healthier?) ways to live and contribute to our communities.

And still, one of the most common comments I get from non-homeschoolers when they find out that our kids don’t go to school is, “But you SEEM so normal, and your kids are regular kids!”

By which they mean, it turns out, that our kids are actually UNUSUAL, because they seem so normal…

And the world goes ’round and ’round….

Both my boys nursed for about a year. Both were born in a birthing center, deliverd by midwives. We homeschool. Do we get extra points for the water birth? Although, to be honest, my oldest wasn’t born in the water due to meconium when Momma’s water broke in the pool. Also, the whole role reversal thing whereby Momma works while I stay home with the kiddos.

//once you challenge the idea that kids have to go to school, all kinds of things might open up to your family!”//

This is so true. HS’ing was the first counterculture type of thing that we ever did. Prior to that we were boringly normal 🙂

Well, I guess my “out of the mainstream” really started with the natural childbirth in a birthing center. Then there was the two years of nursing. But even before I got pregnant, I was trying to figure out what to do about schools — I wasted so much time in PS that I didn’t want to do that to my kid. Sometime between then and now (DS is 3) I decided homeschooling would be way better than private school. And my next kid will be born in a birthing center in September. I’m not vegan though, nor do I particularly seek out organic foods (I hope you won’t throw me out of the club!). It is funny how these “alternative” things overlap in the homeschooling / homebirthing communities.

Well, we’re certainly not vegan, although my 14-year-old son has been a vegetarian since he was 7. The rest of us are big fans of meat — and the organic stuff really does taste better. You can still be in the club!

Yep, I’ve been keeping up with this for awhile. Very sad!

I would guess that families who homeschool are more likely to be homebirthin’, breastfeedin’, cloth diaperin’, “crunchy” types than schoolers are. I’m nursing my 3 year old as I type, who was born at home as I type.

You gave birth while typing? Now that is crunchy.

Mine were all born in a Hospital, but I really like my OB and wasn’t aware there was any other way at the time. I did, however, nurse all three over a year. (I think year and a quarter was about average for them, soon as I stopped nursing one, I got pregnant with the next and they are about 2 years apart.)

That’s it. Make fun of the mom who has trouble typing while holding a 3 year old! *sniffle*

;-D

While I did spend a lot of time surfing the net & IM’ing friends while I was in labor, the 3 year old was not born while I was typing (I’m pretty good at multi-tasking, but not THAT good). What I meant to say was, “I’m nursing my 3 year old, who was born at home, as I type.”

This is what America is all about – or should be, anyway. Once Hillary Clinton is elected, of course, the FBI will stop harrassing all of these ‘innocent Muslims’ and start investigating homeschoolers, homesteaders, and of course anybody with a gun in their house.

Count our family in the midwife, nursing, homeschool crowd for our 2nd one. Just nursing for the first one & at the time (early eighties) it wasn’t common at all.
In fact I remember my OB saying that only tall women could use the new birth in your room beds as they could reach the stirrups. Short me delivered in the OR. And nursing in public would easily get you asked to leave the building.

For the second child we had figured out that we were more the “CAN DO” type of people & were resenting being tied to the ideals of the past- we started w/ a midwife birth & that just seemed to naturally lead into homeschooling as an extention of following what we felt was in the best interests of our family not the common choice.

I don’t think Jason understands the crowd here. Both ours were C-Section, but we had high risk pregnancies, so we get to stay in the club, right? At least as auxiliary members?

Sorry for being off-topic. My point was that people who go ‘off the grid’ for services traditionally provided by the State or Coporations (i.e., schooling, or medical services such as child birthing) are generally regarded with suspicion and distrust by Big Guv’mint types. I guess that disqualifies me for the club, huh? I understand the crowd well enough, I think; I’m just politically-minded and (for now) childless. My wife was home-schooled, though, so maybe I can be a provisional deputy auxiliary member or something, Insh’allah.

Your point about off grid is spot on I think. I was referring to the right wing talking points about Hillary.

Chris, Alex was a C-section too. You guys are definitely still in the club!

Offtopic a bit, but from my “Tales from the Oblivious” files: I didn’t realize so many people were harrassed for nursing in public until I had my second child. I was fortunate enough that we lived in Austin, home of the leftover hippies, so my first time nursing a child was met with many smiles and no looks of disgust. With my son, we were living back up here in the DFW area of Texas, and I started noticing a different mindset. It didn’t stop me of course, but I found it really odd that something so natural would be frowned upon anywhere.

I guess I lose on this one. I had to have a C-section so ds was born in a hospital, then I couldn’t breastfeed (and yes, I tried everything!). It broke my heart.

However, I do homeschool. Oh, I suppose it wouldn’t get me more points but we are also farming 160 acres (in the process of turning everything over into organic), and we are pagans.

Audrey, of course the transforming of 160 acres into an organic farm run by pagans counts!

Not all of us can have IDENTICAL “differences,” LOL.

There’s a socilogy Ph.D. dissertation hiding in here. What is it about the mindset that makes for the overlap? Kids, of course, are a common factor. But there has to be something beyond that. It’d really make for an interesting study. Of course, the researchers would have to survey a bunch of midwife-assisted, nursing, homeschooling families. Yeah, like that would work.

Never mind.

I wrote up my favorite nursing/harassment story a while back. The mom in question was also a member of the club– they (accidentally) home-birthed twins.

We had all four kids in a hospital setting with all the goodies, one c-section. But I had health issues for all four. I breast-fed the first one year, the next two, the third for three, and I’m on my fourth year with the last. And we homeschool. And we’re mostly vegetarians. I think being a non-conformist in one area frees up one’s thinking in all areas.

SLM

Imagine the statistical problem of being a Mormon raised as a Unitarian Universalist child of divorce, who was born in a birthing center and graduated from a home education environment, and who plans to have children in a birthing center and homeschool them.

Of course, I used to wonder how many kids were Mormon Irish Dancing Sea Cadets living in Ohio, too (if my sisters had just become Sea Cadets, there would have been at least three! All home education grads!)

It boggles the mind, all of this individuality. Who knew humans could be self-directed, semi-rational actors?

Hi all: I am the midwife who was interview by Home Education Magazine and author or the (still) forthcoming book, Close To The Root: Simple, Sustainable and Earthy Alternative for Family and Community Life. I am available as a resource, via e mail, for anyone with questions relating to midwifery, homebirth, homeschooling/unschooling and all other “crunchy” endeavors. I have been involved in all of these things since 1981 so, I think that qualifies me for “veteran” status. I am heartened to see so many still thinking and living their lives around these good and noble aspirations. My e mail address is Quakeratwork@wowway.com. I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you all! Michelle Wilbert, midwife, author, cultural creative….

Nursed #1 to 25 months (when I was over 20 wks. pg) and #2 is 19 months and going strong; attempted a homebirth with a midwife for #2, didn’t work out though. Just starting to homeschool.