You will love me forever. Miranda does.

(Serves 4)

Ingredients:

500g White Fish

1 tin Chickpeas (drained)

1 tin Chopped Tomatoes

1 Large onion, sliced very thinly

250ml water

2tsp Cinnamon

2tsp Turmeric

2tsp Cumin

1 tablespoon (or more) of hot chilli sauce

2 vegetable stock cubes

salt to taste

Handful of chopped parsley

Juice of half a lemon

Method:

Sweat the onions in a bit of oil or water. Once they are soft, add the cinnamon, turmeric and cumin to the pan and make a paste. Then add the tomatoes and the chickpeas and the stock cubes and the water and the chilli sauce, bring to the boil. Once the broth is boiling, add the fish and cover. Once the fish is cooked, remove from heat, add parsley and lemon juice. Et voila!

I normally serve it with rice, which I pre-fry with some garlic, and if you want to make it EVEN nicer you can throw some cardamom pods in too.

Yum.

Her name is Steak.

She has red hair and blue eyes.

She can drive and has a red car.

She lives just down the road and has two other kids (Stetch and Daniel, apparently) who he can play with everyday.

She has a dog called Tommy.

She ‘does working’ and goes to a different gym to me.

And yesterday, just to add insult to injury, he said ‘she has more moneys than you’.

Part of me thinks this is really funny, and part of me worries he’s making up for my shortcomings as a mother (and even as a human being).

The blasted woman’s got it good! She didn’t give birth to him for 18 hours, she doesn’t clothe him, feed him, nurse him when he’s sick, pick up his toys, put up with his tantrums, scold him when he’s naughty, endure him when he’s whining. She doesn’t wipe his bottom. I bet she hasn’t even got stretchmarks, THE BITCH!!!!!!

I’ve got one thing on her though. HER NAME IS BLOODY RUBBISH.

But the books start with ‘The Magician’s Nephew’, people!!! It’s probably my favourite in the series, and one that gets badly overlooked. Sort it out, fools! Rant over.

The best bit in the book, in my opinion,  is when  Digory and Polly find themselves in the ruins of the great city of Charn, and come across a mysterious bell and hammer. The haunting inscription on the pillar where they stood has stuck with me ever since I first read it at the age of 10:

‘Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;

Strike the bell and bide the danger,

Or wonder, till it drives you mad,

What would have followed if you had.’

(C. S. Lewis, 1955)

DEEEEEEEEP!!!!

The thing is, breastfeeding is AWESOME!!!!!! Sometimes I think there are not enough people bringing this point home. I have friends who really struggled with it and had to give it up, and I couldn’t help feeling like they were missing out. The first two weeks, where one is still trying to get to grips with the milky boob mechanics, were really painful for me- bleeding, swollen, sore nipples; rock hard tits the size of a cartoonish Pamela Anderson’s; inadequate milk flow – But once I got over that obstacle I never looked back.

I’ve often struggled with competitive motherhood and it’s been the subject of many posts in this blog. So this is my disclaimer. No criticism is intended here.

But breastfeeding is AWESOME! The health and post-partum slimming benefits are well documented, but for me it was a pretty magical experience.  I didn’t have to carry all sorts of fiddly and expensive feeding and sterilisation paraphernalia everywhere; my milk dispensers were easily portable, healthy and always the right temperature. Maintaining something that resembles normal life after you have a baby is pretty challenging and breastfeeding helps a lot. And also, just relax! If occasionally your baby needs to have a bottle for any given reason, why the hell not? It’s only the one. Don’t lose sleep over it. Your milk supply should be just fine.

Did I mention… BREASTFEEDING IS AWESOME!!!

The absolutely most incredible thing about breastfeeding is how it made me feel. It is a continuation of a physical bond between mother and baby that starts at the moment of conception. It’s a very feral, instinctive thing; a constant reminder of the human being as animal. In a way, it’s a continuation of a sexual bond. Breastfeeding your baby is a unique and intimate ritual in a similar way to sex. I’m going to sound like a right hippie here, but both work on a physical and an emotional level: In sex, the physical objective is procreation. In breastfeeding, once procreation has already happened, the physical objective is nutrition. But in both, the ultimate emotional objective is LOVE!!!

See, I told you I was going to sound like a hippie. But those hippies were onto something. They were usually also on something, but that’s beside the point.

Breastfeeding feels like falling in love.

And that’s fucking AWESOME.

But then, many of you might feel a bit grossed out by my explanation. We don’t like to think of sex and babies as somehow linked… But they are. You’re not the Virgin Mary, love.  And a lot of people can feel a bit shy about breastfeeding because of this too. However I was really surprised to hear that Denise Van Outen, no stranger to posing for lads mags, gave up breastfeeding at 3 weeks because she feared being photographed while doing it. Eh? Where’s the logic in that? I’d hate to be followed by photographers everywhere, but still. Furthermore, if you don’t want everyone to see your boobs while you’re trying to feed your baby, just use some kind of shawl or something. The end.

I saw the buoyant carcass of my son’s black goldfish, Sharky, being mercilessly devoured by his tankmate, the ever-so-dull Nemo. Sharky had been showing signs of ill health for a while. His erratic and distressed swimming had me tearing out my hair with concern. Once Google explained that this was most likely due to fish constipation I decided the fatty should go on a strict diet; he improved but he wasn’t quite the same vivacious, charismatic goldfish he once was. And now this.

Horrified, I diverted my son’s attention and scooped out the mortal remains, diligently disposing of them in the bin. I made the decision to deceive him in a fraction of an instant. Act now, I thought, and work out some explanation for Sharky’s sudden disappearance later.

I referred to our wet pet’s sad passing and my subsequent pondering on Facebook. One friend encouraged me to tell the truth, retrieve Sharky’s half-eaten rotting cadaver from the bin, and give him a proper burial befitting of how much joy he single-finnedly brought into our lives. I could see her point, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. I rather preferred another friend’s suggestion to say that Sharky went on holiday and then replace him with an identical fish later, but the former friend pointed out that I might have to prepare for questions such as ‘How did he carry his luggage? Has he got a passport? Will he need suncream?’. I confess I began to concoct fairly plausible responses in my head.

I have written here before about the lies we inevitably tell children as they grow up.  While I know I can’t avoid the death chat indefinitely, I didn’t feel quite ready to do it just yet, particularly because I am very much grieving at the moment. I can’t make sense of death myself, let alone explain it to a three-year-old. So it’s not just sparing the poor child from a trauma, it’s sparing myself from confronting some difficult facts. I think I’m going to invest in an impostor, buy myself some time and address the matter in a more appropriate way once Sharky the Second kicks his bucket too.

The fact is that this is not actually my son’s first encounter with death. The other day he came back from a weekend in the countryside relating that him and his Daddya had gone to ‘Pill some rappers‘.

What? Pill some what? Pill some rappers? Wtf? Imagine my confusion.

‘Me and Daddya went to Granny and Papa’s stables. And Daddya had Papa’s gun, and I had my bubble gun, and we pilled some rappers.’

EXCUSE ME?!!

I turned to the ex, or shall we refer to him as the Exterminator, and demanded an  explanation.

As it happens, his parents’ stables are currently infested with rats, and they’d asked him to shoot some to cut down numbers. Now, I am no vegetarian, nor am I averse to culling, but I was pretty darn cheesed off with the idea of him taking our 3-year-old son shooting with him.

‘Relax! I think it was a nice thing to do, go out shooting with his dad. It will teach him about life and death, and to have respect for guns’

‘But he’s THREE! He doesn’t understand! We live in London, we’re going to struggle to keep him innocent as it is, without you taking him bloody shooting! As far as I’m concerned he doesn’t have to have any contact with guns at all.’

This all eventually descended into an argument, of course. One which we haven’t quite settled yet.

My point is that this exercise hasn’t really taught the kid anything about life and death. He doesn’t understand that once the rats stop moving, they don’t ever start again. He doesn’t have any emotional bond with the rats to be made to rationalise it, or make a connection with his own life. He’s just lost a grandfather and doesn’t really grasp the concept. The cancer was like the bullet; he stopped moving and never will again, just like the rats. The mechanics may be similar but the emotional significance is radically, overwhelmingly, different. The grief is the very reason why I can’t face a death chat at this moment in time.

But I can’t suppress my smile when I think he might go to school and tell his poor teacher that he and his daddy got some guns and went out ‘shooting rappers‘…

The horror, indeed.

Paris is lovely to look at.

Paris was meant to be romantic.

Paris was a rip off.

Knowing your pint cost you a tenner drains the magic out of drinking it:

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Too Pikey for Paris

too tired to care

L’amour, bonjour

nice to breakfast you

My hotel has a view

of La Tour Eiffel

And each romantic rue

Smells.

But no wine bottle has a screwcap.

I found a rose’, but screw that

I ain’t gonna pay ten quid for that.

There’s Depeche Mode on German MTV.

WRONG.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

A rather charming little billet-doux to a city which, in my experience, rings the death knell to any ailing relationship. Don’t you agree?  Ah, I knew you would.

This is me in Paris:

Well classy.

]]> http://professionalhousegirlfriend.wordpress.com/2010/05/27/too-pikey-for-paris/feed/ 0 kdpink rip off fingers eiffel http://professionalhousegirlfriend.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/wok-and-roll/ http://professionalhousegirlfriend.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/wok-and-roll/#comments Mon, 17 May 2010 17:55:43 +0000 Professional Housegirlfriend http://professionalhousegirlfriend.wordpress.com/?p=491 ]]> I haven’t posted a recipe here for aaaages.  I find that now I’m single and living alone(apart from the sprog, that is), cooking has become a bit of a challenge. I end up eating with my son at ridiculous times (11am and 6pm), and often just make very child-friendly food. I miss having someone around to dine with, especially as I am yet to master the art of cooking for one.

This here is probably my favourite new invention, and it’s dead easy to make it just for myself, or increase the size for more people. I decided I wanted to try and make a Vietnamese-y inspired noodle soup because I miss going up to Kingsland Road and gorging on Far Eastern flavours. I’m sure there’s nothing authentically Vietnamese about it at all, but be easy on me. I am just a single mum in South London, for crying out loud. The quantities below make enough for one very hungry person or two not very hungry people. Don’t you just love my precision?

Ingredients:

1 inch fresh ginger, chopped into little pieces

2-3 chopped spring onions

1/2 Fennel Bulb, Chopped roughly

1 Handful chopped coriander

1 stem Lemongrass

1 tbsp Hot Chilli Sauce

1tbsp Soy Sauce

1 tbsp Brown Miso Paste

1/2 cup of prawns

1 sheet of fine egg noodles

1 head pak choi, chopped roughly

about 1 pint of water

squeeze of lemon.

Method and Madness:

Boil the water; chuck in the noodles and prawns,  then the ginger and lemongrass and fennel, then add the remaining ingredients except for the miso one minute or so before the noodles are cooked. When the noodles are done (generally around 4 minutes), remove from heat and let it cool down for a couple of minutes, then stir in the miso paste. And voila! Bob’s your uncle. I am a clever girl.

It was no mistake I ended my last post where I did. I simply had no time or energy to continue on what is a difficult subject, especially one so close to my heart. I fear I might have presented myself as entirely won over by Steiner schooling.

Still, the replies have kept flooding in and everyone has a story to tell. To those of you who feel you have been unhelpful: please don’t. I am grateful for the opportunity to see this whole schooling fiasco in a multi-dimensional way. The premise is that we felt completely out of the loop with regard to how to secure a decent State funded education for our son. I guess it’s a side effect of coming into parenthood when we had not prepared for it.

A CUT ABOVE THE REST?

We both had misgivings about the possibility of introducing our kiddie to an ‘alternative’ method of teaching  right from the moment we stumbled upon Steiner.

The first that springs to mind is that ‘safe’ and ‘protected’ are both synonymous with ‘sheltered’.

Ok.

Yet this is a stereotype which is commonly applied to all private school education in the UK. It is so easy to paint everyone with the same brush.

Both me and my ex (I’m tired of referring to him like that – From now on, he is  ’Daddya’ – see my post ‘Swings and Roundabouts‘) have been educated privately and in UK State schools at different points in our lives. Since I moved here many years ago I’ve seen how bitterly resented this division in British society is – and now, having no real resources to fund a creme-de-la-creme education for my child, I can see why, even though neither is a guarantee of future success.

However, I take the view that despite some formidable schooling being offered on the State, you get what you pay for. It’s just the way it is. For example, I buy Sainsbury’s ‘Basics’ smoked salmon; it tastes fine but comes in smaller pieces, almost like salmon mince. It does the job pretty well on my toasted bagel but it’s not quite up to the standard of the Wild Alaskan ‘Taste the Difference‘ range. OBVIOUSLY. We can grumble about the difference in the quality of public and State school education until we’re blue in the face but it doesn’t change the fact you are likely to get more if you are prepared to part with the cash. Sucks to be skint like me, but that’s life.

I think this bitterness underlies a lot of the prejudice against Public school educated children in this country. Are plenty of them sheltered? Of course. Are many of them snobs? Naturally. But that will never be the whole picture. It’s as ridiculous as saying every State educated child is down-to-Earth, unprejudiced and well-integrated. NONSENSE.

But then, there’s sheltered and there’s completely, harmfully alienated…

THE WORLD AND THE OYSTER

My biggest concern about the whole Steiner malarkey is that it is radically different from anything else being provided in the UK. They follow their own curriculum, at an entirely different pace. Their insistence on avoiding intellectual exploits until the age of 7 means that the children learn to read much later. I was an avid reader as a child and I think I would have been very frustrated to be infantilised in this way. A friend of my aunt’s expressed the same opinion. Rudolf Steiner was a pragmatist and tweaked his curriculum so that there was some cross-referencing with more conventional types of schooling, but really? I read at least three books to my son every night and he’s recently been expressing a keen desire to learn to read himself. In fact, the new routine is that once I’ve read to him, I let him flick through a book on his own for five minutes before lights out.  I know him well enough to know he’s an independent little thing and I don’t think holding out on learning to read will be beneficial in any way.

Another thing I find quite hard to come to terms with is the almost complete rejection of modern technology. In the school’s prospectus they have printed a  really plausible and compelling argument for this (bear with me, long quote):

‘Television, as well as videos, film, recorded music, computers and electronic games have a very powerful effect on children. It can take several days for the effect of a single video to wear off. (…) Many children now speak a lot of the time in ‘cartoon’ voices, make ‘sound effects’ to accompany their jerky movements (kicking, punching) and compulsively repeat lines from videos they have seen over and over again. This is now seen as ‘normal’ childish behaviour, but it comes from these media, not from the children themselves.

In Steiner Waldorf schools the teaching relies very much on the child taking in the content of a lesson, going home and sleeping and then coming back the next day to recall and work with it. During the night, the lesson will have been digested, together with the mental pictures made by the child himself, and he is able to relate to and understand it better than he could the previous day. If children are watching TV, or using any of the other electronic devices mentioned (…)the strong images and noises overwhelm the subtle pictures they have formed within themselves with their OWN imagination and shut them out, so that the child, when you say ‘princess’ or ‘frog’ will only be able to picture Disney’s Sleeping Beauty or Kermit from Sesame Street (SIC!!!!); the opportunity to use his own imagination is denied him (…)’

I can totally see where they are coming from. I’ll be the first to admit that I feel my son watches more television than is desirable, it’s something I hope to improve on. Recently the new Ben 10 craze has really annoyed me – even without ever having watched a single episode, my son is obsessed. He loves He-Man (yes, vintage 80′s cartoons) too, and draws out a toy sword that he’s tucked into his shirt and exclaims ‘By the power of Greyskull!’ on a daily basis. Is that really so bad?

I admire this Steiner incentive to exercise imagination and creativity but it requires a continuous abstinence from external stimuli. It’s an interesting idea – that certain types of sensory deprivation can force the brain to create.  But living in this manner in today’s world requires enormous determination and I am not sure that I am the right person to do it. I witnessed my friend try and stop her daughter playing with my son’s toys over and over again and it just seemed horribly frustrating for both of them. To try and put this into practice with my son would require limiting contact with certain friends and family; it would mean not sitting down to watch Mary Poppins with his little cousins at Christmas; it would mean he could never become a Beatlemaniac at the age of 6 like I did.  Furthermore, the media is ubiquitous these days. It’s often not pretty, there’s a lot of it I try to shut out, but it is a universal point of reference. I feel blessed to have grown up with things like music, good cartoons, good films. I had fun playing computer games with my friends. Here I am on my laptop, writing this blog. As lovely as this Steiner concept is, it would mean my son wouldn’t understand what his cousins and friends were talking about when they mentioned Fireman Sam; on top of that, he wouldn’t be allowed to share their electronic toys. I can’t help feeling that in today’s world this is very isolating. Sad but true.

‘

SEEING, BELIEVING, AND ALL THAT ENTAILS

So me and Daddya went to see the School. We were very impressed by the playground, with interesting toys and plants. Much more inviting than the inner city dump. We were greeted warmly by some of the parent’s and teachers, who offered us a wide selection of teas (green, rooibos, mint, chamomile, blah blah blah and English breakfast – guess which one we chose?)and cake, and shortbread, and grapes… How lovely. A group of confident children started to show us around rather casually. They took us to one of the Kindergarten classrooms to speak to a teacher. The room had a very domestic feel to it, it was quite cosy, with pictures everywhere, wooden toys, and a fully operational mini kitchen. The teacher was veeeeeery placid and sweet, with earnest, kind eyes. She explained that mixed age learning is central to Steiner philosophy, and how it teaches children to be considerate to one another and understand each other’s different needs –  so in every class there are two age groups. Every day at the school has a very definite rhythm and activities repeat themselves. The younger kids would have outside play, then inside play with dancing and singing, listening to stories and acting them out. They would prepare a small meal together, often with ingredients they grew themselves, and sit down to eat it.  They observed the passing of the seasons and the cycles of nature and they even had a Maypole, as it is the seasonal thing to do. There was a really pagan sort of feel to the whole thing, I couldn’t help feeling a bit like I was in The Wicker Man.

After kindergarten, a daily ‘main lesson’  would be introduced, where children would be taught one single topic in great depth over a period of a few weeks before moving onto something else. Nothing is forced. Each teacher stays with the same children for 7 years and it’s up to them to judge when an individual child is ready and open to be taught a particular subject.  They cultivate a rather appealing sort of natural empiricism to their teaching of the sciences, experimenting by themselves before being taught that Einstein or whoever came up with the same conclusions. Upon going to look at other classrooms we found beautifully bound and illustrated notebooks on several different topics, all made to a very high standard. The parents remarked on how happy their children were. Growing up, the children would gain a lot more autonomy about what, how and when they wanted to study. They also do not have any examinations. Everything about the school just seemed to belong in this lovely lovely utopic la la land.

Me and Daddya stopped to talk to one of the older teachers and started to ask him a few hard questions. How did the kids adapt to normal schools? Obviously they have to take GCSEs and A-Levels, but how do they get on with the national curriculum? The answer is that Steiner school finishes at age 14 in London, so they have to do the national curriculum as well at some point and they are not used to the concept of exams. He wasn’t very clear on how well they adapt, but said that Steiner kids tended to do significantly better than the national average. We asked how religion was presented, and he said that religious festivals are celebrated but religions are taught within a historical context, which I quite liked. He said Steiner are working with EdExcel to get accreditation for the Steiner curriculum but that this is unlikely to come through for a while yet. I couldn’t help wondering… How can I trust this man to know exactly when my son is ready to receive some particular piece of knowledge… And if he teaches all disciplines, can he truly be an expert at all of them?

All of this made me and Daddya feel a little bit uneasy. We got in the car to drive home and our immediate verdict was ‘very lovely, but it’s all a bit wishy-washy’. We think it would be lovely for our son to go there for this year but we’d want him back on the national curriculum soon. We both feel we want him to be prepared, and to succeed at whatever he sets out to do, and the lack of Steiner accreditation could prove disastrous. I don’t know if, as parents, we’re cut out of the right stuff for Steiner, because as fascinating and warm as it was, we found it a little bit drippy. I think that putting kids through Steiner education successfully requires absolute faith and determination. Obviously we do not want Mr. Gradgrind for a teacher but maybe we are too result-driven after all! Not knowing anyone who went to Steiner I can’t really judge on overall progress. The deal breaker, however, was the distance from my house to the school — It would be a nightmare trying to get there and back every day. I’m not sufficiently converted to put up with it.

Nevertheless, this has been very interesting. I have often felt the national curriculum can be limiting and that children are taught to jump through certain hoops rather than be fascinated by the knowledge they are receiving. I was extremely upset that I wasn’t allowed to take History and Geography together at GCSE, for example. The national curriculum is a standard, and it is there for a good reason, but I feel sometimes it prevents students from realising their full potential in certain categories. I can honestly say I would have loved to go to Steiner, though. It’s a tough call. If Steiner’s methods were more widely recognised and accredited perhaps I wouldn’t be so fearful, but as it stands they are not. And I have serious doubts about how well it can prepare children for the real world, where people are stressed out, need things done to order and under tight deadlines, where most of us will do boring and stressful jobs that require little brain power. But then, does Steiner offer a genuine opportunity to break free from all that?

I guess it all boils down to the parents’ own outlook on the world. I do believe Steiner can provide a wonderful and exciting education but I worry that the world is not always wonderful and exciting. We either sink or swim. Thank you all for your insight and opinions, and please feel free to comment, because the journey has just begun. I have not yet found the answer. Have you?

It was upon visiting one of these schools that our hearts really sank. It just seemed wrong. As lovely as the two kids who showed us around were, the fact that this was an oversized inner city dump where there were no longer any toilet seats just could not be disguised. ‘Perhaps‘, we thought, ‘we’re being a little pompous and unrealistic‘. The truth is that children all over the country attend schools such as this and worse and hopefully turn out fine. The Ofsted report gave it a grade 3. Furthermore, parental involvement is integral to any child’s overall education and we both care too much to let him miss out.

But to send our baby to that place felt like sending a  little lamb to slaughter.

(I sound like a mum!)

So we decided it was time to change our tactics and start researching our local private schools with the hope that we might be able to send him somewhere, somehow, someday. They all seemed like shining beacons after what we had seen, and they were all hideously above our budget. And that’s when we stumbled upon Waldorf Steiner.

At £4.055 per annum for their kindergarten (ages 4-7), it was a lot cheaper than any of the other prep schools we had looked at. Still a stretch, but one that we could just about cope with.  The memories of the inner city dump made the local Steiner school’s website  seem a wholesome and rustic idyll. But upon closer inspection we began to realise that this was not your average school, nor your average educational ethos. Something about it reminded me of what I’ve heard so far about the Montessori method, but Steiner seems to go beyond that. Thus began our investigation.

The Waldorf Steiner method of education was formulated by Rudolf Steiner, according to his personal philosophy of Anthroposophy.  It began when a friend of Steiner’s asked him to open a visionary school for the children of the workers at the Waldorf cigarette factory in 1919. You can find more about Steiner’s life and beliefs here, as I cannot pretend to have any expertise on the matter.

ANTHROPOSOPHY AT FIRST SIGHT:

Anthroposophy was not a completely alien concept to me as my best friend in Brazil and her husband have been very keen to bring up their 5 year old daughter according to some of its teachings. Anthroposophy means, literally,  ’wisdom of the human being’.

Well, I’m sure I can’t claim to be that wise because I found it all a bit radical and puzzling. Their daughter was not allowed any plastic or electronic toys; television and computers were forbidden; even recorded music was a no-no. When I landed in Rio with a 9 month old baby I felt slightly intimidated by this determination to occlude modern living. My son loved toys with flashing lights and music and I really couldn’t see how they could be so sure it was harmful. He was one of the happiest, most settled babies I have ever known —and I am not saying that just because I am his mum.

On my last visit to Brazil it was clear that they had had to relax their grip; financial and social constraints meant that raising their kid in an exclusively anthroposophical way became a bit of a nightmare — I think it also partly contributed to their break up last year. Clearly all this gave me a negative bias toward this philosophy, but I would be lying if I said I knew enough about it to refute it. All I am saying is that it probably didn’t come to me in the best light.

A HOLISTIC EDUCATION:

Nevertheless I can still see why an anthroposophical approach to education is appealing, particularly in the early years, which is the category my son falls into. It is certainly more caring and constructive than I imagine the nightmare State school could be. At best, it could help my child come on leaps and bounds in his personal development, for all that might represent. At worst, at this age, it wouldn’t harm him. I like the idea of play-based early learning; and I understand this is much of what he’d be doing at a State nursery at reception class – if he ever got into a decent one. My biggest concern over our lack of State school offers is that he would miss out on social interaction and structured activity if he was forced to spend the next year alone, particularly with mother dearest over here. Part of education is learning to be a social and moral being too and I like the Steiner focus on this aspect.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Steiner method is caring and that my son would have plenty of fun and human interaction — What else can I expect at the age of four? At a glance, kindergarten seeks to develop the senses through different kinds of play, giving the children a fair bit of autonomy with regards to their own development. Parents of young children see new milestones being reached on a daily basis and supporting these achievements makes a lot of sense. The focus on exciting children’s natural curiosity and satisfying their instinctive desire for learning is something you don’t hear often on the national curriculum. This was all interesting so I began to ask around.

FLOODED WITH FEEDBACK:

I must have been living in a hole all my life. As soon as I mentioned Steiner, people started coming out of the woodwork with their experiences and opinions. The overwhelming majority used adjectives such as ‘well-rounded’, ‘creative’, ‘free-thinking’, ‘academic’ and ‘social’ to describe Steiner kids. The educational methods were perceived as ‘effective’, ‘revolutionary’ and ‘caring’, if a bit ‘too idealistic’ and lacking in technology. At university level, a broad and unconventional approach would set Steiner children apart as scholars too. However, another friend related that some of her own Steiner friends suffered breakdowns in their late teens because they found it difficult to adapt when the ‘real world isn’t all nice and reassuring, and doesn’t value individuality or creativity’. This same friend mirrored my own concerns when she said ‘In theory, I am completely pro-Steiner philosophy, but it’s worth thinking that school needs to prepare kids for life in the real world’.

The huge response I had on the subject is one of the reasons I decided to write this all down in blog format. This has been very thought provoking on several levels, hence the length of this post and my decision to break it up into smaller segments. There is certainly a lot to be discussed and I can only hope to scratch the surface here. My realist and idealist sides have been struggling against one another. The next step in untangling what I’d heard through the grapevine was to visit the school itself…

To be continued…

I can barely think of anything more controversial. The word ‘eugenics’ has cropped up several times during this debate. On one hand, the defenders of the project present horror stories of children badly neglected, abused or abandoned by their addicted parents; on the other, the opposition argues that addiction does not necessarily equate to bad parenting and that with support many addicts can raise families successfully.

I can see both sides of the dispute. While an eugenics programme is a mistake (‘Lest we forget’), many people  are incapable of meeting their children’s basic needs; and other people, damaged though they may be themselves, remain remarkably caring parents. There will always be a dichotomy in this respect. The one point of view I noticed was absent from the BBC Breakfast News’ coverage is the element of choice.

To force somebody to undergo sterilising treatment against their will is nothing short of committing grievous bodily harm. But I find it courageous and humane to offer vulnerable people birth control when they might find themselves in situations where they are too high to think about contraception. It is necessary to look at the matter head on, without hypocrisy. Even sober people mess up on birth control. I feel certain that the majority of addicts who have participated in the programme so far did not actually want to have children depending on them whilst they are incapable of bringing them up adequately. Let’s also not forget that the US does not boast of a National Health Service, and undergoing some of the procedures outlined would be costly to people who would rather spend their money elsewhere. The cash offered is an incentive to those who would not get round to it otherwise. Another point in question is that sterilisation is not generally irreversible; there are many long term contraceptives(such as the coil or subcutaneous implants) that last for years yet are easily removable. Even vasectomies and tubal ligations can be reverted.  In short, if any of the subjects decided that they were ready to start a family it would not be out of their reach.

I look upon this matter not only through the prism of drug addiction. In Brazil I grew up with the hypocrisy of the Catholic State. The poorest families conceive again and again, to their despair, because sterilisation and long term contraception is out of their reach. To make children is very easy, and there are too many people who feel it is out of their control to stop.  I feel projects such as this give people a choice, as well as prevent more children from being born to people who do not and cannot want them.