נאַטירלעך עלטערן און נאַטירלעך עלטערן

The movement for a return to nature is growing and expanding in modern society. True, the degree of this return can be different: someone denies vaccinations, someone school education, someone antibiotics and childbirth in the hospital, and someone all at once.

Adele and Matt Allen call their parenting style No Bars. It comes down to naturalness – complete, absolute and pristine. Allens refuse education and modern medicine, but they firmly believe in breastfeeding. Adele breastfed her first child, son Ulysses, until she was six years old. Then, according to her, he himself refused. The youngest girl named Ostara is two years old. She is still being breastfed.

Adele gave birth to both children at home. Only her husband was present. As she says, she hated the very idea of ​​going to the hospital to give birth. First, she was afraid that doctors would try to interfere with the natural process of childbirth. Secondly, she did not like that someone outside would look at her at such a moment.

Moreover, Adele practiced lotus birth – that is, the umbilical cord was not cut until she fell off herself. The placenta was sprinkled with salt to prevent spoilage, and rose petals to hide the smell. After six days, the umbilical cord fell off by itself.

“It turned out to be just a perfect navel,” Adele rejoices. “You just need to keep the placenta clean.”

Parents are sure that home birth is absolutely safe. Moreover, they claim that they are not aware of cases when something went wrong.

Ulysses regularly gained weight by feeding on breast milk. When his sister was born, the boy was even unhappy – after all, he now got less milk. And two years later, he decided that he had had enough.

The children of Adele and Matt had never been to the hospital at all. They were not vaccinated. Colds are treated with lemon juice, eye infections – by splashing breast milk into the eyes, and all other ailments are dealt with with herbs.

“I see no reason to inject any foreign substances into the blood of children. You need to use plants, herbs, – then your body will be able to defeat bad bacteria and not harm the good ones, ”Adele is sure.

Mom is sure: they will never have to see a doctor. In her opinion, there are no diseases that cannot be dealt with without the help of official medicine.

“Even if I had cancer, I would definitely fight it with natural remedies. I’m sure they can cure anything. Herbs have helped me more than once. Children’s health is as important to me as mine. Therefore, I will treat them in the same way as I would treat myself, ”says Adele.

Another point of the Allen’s upbringing system is sleeping together. All four of us sleep in one bed.

“It is very convenient. We usually put the kids to bed first. Ulysses falls asleep late, but since he does not need to go to school, this is not a problem – he will get up when he sleeps, ”says Mrs. Allen.

And we smoothly got to the fifth point from the list of educational methods of this family – no school. Instead of sitting at their desks, Ulysses and Ostara spend time outdoors and study the plants. After all, they are vegans, it is important for them to know what to eat and what not.

“It is important for us that children communicate with nature, with plants and animals, and not with plastic toys,” the parents assure.

Adele is proud that her two-year-old daughter is already able to distinguish edible from inedible plant.

“She loves to tinker with the ground, play with the leaves,” says her mother.

At the same time, parents recognize that the ability to read and write has come in handy for children. But they will not teach Ulysses and Ostara in traditional ways: “They are already interested in letters and numbers. They see them on street signs, for example, ask what it is. It turns out that learning comes naturally. And knowledge is imposed on children at school, and this can in no way inspire to study. “

The method chosen by the parents, if it works, is by no means brilliant: by the age of six, Ulysses knows only a few letters and numbers. But this does not bother parents at all: “Children who were homeschooled are destined to succeed as entrepreneurs in the future. This is because they understand from the very beginning that they want to build their own business, and not be a slave to someone else. “

Adele’s views have proven to be popular in England: she has a fairly successful blog about her parenting system. The unusual family was even called into a talk show on television. But the effect was unexpected: “natural” children did not touch the audience at all. Ulysses and Ostara were absolutely uncontrollable, behaved like little savages – they made animal sounds, rushed around the studio and almost climbed onto the heads of the hosts. The parents were unable to calm them down. And it all ended with the girl wet herself on the run – the audience noticed that a puddle was spreading around her …

“It’s horrible. After all, they are completely uncontrollable, they do not understand at all what discipline and upbringing are, “- those present were not at all delighted with” natural “children.

It turns out that Ulysses and Ostara were not used to seeing so many people around, and were unable to cope with nervous overexcitement. And education without prohibitions is a controversial thing.

“We treat children with respect as equals. We cannot order them – we can only ask them for something, ”Adele explained.

It even got to the point that the audience asked the guardianship authorities to pay attention to the Allen family. Those, however, did not find anything to complain about – the children are healthy, happy, the house is clean – and left their parents alone.

Now the Allens are raising money to go to Costa Rica. They believe that only there they will be able to live in full accordance with their principles.

“We want to have a large piece of land where we can grow food. We want a lot of space around, we want to have access to wildlife in its natural state, ”says Allens.

The family has no money to move to the other end of the land. Adele’s blogging work does not bring enough funds. Therefore, the Allens announced a collection of donations: they want to raise one hundred thousand pounds. True, they did not find a response – they did not manage to collect even ten percent of this amount.