Hippie Advantageous Lifestyle Practices !

I consider myself to be hippie and a hip-mama, and I was just curious about the lifestyles and practices of people on Hip Forums.

There are three (3) things that I consider important to becoming a healthy, happy, and well adjusted person in this world. As a mother I chose to:

1. Have a homebirth or natural birth
2. Breastfeed all my children (5 daughters)
3. Homeschool my kids

I had none of these advantages, and I guess I turned out allright, but I really believe these things are important, and wish my mother had been hip to the alternative lifestyle.

How many people experienced any of these advantages, and how many intend to do so with their children ?

 

I know that I won't homeschool my kids, school might not teach shit academically, but it teaches lots and lots of key social skills. Whatever my kids don't make up in school, I'll teach them at home.

Probably won't have my future wife get a natural birth either, hospitals seem a tad more sanitary.

As to breastfeeding, I think I was breastfed, for a lack of money to buy any other milk. I turned out malnutritioned but alright

 

i think homeschool won't b that good 4 children cuz in our time we have many things that shild b teached @ school cuz hey ! we don't know everything ..but choosing the right school is very important ..also giving important advises 4 our children from our experiments will b so helpful

about the birth thing .. i say ..hospitals r every where & we don't wanna get messy

but i agree with the breast feeding cuz i know that it helps 2 make the child smarter ..so we don't wanna our kids 2 b stupids

thanx

 

yeah, I'm for one out of three...
breastfeeding just seems right.

 

Hmmm...

1. Both my wife and I were born in hospitals and since I was greatly premature and she was not breathing for the first 1.5 minutes or so, I guess it was lifesaving in OUR cases, but for the vast majority we'd actually prefer birth at home if possible (midwife etc...).

2. We're both bottle babies but more due to the times we were born than anything else.

As far as our OWN plans are concerned for #1 and #2, we don't have any kids and don't plan to (we've been married for 10 years) so we really can't answer that part.

3. While we can understand the rationale for homeschooling to make sure kids get our tolerant Hippie views on diversity, equal rights etc.., the fact that the Right Wing Conservatives have made home schooling the means to do just the opposite is a concern. Also, as political liberals we strongly support any attempt to fix and maintain public education. When done correctly, it can teach diversity and understanding the best way... by exposing kids to others of different cultures and backgrounds and teaching by example. We're a little worried that what "home schooling only" could mean would result in VERY different things in red states versus blue states. For us, it's a great 2nd choice but a liberal minded public school (in theory) would be number one. (Granted some cities would make that VERY difficult with crime etc...)

The third question is really trickier than it sounds on the surface, at least to us..

 

I believe in...

1. not getting married, but staying with one individual...
2. traveling forever and always
3. never eating mcD, bk, kfc..
4. never getting a myspace
5. always owning a kittykat
6. going barefoot in the summer

 

Loveminx,

I agree with BOTH of your number 3's (grin), and number 4 (we have two of them) and wish could consistantly follow #5 but sometimes sidewalks are just too hot!!

 

Yeah...I agree with all of your points, Loveminx xD

I actually like walking barefoot on cement and what The heat feels good, to some extent (if you walk fast...minimal contact xD).

Heh.

 

3.I'm not going to homeschool my kids. I agree with BraveSirRubin in that going to school teaches key social skills. I'm not a fan of the system but you're just turning into every other messed up redneck trying to sheild your children from the entire world by homeschooling. I think kids should be exposed to everything, every emotion, every possibility because thats how they become what they are going to be when they grow up, whether thats a hippie or a criminal and parents should love their kids no matter what.

2.breast feeding...i dunno if i could do it, I grew up being told that if you breast feed you're going to feel like a cow. I think humans have evolved beyond certain parts of the "natural", for example, we can take milk from soy beans and have all the nutrition we need, we don't need to eat meat anymore because we have discovered substitutes that are even better for you. But at the same time i feel like breast feeding is more nutritional for babies and I think it might be worth it even if i do feel a little like a cow.

1.I plan on adopting all of my kids except maybe one or two of my very own. The ones that I do have of my own I would like to have a water birth for. I might have to get a c-section though due to my short stature (I'm 4'10.5" tall and fully grown). Actually, I really don't know how i want to have my kids, part of me says c-section so i can live to take care of them, part of me says water birth because its least tramatizing and part of me says homebirth... but I'm 15 so i got time to decide. ^.^

 

its surprising how little influence most parents have anyhow...
I think homeschool would rob them of many good experiences...

I can't count :tongue:

 

Wow.

 

I think you're right on about it. Public (or even a fancy-schmancy private school) is all about indoctrination and programming your kid to be a cog in the Machine. As far as breast-feeding, well, I didn't do it. I let my wife handle that part...

 

I disagree with public schooling, i was homeschooled most of my life. The part that i was in public school made me stressed out depressed i hated everone and everything just trying to get along and do the work and meet the standards they set, thats all my life was for about 2yrs. Now i school myself , and to me this is the best way to do it

 

RylyC, I think you hit on what is a big point in favor of hippieness - the relative lack of stress. I'm defining stress here as that manufactured, artificial, and totally unnecessary bullshit that others push upon us. "Pressure" isn't necessarily bad and is a part of life at times. You can deal with pressure without blowing a mental gasket.

Hippies face some stress, too. Pressure is getting up in the night to check on your baby to find he's running a high fever. Stress is going through an hour of bullshit paperwork at the emergency room desk to get your baby admitted so a doctor can see him, while the fever rages on untreated. The pressure couldn't be helped, but the stress was completely preventable (but not by you). None of us can escape those situations, but things like high-pay high-stress jobs can be avoided if you live simply and don't worry about "keeping up with the Joneses". I'd rather be a low paid gofer with a kind, laidback boss than an upper manager who's stressing himself to an early grave... and I've been both.

Stress creates more stress, and stress kills. Hippiness just creates more hippiness.

 

some babies reject breastfeeding (like me when i was one)
homeschooling is a good thing when additional with schooling one
school is important for children coz it's a kind of a smaller copy of the world they would have to live in
as for homebirth it cant really judge...i used to think it was bad but now hearing my friend's stories (she's a medical student and works in birth houses smtimes) i start to think it's even better...

 

Sorry, but you're wrong. Public school is not a "smaller copy of the world they would have to live in," but a copy of the world the Ruling Class wants us to live in. Back in the early 19th century, before public schools were foisted upon the American public, our society (here in the USA) was extremely literate, close to 90% literate. We were a nation of readers. Later in the 1800s, some of the Ruling Elite...John Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan et al, supported the idea of "public schooling." This wasn't done to make our kids smarter, but to remove them from parental control and indoctornate them with values that THEY wanted; basically, to be obedient and productive workers in their factories. They followed the model developed by the Prussians who used ideas that went back to the Greek philosophers (Plato, in his Republic) that knew you had to keep 'em stupid in order to fight wars for you, support a small, rich, powerful elite, etc. Our society isn't the way it is by accident. For instance, I remember my miserable time in public school. We were taught that communism was evil and wrong, and the Russians hated our form of government. What they didn't tell us was that right after World War One British and American armies invaded the Soviet Union in order to overthrow the Red Army, and that is why the Soviet Government was paranoid about us. Yes, kids, we fought a war with Russia in the early 20th century. Did they teach you that at school? And the reason the Ruling Elite here in America hated communism wasn't because it was inherently "evil" but that it threatened the elite's capitalistic wealth.

You know, it only takes a few months to teach someone the stuff they need to know, such as how to read, math, etc. After that, any individual can learn on their own. This "12 years of your life from 8 to 4" crap is just that....crap. Their techniques are similar to the religious cults: tear you away from your family, require you to do mindless repetitave work for hours at a time, and drill, drill, drill. RING!!! Bell tells you to start working. RING!!! the bell tells you to stop working and to go eat. RING!!! the bell tells you to stop eating and go back to work. Sound like a factory? You bet!
Time to turn on, tune in, and drop out, people.

 

i agree with everyone on not getting married.

you can live life happily and see other individuals without being tied down in a marriage the rest of your life...
you'd have alot more freedom

 

i agree with everyone on not getting married.

you can live life happily and see other individuals without being tied down in a marriage the rest of your life...
you'd have alot more freedom

 

I know who you can blame for the shitty public schools...

The teachers union.

 

This is so "right on" ! The public school indoctrination program works so well, people don't even realize what is happening to them. Many think of public school as a necessary part of socialization to make them ready to live properly in this world, to fit in with the mainstream. Is this what the "hippie" movement is all about. I don't think so ! ( Turn on, tune in, and drop out )

In order to change things, people need to change, think for themselves, regulate themselves,( no RING-RING, DRILL-DRILL), learn the things they want to learn, when they want to learn them. When you are interested in something, you learn it and comprehend it, and you usually retain the information......

......And being with young people your same age all day is not a very realistic view of the world. My children went everywhere with me, and experienced a wide range of lessons, interacted with many diverse people of different age groups, and have adequate social skills, are street wise, and have extraordinary common sense.