I'm not thinking of having a child anytime soon, but i was just wondering how all you parents bring up your children in the peace and love environment. what kind of music do you bring them up on? i myself was brought up on the beatles... do you take them to any love-ins? live in a rural area? I am just interested, I've seen many mom's and dad's pictures of their adorable hippie-children with flowers in their hair and picking flowers and i'd love some ideas for the future. Thank you
I didnt specifically raise my daughter in a ''hippy lifestyle....she is now a full blown hard-core''hippie type''...for lack of a better phrase...her and her husband live in my small town..1 block from me and she has 3 kids 1,4,6....some stuff that makes me so proud of her.....her kids do not know the word ''gun''[the 6 year old might but only recently]....they do not own a television....the kids know what commercials are but know they are not allowed to watch them...if a show sells dolls and shit like ''dancing elmo''they do not watch.....the kids own only wooden and natural toys..very few plastic items..as few as possible....vegetarians...two older ones know what local wild plants are edible and where to find them...the house is full of art work and art related stuff...my daughter spins her own wool the old fashioned way and knit and sews tons of stuff...including the two girls dolls and doll stuff..they have a whole dress-up section of toys...the kids are very active in the gardening of all kinds of herbs and beans and stuff....all three know sign language at advanced levels for there ages..even the baby...the girls help my daughter with food prep alot,,they both know so much about bein vegetarians....is this a start cause i tend to ramble....when my daughter was 15 she belonged to earth-roots and hiked 11 kilometres through dense bush in the middle of the night and chained herself to a logging truck....2 made it out of 16 that started out...cops called me to come get her...she's deep into stoppin the new uranium mine near here now.....also when i go out with my 3 grand kids sraangers observe them and want to speak with them..its very cool...pics will eventually be in my album
My kids were raised in a SERIOUSLY hip environment!!! And I discovered that it matters not how you raise your kids. My 4 were all raised the same way, but there is such a thing as genetics and some things are genetic that you would never guess. Out of 4 only one ended up as a hippy. My oldest is a spoiled yuppie type - secretary at the court house - all about appearances and money - keeps her "hip" side hidden for fear someone might think bad of her. Next oldest is basically lazy trailer trash -obese - pasted to the couch with the soaps on TV. My son should have been born and raised in the ghetto. Fast hot cars, thumpin' hiphop music, sideways hat and butt crack showing. Likes to dress in WHITE. But my youngest, we're real buddies. She's got alot of smarts, compassion, understanding. Likes to learn. Loves to go adventuring. Loves Rainbow Gatherings.... 'Course I love 'em all, but it makes family reunions hell. Now me, I am a died in the wool hippy and have been since I was old enough to have a clue. Raised by old-school farmers to be a farmer. Go figure. But being raised as a hippy is probably one of the BEST things I ever did for them anyhow. It gives them something to fall back on if all else fails. So, go for it.
Be yourself. I was terrified, I mean I'm not exactly an adult, now all of a sudden I'm gonna be a dad, how can I pull this off? Then I found out it's easy as long as you don't lose sight of the child within, and kids will teach you a thing or two about that. I'm finding I'm better at it than a lot of folks I know who are so uptight with who they are and who they "should" be their kids grow up the same way. We still go to music festivals, camp out and such, though we've been backing off a bit from the more psychedelic events for their sake--we drop 'em off at the grandparents for those, lol. What can I say, teach 'em to have an open mind, and that starts with having an open mind yourself.
She was weened on music. At five days old we brought her to her first music fest, camped in a tent for a few days, everyone was supportive and helpful. As soon as she could walk she danced. I take her on hikes, camp outs, and canoeing down the river. I dunno if she'll be a hippie, but she's got an appreciation for freedom, music and the outdoors. Her older brother is not a hippie (sometimes he makes fun of us), he's more of a metro type, musical, artistic, theatrical, I see him in NYC hanging out in latte bars. I'm not sure how he turned out the way he did with us as parents, but he's not afraid to be different, and I respect that. Sweet child o' mine
My kids have all been raised, or are still being raised, in our hippie homestead, off grid, outhouse, growing our own food, care for the earth, subsistance lifestyle environment. They've been listening to the Grateful Dead and much other music from inside the womb. They've all seen the dead live, many of the reggae greats and others at many festivals. We had no TV for many years, but now have one mostly for movies. Earthmother is right, though, that no matter how you raise them they are going to become their own person and not necessarily embrace your set of values. Our oldest two want nothing to do with our "hippie" backwoods lifestyle and in fact the oldest is in the university criminal justice program and has applied to the Alaska State Trooper Academy. I like to think that many of our views and values are still there though. Our two teenage daughters are a lot closer in thinking to us, but both are determined to live in a large city (nothing wrong with that at all). They look like young hippies and have our taste in music mostly. With the younger three it too soon to tell what they are going to embrace.
i don't have children of my own yet, but i did raise my eight year old nephew because his mother was neglectful and wasn't ready to have a child yet. i used to take him out (we lived on a farm) and i always explained to him that animals are just like humans and you shouldn't be scared of them and should care for them until he got comfortable around them, we'd go out in our fields and just relax and we would pick flowers for my mother of course since he's a boy but it helped him be a real gentlemen, he has a low form of autism, but he still has it and doing peaceful outdoors stuff always helped him calm down a bit. see also, out of no where he always wanted to tye dye with me and want his own tye dye and hemp jewlery (i don't let him wear it quite yet maybe a year) but i guess he just wanted to be like me ha-ha. getting him into musik, he'd be around my family which everyone in my home at the time listened to all sorts of rock (classic, metal, 80s) some sort of rock. anthony never liked metal and for a while he was getting into the pop musik thing since he was young but then out of no where he ALWAYS was taking my cds and listening to them, his favorite band is pink floyd but he loves bob dylan, jimi hendrix, janis joplin. he stays with me on weekends now (two and a half years ago my sister finally got a place and settled her life down) and when i go into his room i hear him singing all of those artists it's so adoreable when you wake up to go to the bathroom and you hear an eight year old third grader singing like comfortably numb or something. also, this is my youngest niece i like to buy her clothes (even if her mamma doesn't like them) ha-ha
my dad was a hippy in the 60s and 70s, he kept his hair long.. but he had something inside him that scared him, so he drowned in Cocaine abuse.. we lived in severe poverty for several years, then he died when I was ten.. I moved with my mom, she more pagan then hippy, but knows all about it and was there back in the day, she raised me really relaxed and let me do what I want to do.. I dont know If that was the best Idea though, cause I never really appreciated going to college, until now, and now its getting late for me to get started.. but I discovered eastern mystics, and psycedelic music all on my own.. It brings me to think.. you cant really raise a child the way you want it to be.. sometimes it works, but most of the time they will do what they want to do. Id say raise your child relaxed and without strict guidelines, but make sure they are career oriented and "real-world" type of people, otherwise they will struggle, unless they are inheriting money, in which case teach them about the importance of investing
It's never too late to start college. I didn't start till I was 24, and I finally got done with a master's degree when I was 29. It was worth it, and I'm glad I started so late, 'cause a lot of my friends who started right after high school were more interested in learning the hydraulics of the bong than in focusing on their studies, and many of 'em flunked out. I had a sense of purpose going in, having had enough experience doing construction work to know I didn't wanna do it for the rest of my life, so I studied hard and kicked ass through college. But yeah, giving your kids as much freedom as they handle is key, it teaches them responsibility and independence.
