I quit the Bachelor of Parenting program...

Dear Google,

I wish to study parenting.  Can you please search for a reputable Bachelor of Parenting program?  It must also have the option for further post-graduate study; I love research. 
You see, I am going to be a mother and I need to learn everything I can.

Yours sincerely,
Anita
Bachelor of Science
Bachelor of Applied Science (Medical Radiations)
Graduate Diploma Human Nutrition
Graduate Diploma Psychological Science (incomplete)
Master of Medical Ultrasound (incomplete)
(aka Professional Student)
  
In the absence of any formal study available, I instead purchased every book I could lay my hands on to study how to best rear the little precious being growing inside. 

A birth plan was written, amended, re-written, typed, packed and reviewed.  Little did I know it wouldn’t make it out of the excessively stocked suitcase that followed me to hospital.  Despite wanting to control everything, the Universe had other plans; and so did my daughter!   This was the first symbolic lesson in discovering that this parenting gig was going to challenge my level of expectation.  It was the first of many….. 

Three years after the birth of our third and youngest child, I was still unable to match our life and circumstances to any textbook.  I searched scientific, medical and parenting literature to answer all my questions.  I listened to the advice of everyone around me who all seemed to know what my children needed more than I did. 

With nowhere left to search I was filled with self-doubt, self-pity and little desire to do anything anymore.  If I couldn’t find our answers in literature or case studies or from the mouths of professionals then how would I ever understand what is happening to our family as illness mounted in myself and my children.   

Through sheer exhaustion I surrendered. 

It was in the silence of surrender, I came to discover something called intuition.   For the first time I didn’t suppress the thoughts, the coincidences occurring and the feelings of knowing what was right for us.  Intuition led us down the path less travelled into a dense forest of questioning and knowing (rather than structured learning!).

Magical people came into my life in the forest; whether for a day, a week or they still walk beside me.  As a family we waved goodbye to the huge fog that lifted when we introduced a way of eating that is all food from nature free of “humanising”. 

A further 4 years after this first discovery of intuition I learnt the time had arrived to really break away from my lifetime safety net of strict science and leave the herd to discover pearls of wisdom which have changed the way I approach day to day life and it has freed our whole family. 

As I stood back and quietly observed life through my children, I was shocked.  I noticed that our current way of life is supressing our children.  We all enter this realm perfect, inspired, individual spirits however the moment we arrive, we are channelled into one universal mould and essentially into one uniform being.  Once moulded, we are expected to behave in a particular way, learn a particular way and if we don’t conform in this particular way then we are often labelled and singled out; hence being completely negated.  Then decades go by where we simply exist.  Work, pay bills, come home watch the news, holiday occasionally repeat.  This is how it should be isn’t it?  Seems a little harsh I know but I can recall the exact moment I watched the spark in my kids eyes dim.  Their wings were clipped as they conformed to society’s expectations and through the sheer fact they were going through the motions of our modern day to day life, they were unable to do less of what they enjoyed and more of what was expected.  

But no more. 

Amazing how it can take just one question from the mouth of an innocent child to prompt you to question everything.  “Mummy what do you love to do?”  A simple enough question, yet one that I really struggled to answer.  I couldn’t come up with one thing that would make me bounce out of bed in the morning.  The realisation that everything I did was based on expectation, obligation, fear or even guilt.  BIG A-ha moment!
So there began the journey of self-discovery; finding that spark inside.  As a family we were listening, looking and feeling for our brilliance; it is in all of us.
I choose to bounce out of bed each day with a heart filled with gratitude and love for everyone and everything and there is a BURNING desire to help women all around me..  How blessed I am to have smashed my mould which means I am here doing exactly what I WANT to be doing.
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My hope for my children is that they travel through life in pursuit of fulfilling their dharma (life purpose) and living their dreams.  What more can any parent wish for?