If Ulysses Allen seems closer to his mum than the average five-year-old it may well be because he is still breastfed.
And like his sister Ostara, aged one, he spent the first week of his life literally attached to his mother Adele.
Their umbilical cords were not cut. They fell off naturally.
When it comes to parenting, the natural approach adopted by Adele and husband Matt does not stop there, the Sunday People writes.
Despite the shock and horror of all those around them, neither of the children has ever seen a doctor.
When vaccination reminders arrive they go straight in the bin.
This is because the couple believe most major childhood illnesses are caused by emotional distress and the children won’t get seriously ill as long as they talk about their problems.
In a candid interview that will no doubt see them dubbed Britain’s most unconventional parents, Adele reveals she also thinks deadly diseases such as meningitis can be cured by fasting.
And she is adamant the children will not go to mainstream schools. Ulysses cannot read, write or count yet as most of the time he is outside or drawing on the walls of their Brighton flat.
Adele, 32, and Matt, 33, advocate an approach to family life they call “off-grid parenting”.
Writer Adele said: “We parent according to what we feel in our hearts. We don’t want our children to be institutionalised.
“Everything is natural. We never wake them up at a set time, we want them to be in tune with their bodies. We have a positive approach to discipline and don’t call them bad or naughty. That is too negative.
“We think most illnesses are caused by emotional problems so we want to get to the root of them rather than fill the body with medicines that will only serve to make the problem worse.
“Ulysses is home-schooled but I haven’t tried to teach him numbers or the alphabet because I believe children naturally start decoding language around seven or eight. I’d much prefer he was outside enjoying nature.”
Adele became sceptical about conventional living in her twenties, after she found coconut oil helped her lose weight where other methods had failed.
She and yoga teacher Matt began researching alternative ways of living. By the time they married six years ago they had rejected traditional medicine and school teaching.
They want to join an eco-friendly community in Costa Rica where they can grow all their own food. Their diet is almost exclusively plant-based.
Adele has lost touch with most of her immediate family but Matt’s mum is supportive of their lifestyle and has even become a vegetarian.
Talking about friends and family, Adele said: “People we know criticise our parenting style but it’s only because they have been conditioned to the conventional way of thinking.
“Breastfeeding is as natural as a hug and I’m not willing to tell Ulysses to stop until he makes the decision that he is ready. It’s comforting.”
Matt added: “We did collect a lot of information on how to raise the children but essentially it was just this feeling about what was right.”
The pair met in the cocktail bar where Adele was working when they were teenagers. They married in a small ceremony in India in January 2010 and she got pregnant with Ulysses shortly afterwards. She gave birth to both children at home.
Adele said: “I didn’t want to have pain relief gently nudged on me when I was in a vulnerable state.
“Matt taught me lots of breathing exercises that helped manage the pain. It’s all about listening to your body – and I knew my body could handle childbirth without medical help.”
After both births, Adele and Matt decided to leave the placenta and umbilical cords attached to the children until they fell off naturally.
She was physically attached to both babies for six days.
Adele disguised the smell of rotting flesh with a mixture of rose petals and salt water. She said: “If babies were meant to have their umbilical cords cut at birth we’d be born with scissors. It worked beautifully and the umbilical cord eventually fell away to make a perfect belly button.
“The only place I went in the first week was the bathroom and kitchen, so there were no issues.
“I think it’s important for the mum to rest and bond with her baby in those first few days.”
The family all sleep in the same room because Adele and Matt feel it helps them bond.
Matt and Adele rise at 7am and he has a dip in the ocean before preparing porridge and water for breakfast. Ostara tends to wake up shortly afterwards and Ulysses around 9am.
Instead of joining his friends in the reception class at the local primary school, he spends his days drawing on the walls of their rented home, playing hide and seek with his parents and helping forage for food.
Adele said: “The only way to describe his education is freestyle. Our priority is keeping the children connected to nature. I don’t mind him drawing on walls as long as it’s not a permanent marker. He has to express himself.
“We won’t sit them down and force them to learn the alphabet or teach them how to count.
“Things are very play-based. We explore anything the children show an interest in. We trust numbers, reading and writing will come when it has a purpose for them. There are a lot of toddlers who can count to ten, but what’s the point?
“They are just repeating numbers with no interest in them.
“Ulysses is a natural leader, so he doesn’t like to be told what to do. We follow his lead and we’ll do the same with Ostara.”
Lunch typically consists of a baked potato or a quinoa-based dish, both served with vegetables. For dinner, the family tend to have smoothies with bananas and dates. Needless to say, the children never have junk food.
“They’ve never been to McDonald’s,” Adele said. “But I don’t think they would want to have a burger and chips. I’ve explained to Ulysses how meat is produced and it just doesn’t appeal to him.”
Ulysses is allowed to stay up as late as he wants and Adele often goes to bed before him. “Sometimes he is up until 10pm in the summer,” she said. “He finds it hard to sleep when it isn’t dark.”
Adele and Matt refuse to have either child vaccinated and never give them medicines that are not natural. Ulysses had minor asthma attacks as a toddler but most were treated with a mixture of steam from the shower and eucalyptus oil.
Adele uses her breast milk on eye infections and lemon juice for colds.
She said: “It’s always scary when you see your child suffer but we are believers in supporting the immune system until it rides it out. We don’t go to the doctor because we’ve had friends who have been bullied into giving children drugs with the threat of social services.
“When letters come for vaccinations I tear them up and put them in the bin.”
Neither of the children has been seriously ill – but Adele insists she’d even shun traditional treatment if either had a condition like meningitis or cancer.
“I have a strong belief that every disease and condition has an emotional and mental route to it,” she said. “I believe in working on the emotional cause rather than treating symptoms.
“If we see them sad or angry, we discuss what’s wrong before it manifests in the body. I haven’t had personal experience of meningitis but I think fasting is a very powerful tool – it cleans out the system.
“As long as the body is receiving fluids, it will cleanse and heal.”
Adele has friends who also home-school their children and they have a weekly meeting, giving Ulysses a chance to play with other children. She is not worried about him struggling to form relationships because he is not in school.
She said: “Ulysses makes friends so easily because he is out and about all day, interacting with people of all ages and not stuck in a classroom.
“Our lifestyle might seem unusual but I truly think our children are healthier and happier because of it.”
Source: The Mirror
all at the same time.
