I`ve been away for a couple of weeks but received e-mails about flexi-parenting and Gena Ford seems to have set the blood pressure soaring.  It is really all relative and and in a multi-cultural society, what seems flexible to one group is strong discipline to another.
My four children were born when we still lived in England prior to 1974 and we NCT mums were considered very radical and avant garde, not only in terms of breastfeeding when babies signal that they are hungry but in helping our young children be free and independent.
I was also very influenced by Montessori and our household ran on the principles that it was fine to have dogs/cats/guinea pigs/rabbits as long as we all take responsibility for feeding/grooming/cleaning.  In the same way, finger-painting on the kitchen floor is great fun, but even the smallest child can help to clean up with a little bowl of soapy water and a sponge.  My children, now parents themselves, are very balanced, stable and loving with their own children.  But for other mothers, this strategy is chaos.  Joan Raphael-Leff`s work on the Facilitator/Regulator shows that individual personality of the mother is significant in parenting and it is not necessarily so that the Regulator`s children will grow up to be repressed and uncreative.  There is something to be said for routine and order if the household works well and with love.
On cultural differences:  Thinking that my children were truly free and unrepressed, we arrived in Israel when they were all in primary school.  What we think of as flexibility in the UK is interpreted as strict discipline here.  We have a generation of children whose parents and grandparents were refugees from countries of oppression and nothing is too good for the little darlings.  They sit on their dear little bottoms watching TV while their parents, both mothers and fathers work long hours, chase their tails juggling the child care with the laundry, shopping, cooking, cleaning.  Physical punishment by parents or teachers has never been acceptable,  although Israel has its share of abusive families.  From childhood, these little princes and princesses are deprived of nothing because of the fears of what is ahead for them, army service at 18, the pressures of University and the economic difficulties of running their own homes and families.
With three Israeli-born daughters-in-law and son-in-law, my attempts to teach some responsibility together with fun and flexibility to my grandchildren are received with some humour and puzzlement.  Fortunately, our relationships are so well established that the subject is open for discussion.  I love my grandchildren to bits but never will I hear them say:  "May I leave the table please,"  or "Thank you for having me" although I do get a big hug and thank-you if I give them a treat.
It`s all relative - and a bit off-topic.
Wendy Blumfield
NCT BFC
Israel Childbirth Education Centre

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