Horrorcow Adele and Matt Allen / The Unconventional Parent - 'Off Grid Parents', appeared on This Morning for attention, backfired on them wonderfully.

[CWCissey]

They can't read. Nobody is teaching them how.

Have to keep them compliant somehow, eh?

Though this is going to end up like that Greek film Dogtooth isn't it?

 

[💗Freddie Freaker💗]

There has been a lot of shitty parent threads lately. Maybe there should be a tag for it?

 

[The Great Chandler]

!stupid are hippieS

 

[CWCissey]

!stupid are hippieS

Seippih era diputs? The fuck is a diput and when and where was the Seippih era?

 

[Anchuent Christory]

So right now, those of us from the UK of a certain age are basically thinking about the Viz comic strip "The Modern Parents" only it isn't satire?

Seriously, if they want to live in the jungle and shit themselves to death, by all means go ahead, just don't drag your kids into into it.

 

[Cosmos]

This is child abuse. Be as hippie and ~natural~ as you want, but don't deprive your children of medicine, education, and proper socialization.

 

[Hypodermic Johnny]

Speaking as someone who had scarlet fever as a toddler (a misdiagnosis from an incompetent pediatrician that cause a *different* pediatrician to have to go into another room to cuss him out in Spanish), that shit is not fun and has significant post-infection repurcussions. These whackos move to South America, they are going to have a bad time.

More to the point, since they are some of those rewilding/woo types, besides that Bach treatment, are they in on any of the other treatment scams? The bleach/turpentine enemas, for example?

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

The fact that the kids aren't showing any interest in letters, numbers, or language indicates a pretty severe degree of neglect by the parents. If you're reading books to your kids on the regular, they will start being interested usually by age 2, often before.

I suspect these parents rarely read and are mostly on screens all day, like the "off the grid" family I know that doesn't vaccinate or impose rules and has semi-feral children. The family I know makes their own clothes, including their own terrible shoes, and the 5 year old is so unready for social interactions that he tries to breastfeed from any random woman he meets. They have to "consent" to all touch or social interactions, which usually means the mom is wheedling at them to please consent even if they don't want to (ha!). Their "we never tell the kids a lie" philosophy means that the kids in that family are anxious wrecks about things like war, famine, poverty, and Donald Trump at elementary school ages. And because the parents won't keep their TV-MA viewing time confined to post-bedtime like normal parents, the kids have watched shows like The Wire and The Walking Dead before age 6.

I'd guess that Adele and Matt, much like the people I know, are using this parenting philosophy as a shield to protect them from people noticing how severely they're neglecting their kids in favor of additional screen time. "Oh, you don't understand, this behavior is totally normal from attachment-parented kids!"

For those who've never heard of attachment parenting, there's a kernel of good ideas in there. Back in the 1950s, parents were told by parenting manuals to have their baby on a rigorous schedule from day 1, regardless of the child's actual inclinations. Feed them every 4 hours (even though most newborns need to feed far more frequently!), put them to bed at extremely specific times, and if they cry piteously, ignore them because it helps the lungs and will make them more independent.

Well, it turns out that kind of parenting doesn't make kids more independent, but does make them desperate for parental attention and love. Attachment theory began as an idea that kids under a certain age literally aren't capable of conforming to these perfectly-arranged adult schedules, and that maybe it's not good for kids to spend all day sobbing their hearts out because they're tired or hungry. One of the first tenets of the philosophy is "you can't spoil a baby," which is basically true -- giving extra attention and love to a newborn is not going to make it a dependent wreck for life, it's going to make it feel secure and happy. You shouldn't punish tiny babies because they're incapable of understanding their actions on any level and are just stimulus-response machines.

The problem enters in when parents want to apply the same "attachment" concept to children over age 1-2. That's the age where kids can start understanding basic commands and boundaries. By 1, most kids really prefer a consistent schedule so that they understand what's coming next -- that gives them a feeling of control over their surroundings that helps them stay secure and happy. They start at age 2 to get some very basic abstraction as well, and they like to learn rules even if they constantly test the boundaries. By 5, kids are tiny rule machines who want to taxonomize and classify everything around them. Not giving rules and boundaries to a child of this age can only make them feel out-of-control and scared.

So many of these parents just refuse to acknowledge the huge developmental differences between a 9 month old and a 9 year old. Acting like the same ideas that are workable and even good with a tiny baby (sleep when you want, kiddo, eat whenever you like, you can't break the rules yet because there's no way you'll understand the very concept) will work on an older kid is infantilizing to the older kid and stunts their social and intellectual development. I think that's where a lot of these parents want their kids: permanent semi-babies who are dependent carbon copies of mom and dad.

 

[Olhelm]

Dear lord, they look like gender-swapped versions of each other. Are we sure this isn't some sort of genetic experiment?

 

[Ginger Piglet]

Have to keep them compliant somehow, eh?

Yep. Can't have your offspring thinking for themselves. It's no different from evangelical Christians homeschooling their children so that they don't come across evolution or other temptations of Beelzebub.

 

[Flame the Sunbird]

The Pacific Northwest and Idaho are the 2 areas with the highest ammount of anti-vaxxers who opt of vaccinating their kids.

California is only one of three states that don't allow exemptions for vaccinations under religious or philosophical reasons.

The rest of the country can opt of of vaccinating your kids for religious or philosophical reasons. However all states can opt out for medical reasons (such as a compromised immune system or allergy) but this is significantly less common than religious or philosophical reasons because you have to show to a doctor that your kid cannot take vaccines in fear of harming their health.

A series of bills have been put out to either make getting vaccine exemptions harder or easier over the years.

Anti-vaxxers don't follow the left-right paradigm its more of a "science is scary and confusing!" kind of thing

IIRC California changed their laws partially because of the Disneyland incident. There were a lot of rich hippie-types in Norther California that really opposed it.

Also, I'm terrified what the mouths of these children are gonna look like with these genetics and no orthodontia.

 

[DrJonesHat]

This is neglect dressed up as rebellion against society. It should be treated as neglect and the children taken away and the parents jailed. Perhaps that will serve as a warning to the rest of the flakes.

 

[MirnaMinkoff]

All the bullshit free-range, anti-vax, retardedness aside, I'll never understand how idiots like these think "no discipline" is anything but abuse of children. Your children aren't going to live in a world without any rules and boundaries. Let them behave like feral animals is only going to make any healthy socializing with other humans (which is a major component of human happiness) incredibly difficult, if not impossible. Not to mention wholly unprepared for living in a modern world where you have to do lots of things that are unpleasant and you don't like to do in order to survive. Raising children entirely ignorant of civilizations expectations and rules of engagements just ensures they will be unable to understand or cope with life on any level. The best they can hope for is their children finding a career as a hermit on some isolated farm.

 

[CWCissey]

This is neglect dressed up as rebellion against society. It should be treated as neglect and the children taken away and the parents jailed. Perhaps that will serve as a warning to the rest of the flakes.

Or we could just bomb Brighton

 

[break these cuffs]

Also, I'm terrified what the mouths of these children are gonna look like with these genetics and no orthodontia.

The kids are British, their teeth never had a chance.

 

[Ginger Piglet]

Also, I'm terrified what the mouths of these children are gonna look like with these genetics and no toothpaste.

FTFY.

Any sort of dentistry is a bit optimistic from this lot. Given the fact that they unironically share Natural News and Mercola on their facebook pages, they probably don't even drink the water in case it has fluoride in it. Toothpaste, such as they use it, is probably some godawful non-fluorinated organic natural variety made of salt and grit and herbs all mashed into a foul-tasting witches' brew that's only able to clean one's teeth by abrasive action. And as for fillings, well, they have mercury in them (gasp!) so they'll just let the holes expand and rot and develop into abscesses.

 

[Johnny Bravo]

If cavemen raised their offspring like this our species would have gone extinct a long time ago. Even primitive tribes that have had no contact with the outside world for thousands of years would think these people are terrible parents.

 

[Iamthatis]

@CWCissey look funny, but do they have a social media footprint surrounding this or do you feel this is a better fit for the news and events forum?

You forgot the rules! NO FUN!

 

[Chaos Theorist]

And they're giving that to kids? Christ on a bicycle, they're no better than the chav mums letting little Wayne smoke Spice and drink Stella!

Stella? How bourgeois!

Its Frosty Jack or HCC Cider which is the tipple of choice of the great unwashed or White Ace if you want to be a complete scumbag

edit: You can go to Lidl and buy that Stella knock-off own brand stuff (Galereux?)which tastes the same but much cheaper.

 

[r00]

Alas, Brighton isn't the only enclave of this sort of autismal horror. Totnes in Devon is another hotbed of it as well. Come to think of it, Totnes needs a thread about it.

I'd trust the smelliest West Country smackhead with my kids before I'd trust these loons.
Every single person I know that moved to Brighton (usually art and media students) left with some form of mental illness or retardation.