Yesterday evening, I got a big file from Y. on "prenatal education".... She says that during the first months of its life, the child needs to touch its mother's skin, and that this (Mother shows the photo of a naked Negress carrying her naked child on her back) is the ideal way to carry children!? I read it yesterday, because she had so much spoken of this prenatal education, saying the child is fully educated by the age of three, so I wanted to know what she proposed. But there isn't a single thing in it, she doesn't say what should be done. Just at the last page.Yes, there is something there. The child of the future He has never met with a burst of impatience. He has never heard an angry voice. He has never seen anyone lamenting. He has never heard the word "me" or "mine." Nothing has ever pulled him out of oneness. No one has ever told him, "Come!" or violated his physical rights. No one has ever told him, "You must!" and violated his psychic rights. He has always been treated as a soul in evolution. The universe is his mother and the future his school. A child to whom you should never say, "Come".... That makes for awkward language if you can't tell him, "Come"!No one ever tells him, "You must."Ah, yes, that's fine. Where is she going to find parents to do that! Yes, it's the parents who should be educated!Yes, to begin with. Just in this last page there is a hint of what that education might be, but it's the negative side, what must not be. That's all. But the positive side isn't there. She had already spoken to me once about prenatal education, so I thought there must be some meaning to it, but here ... Of course, you know from experience that you can give the form you conceive of; in the broad lines, you can give the character you conceive of; all that is quite correct. So to begin with, it's the mother who should be educated, not the child. Then, through a very strict control of your own reactions, you can prevent certain wrong impulses from mixing into the child's construction. But all that isn't new, it's been known for a long time since it's what I practiced when I was expecting a child. So I know it. But once again, it's the mother who must be educated, before she has a child, that's what matters. page 113-14 , Mother's Agenda , volume 8 , 19th April - 1967 |