Anyone know Melinda Messenger?

[barking]

I was recently talking about her on the steiner/waldorf thread and read tonight that she has just split from her husband partly due to the lifestyle change required by steiner schools.
Just wanted to post here, incase anyone knew her and could point her to the thread here

Jenk1:

That sounds pretty extreme, are they (the mum and/or dad) very into Steiner and anthroposophy?

i dont think my cousin is, he,s very laid back and easy going but his partner is very anxious and especially when the little one is around others, she doesnt even let his grandparents look after him, could just be something like pnd but i dont know the family has always thought it strange and couldnt put our finger on anything.

jenk - Steiner appeals to people who want their children to have a very controlled environment.
If one follows the doctrine in its entirety, one's child is shielded from very many aspects of normal 21st Century life.

Swedes:

"Is Thebee a woman, a man or something more complicated?"

Man, not complicated.

very complicated

Thebee i think you'll find everything anyone needs to know about Steiner here

Zzooey, as always at it:

"it's sad for the kids when one of the parents try to rescue them from the cult environment of the waldorf schools - in addition to trying to give them a glimpse of the normal world that the cult parent won't allow them."

As Zzooey knows, what she writes on Waldorf kids not "getting glimpses of the normal world" is rubbish, typical of her.

In Sweden, where both Zzooey and I live, all kids, whether Waldorf kids or not, are overwhelmed by "glimpses" of all sorts all the time, only Waldorf kids maybe a little less, due to less TV-watching, especially in younger years.

The same - "rubbish" - applies to what she refers to as "the cult environment of the waldorf schools".

Pure rubbish.

doubt it

TheLittleElf:

"doubt it"

Doubt can be the beginning of the long journey to wisdom ;-) Always a start :-))

You know - the link, link, link way that you post TheBee makes me think that you are trying to take advantage of the high ranking of mumsnet to up the rank of the pages you are linking to

as per

1. Get Those Inbound Links

Since Google ranks your pages according to the number of links pointing at your page, it stands to reason that you should try to get as many links pointing at your pages as possible. This is so obvious that I'm only mentioning it for completeness sake.

So that people get less results from the high ranking mumsnet discussions of stwhatsit

Fletchaaarr:

"the link, link, link way that you post TheBee makes me think that you are trying to take advantage of the high ranking of mumsnet to up the rank of the pages you are linking to"

Actually, that has not been a conscious thought. I also did not know that Mumsnet had a high ranking. I use the links to save myself from repeatedly having to describe or explain what I already have described or tried to explain at the sites I link to, or what is written at Wikipedia or other sites.

One of them - WaldorfAnswers - already has a probably not bad ranking at Google. That is also the case with my personal site. As for the AWE site, it has no high ranking. But I have not linked to it to improve its ranking, but because it is the site that most addresses what the supporters of the WC-group and site write in these MN-discussions.

Thanks for your comment!

No, it's not rubbish. Waldorf schools don't want children to learn to read - because then they can know the world on their own accord. They don't want children to watch tv, and they prohibit talking of tv in school, during recess. Waldorf schools foster - in parents and in children - the idea that the world that isn't waldorf is bad and evil. This prevents parents from removing their kids from the schools at the first hint that they are really wrong.

They don't teach kids the skills they need to live in this world, here and now - because they want children to get stuck in waldorf wonderland.

That's the truth.

You are talking rubbish - because you have no experience of life in a waldorf school. You have taught in a waldorf school - some time long ago... we don't know if your experience lasted weeks, months or years. If you were a regular teacher or just a temporary stand-in. We don't know what you taught.

You have not been a waldorf student, and you have no children.

You talk from the standpoint of a cult follower.

The web sites you link to are rubbish, because they are not informative and they are totally biased. They present propaganda.

They are your sites. And wiki is yours too, you working in collaboration with some other bullshitters who babysit the wiki sites around the clock.

Pathetic.

Funny cos when i read teh first link about antropophy (or whatever it was called) i instantly thought of Tom Cruise too.

Why is theBee allowed to post all this wierdness without being cahrged.
Steiner school charge don't they? therefore they are a business, well this freakazoid is clearly advertising so surely he should be charged a small business fee?

'Diana, have you read this through?'

Just now, Northern . . . and have been wiping my eyes laughing so hard!

Jenk - she has probably been taught to be very frightened that grandparents or other caregivers will do things "wrong" with the baby, not spiritually enough, so she figures she has to shield her child from pretty much everyone. It's fairly common with serious Steiner devotees. On the Mothering boards which everyone was making fun of (rightly so), there was just a thread like this the other day, a Steiner mother terrified of the child's grandmother teaching the child the ABC song.

Strict Steiner families follow a total taboo on media of any sort, including radio or recorded music. You really have to shield your child from practically the whole rest of the world if you are going to live this way. Not all Steiner families take it this far, but this is one of the reasons some people call it a cult.

There's a strict emphasis on not "awakening" the child too soon, and practically anything can awaken the child, like taking them to a mall, or even letting them see printed words in a magazine or book. TV and movies are thought to be abusive.

Bee:

'As Zzooey knows, what she writes on Waldorf kids not "getting glimpses of the normal world" is rubbish, typical of her.'

Bee knows it is not rubbish.

At our Steiner school, the strict anthroposophists removed cereal from cereal boxes so that their children couldn't try to read the words on the cereal box. They were determined not to let their children see print before age 7.

Jenk1 - your post rings lots of bells
During our time at steiner we were encouraged to only let our child play with other steiner children to support the community ethos.

There use to be much handwringing around family that weren't steiner - that they didn't understand what we were trying to do. Parents would be terrified at birthday and christmas times as a family memeber might try and give sweets or a plastic toy. In this case we were told to give them a copy of the myriad catalogue or just keep yourselves to yourselves.

One has to keep every aspect of life pure - how you talk, how you move, what clothes you wear, what food you eat etc. So I suspect the grandparents way of life offends them.
There have been numerous threads on here over the last few months about steiner. If you are really concerned print them off and send them to the grandparents and work together to help your cousin wake up.

She thinks she is doing the best for her child and that she has to buy into the community, remind her that nature will still be there, that steiner didn't invent it, she can still bake bread, sing songs, go for walks in the woods for free. She needs to realise in order for him to be a fully functioning human being she has to allow her son to be part of the outside world. She believes she is protecting him,
They might even enjoy it

Jenk, the Steiner families I know, the ones really into anhroposophy, are quite strange about their kids.
There is a real mixture of being quite emotionally cold and tough with even very small kids, like letting them walk home quite a long way in the pitch dark in winter, even if the child has expressed fears it is poo pooed, and harsh punishment, slapping, hitting etc, locking in bedrooms, shutting in larder with bread and water, washing out mouths with soap. All these things happened to kids I know.

And yet they are mollicoddled too. Protected, allowed to behave cruelly to other kids without being told it's wrong. There were stories of pets being killed, kittens drowned etc.

Not ALL of them were like this, but these things happened in some families without being questioned, except by me of course.

There are strict rules in anthroposophy about everything.
For instance I was surprised when mothers stopped breast feeding at 6 months, I expected that sort of community to co-sleep, breast feed on demand, but they followed strict anthroposophical rules. Rules on everything from wrapping babies up in so many wool vests you'd have thought they would suffocate (warmth = spirituality)
And very small babies wore amber necklaces, which I woried they would choke on as they would chew them!

If I asked, they would say "We believe blah blah blah"
We=anthroposophists= we have it right=we are spiritually superior=we won't fully explain because it's too complicated,bonkers,weird, anyway we're better than you.

Barking, that's so true when you say that. there is a feeling that nature is exclusive!
Steiner invented it euugh

We were vetted before kids were allowed to come and play at our house.
I was given a lecture by one parent of a then 9/10yr old.
They couldn't watch tv.
Listen to STORY tapes.
See Harry Potter BOOKS.

My middle daughter ran into the room oncewhile I was making tea, Radio 4 was on " Mum Mum, turn it off She's not allowed to hear it!"

Some parents were always suspicious we would corrupt them I think.
One girl, who my daughter really liked, suddenly was never allowed to come.
She used to stare around at our books, pictures etc, with darting strange eyes, as if the stimulation was too much. It was asif she could hardly cope with it. often, she and my daughter would lie on the floor reading reading reading.
The books we had were like a sweet shop for her.

So so sad. She did seem very deprived in that way.

There is already a mammoth Steiner thread on MN. Isn't one enough?

not me btw

oh things are starting to make sense now.

my aunty made a BBQ a couple of years ago, he wasnt allowed to eat it, had to go inside with his parents and eat his food.
he doesnt watch tv
she dresses him "weird" like a little old person.
a couple of friends stopped to admire him in his pram once, she freaked and ran off with him running down the street.
she doesnt interact and mingle with the rest of the family.