sorry i just have to let off steam
moved to a really beautiful area with our children 7 years ago, lovely mix of young and old but over the last few years many of the houses have been bought by families who send their children to the nearby steiner school. i don't have a problem with this, we tried the steiner school ourself thinking how lovely the idea of nature as teacher would be but found when my oldest daughter got hit at the nursery, the teacher explained it was their 'karma' and there was a heavy presence of landmark education and the people there kept telling us we must try it. if you didn't' want to become part of the landmark group then you were politely frozen out. so we left, my oldest goes to a state school now and is really happy but we now share a street where most of yhe neighbours are 'steiner'. this seems to becoming a problem, not for me necessarily as i'm quite self contained, but for my children, as even though we make an effort inviting children round from the neighbourhood - my children don't get asked back in return. we still hold some similar values - organic food, natural play, no tv, though we have a tv to watch videos with, (when one parent saw it he immediately suggested we cover it up). we were out this morning and one of the children came over and i offered them a chocolate croissant, their father then came running over and said 'no thanks we are sugar free'. the mothers that have been moving in are very cliquey - polite but suspicious of non-steiner people (god i sound paranoid) talking about how great that they now have a steiner community and are very alternative in some of their views about freedom and discipline. unfortunately my middle child seems to be in the firing line and even though he is a very friendly and forgiving little chap, one of the children in particular keeps pushing and hitting him (including today) and he is absolutely devasted and i am on his behalf because a) its completely unprovoked and b )the mother doesn't believe in telling her off. I feel all this anger in me but in a typical british fashion don't want to make a fuss or don't know how to stand up for my son or myself. i don't know whether to tell my son to hit her back as his self esteem is being affected. because they go to a different school it seems to give an air of superiority - i remember being encouraged for my eldest child to play with other steiner children outside of school as it was of supporting shared values. though how can they be so precious about their children's education and then condone violence?
i feel i have been abducted by a cult apart from its sort of back to front as they don't want us here. feel like we are not organic enough, spiritual enough, rich enough, local enough to belong anywhere. realise i definately don't want to live in a steiner community, lots of the older people are moving out because they feel they don't belong anymore. i really thought we were never going to move again but i am increasingly worried at my very lovely children being ostracized just for going to a different school.
not sure what i'm trying to say, maybe if anyone has been in a similar situation some advice please?
apologies for very long moan, it has been a bad day.