Adele and Matt Allen believe in an
all-natural approach to bringing up their children - so much so they refuse
modern medicine, traditional schooling and encourage full-term breastfeeding.
Adele, 32, and Matt, 33, from
Brighton, call their parenting style 'Off-Grid Parenting' and their children
Ulysses, five and Ostara, one, are therefore both still breastfed, have never
visited a doctor and will not attend a mainstream school.
When Adele, a writer, fell pregnant
with her son, the couple's controversial methods felt completely natural to
them.
She said: 'Off-grid is moving
towards self sustainability and being a bit more free range and less
institutionalised.
Matt said: 'We did collect a lot of
information but essentially it was just this feeling.'
Adele gave birth to both her
children completely unassisted and with no medical intervention with only her
husband Matt by her side.
She said: 'The thought of giving
birth in a hospital just didn't appeal to me because of many reasons - mostly
the observer effect.
'Also, the interventions I think can
be gently nudged on you when you are in a very vulnerable state
Adele and Matt also decided to have 'lotus births' meaning the placenta and umbilical cords were not surgically removed at birth.
Instead, Adele carried the attached
placenta in a cool bag - scattered with salt and rose petals to disguise the
smell - around with her until it fell off naturally.
She said: 'With both my births it
took six days for the umbilical chord to fall away naturally.
'You wrap it up and keep it clean
and it falls away and forms a perfect belly button
'In my knowledge, it's perfectly safe and it worked beautifully for us. I don't know of any known cases where it's gone wrong.
'I very much honour the
postpartum-period and I didn't go out at all during that first week. So it was
just a matter of transporting it to the toilet or to the kitchen.'
Adele feels very strongly about
full-term breastfeeding and her five-year-son still regularly feeds from her
bosom for comfort.
She said: 'Ulyssess does still nurse
from time to time. Since the baby came along it has decreased rapidly and we
had to come to a mutual understanding that it needed to graduate down a bit,
but then I wasn't willing to say 'no you need to stop now.
'I think its up to him to decide
when he wants to move on from it
'It's something that's just as natural as a hug is, it's a connection.'
Aside
from a hospital trip with Ulysses following an asthma attack, the Allen
children have never seen a doctor or received vaccinations.
Adele said: 'I don't really see that there's any need other than using breastfeeding to supplement them.
'I
don't see any need to inject any foreign substance directly into the
blood stream. That's not how children will come into the contact with a
germ naturally anyway, be it in the mouth or another way.'
Distrusting
of modern medicine, Adele prefers to treat her youngsters' ailments
naturally, squirting breast milk in their eyes to cure eye infections
and serving them lemon juice when they have a cold.
She said: 'If you use plants and herbs you target the bad without attacking the good bacteria as well.
'If
I had something serious like cancer, I would definitely take the
natural path. I whole-heartedly have faith in it now and I've
experienced enough of it to know that is the way forward.
'The
kids' health is just as important as mine if not more so, and so again I
would go with what I trust and for me, that is the natural path.'
Adele
and Matt also believe in attachment parenting methods, such as
co-sleeping and the family of four all sleep in the same room.
Adele
said: 'It works quite nice for us. Normally we put the baby down to
sleep first. Uly pretty much picks up his own bed time, but as we don't
have a school routine in morning he is then able to wake up when it
suits him.'
Ostara and Ulysses do not attend mainstream school and instead spend their days outside among nature, learning about plants.
The
mother-of-two said: 'We basically spend lots of time in nature. It's
more important to us for them to interact with animals and plants and
learn about the environment than it is for them to have big sets of
plastic toys.
'Ostara
really likes to play with woodlice and in the mud. In the park, there's
a big herb patch and she likes to pick and eat the mint leaves. Already
at this young age she is thinking about what she can pick from nature
and eat.'
The
parents accept that reading and writing are imperative life skills but
do not want learning to be forced upon their children and five-year-old
Ulysses can only recognise basic letters and numbers.
Adele said: 'I don't have an issue with that. There is no need for him to be able to read and write at this age anyway.'
Instead,
Adele and Matt believe that Ulysses and Ostara are becoming curious
about letters and numbers from seeing them out and about.
She
added: 'They see letters on drain covers and numbers on signs and then
learning happens as a consequence of just being out in the world, rather
than it being forced upon them in a classroom that is not particularly
inspiring.'
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