Where are the children?

What a blessing this meeting and this speech was.

I was invited to give a lecture at a conference on childhood ecology. I arrived just as Dr. Lévesque was finishing his. I was introduced. I fell in love with his speech. Finally. But where were you before? How come I didn't know you? Dr. Lévesque retired, leaving at the moment of this moment that will be remembered for me.

In the foreground, he talks about the mother-baby as a separate entity. Then he sheds light on the baby's needs:

• to drink
• to be carried
• to be welded
• to be integrated.

I am overwhelmed by an immense wave of comfort.

Then he listens to my chatter attentively, I watch for his lit eye: "I am a mother. My happiness began like this. My little voice arrived there. I listen to my moment, jealously. I carry the baby, jealously. I am an animal watching over him. I am a hen, a lioness and a koala with him. I comfort him as much as I want. I don't sleep through the night, I stay awake, I love, I am tired and happy.

I follow my instincts when I give birth too: I prefer to do it without my lover, we talked about it and everything is more than okay. Great memories of love.

We live our family life naturally. He is a father who is always present and who takes his place slowly, as nature intended. I am a feminist because I emancipate myself and live my dream life. AND I love being a woman in the arms of my man, abandoned, valued, loved.

But back to babies. I'm always with them. I follow their needs, even when they become children, and even more so when they become teenagers. In my opinion, what is a successful life? A life accompanied by them, until the end. A life without regrets? A life in contact with them, until the end. They are important to me; the rest is irrelevant.

I am with them night and day. I don't believe in 5-10-15, I don't believe in the terrible twos. I don't believe a baby should sleep through the night (but so much the better if he does!). I don't believe he should be independent because it's pathological. Autonomous yes. But when he's older, I want him to know that I'm there, his dad too, for him. I want him to know it all his life."

Then Dr. Lévesque raised two points and a question during the round table that followed:

• • a baby does not know that he is born in a modern era
  • Studies show that mothers separated from their babies are the most unhappy and depressed

(elsewhere in the world, babies are with, children know babies and later becoming parents, they are instinctively with baby) (and before in time, in the era of the hunter-gatherer, we worked with baby, with children)

...but today, where are the children?

In his utopian world, they are integrated. We see them. Just like before. And we will be all the better for it because they sow color, happiness, authenticity, and a sense of purpose in their path, dotted with present glances, wholehearted smiles, and trusting abandon.

My cry? If you want to be united, please listen to yourself. If you want to be integrated as a mother-baby, as a mother-child, don't wait, create your model, do it, impose it. No one else can do it for us. So many different situations for so many parents.

I'm tied to my babies. I can't enjoy them anymore. Time passes, and I live it without any regret because I'm with them to the fullest. And my life of ideas and dreams realized, of accomplishment and adventure, is accompanied by my precious ones who are thus learning happiness.

To read a text by Dr. Lévesque, click here . AND share.