I was pregnant with my sixth child-my first homebirth- when I really started to understand childbirth for the first time. I had been homeschooling forever, and had always trusted my children's natural learning instincts, and my own intellect to respond to their constantly changing needs. I had never trusted my body to give birth without intervention, though- it took five births for me to get to a point where I was ready to understand the simplicity, and splendor, of birth. And the more I learned about women's natural birthing processes, the more startled I became by the many similarities between a child's learning mind and a woman's birthing body- and the more angry I became when I started to comprehend what is so brazenly being lost. 

There is no one way to give birth. Some women's pregnancies last forty-four weeks; others, thirty-eight. Some women like to give birth in tubs of water; others, in bed. Some women's bodies are leisurely in getting to their birthing times- I personally take weeks; others are ready in minutes. There are as many different ways to give birth as there are unique women. 

This is identical to how children learn: for example, some learn to read at five, others at twelve; and by the time they're thirteen, who can tell the difference? But if a child is humiliated and coerced into reading for the school's convenience, there will be a difference- he will hate reading, and the people who shamed him into reading before he was ready. But to the child who coasted through childhood until reading became inevitable, reading is an immensely pleasing, and necessary, tool: her first books will not be Dr. Seuss; they are Tolkien. My own daughter refused to read until she had a reason to read- she became obsessed with learning all she could about cats, so she taught herself to read all the cat books she had accumulated over the months. And now she reads about everything else. 

Recipients of "professional" care are blamed when the care goes awry: children and pregnant women both become "failures to progress" when they resist birthing or learning under unsatisfactory conditions. A child who cannot- or will not- keep up with expected standards is at high risk for being given a harmful label. He is likely to be "learning disabled". Bright, busy kids are considered mentally disabled! When in reality, inept teaching cannot adapt to meet all children's needs; it simply becomes easier to label children than overhaul a dysfunctional way of teaching. 

Conversely, a woman whose birthing does not conform to hospital standards is considered a "failure" (but really, her body is just too smart, and refuses to give birth with so many assholes around). If as many women had the birthing disorder known as "failure to progress" as we are led to believe, the bulk of humanity would simply not be here- our ancestors would have "failed" to propagate the species. Just like kids' brains are considered faulty because of an inept educational system, women's bodies are considered feeble because of a toxic birthing system. Women give birth, and children learn in spite of the institutions that seek to control them; it is the marvel of life fiercely willing progression to be made that results in any positive birthing or learning statistics; natural processes need to succeed. 

The disorders given to women and children can be classified as specific defenses against certain elements of institutionalization, and could be eradicated as such: a child displaying ADD symptoms (inability to sit through boring classroom droning, difficulty with linear thinking) actually needs nothing of classroom life: he learns best on his own, doing what he loves at his own pace: so get the "ADD" child out of school, where the symptoms will disappear. The woman whose labor stalls is not defective at birthing- on the contrary- she merely needs to be left alone to open powerfully, instead of being put even more on the stop to dilate and efface: obviously, this is a woman who needs to give birth at home: once she feels secure and private, her birth will come in profound waves. But in the Big Houses of our modern reality, drugs are given in for such defensive nonconformity: most often, Ritalin and Pitocin (one stimulates the brain into bland submission; the other, the uterus, into ferocious contracting). 

With birth, just as education, less is more. The less a supervising body interferes with natural processes, the better the outcome will be. A child will resist learning if coerced; a woman will resist giving birth if she is forced to (by drugs or threat of surgery). We instinctively detect when our environments are overpowering us. All anyone in a serving capacity (parent, midwife) has to do is watch closely for clues about what, if any, direction is needed to encourage a fruitful outcome. If a child wants to know about clouds, get a junior meteorology book. If a birthing woman's energy is dropping, give her a drink. But neither book nor drink should be forced; their contents will be most ungratefully expelled. One must follow cues, not steam roll them. 

My children learn best at home. Here, they have all they need- freedom, resources, and love. I am the best provider of these basic needs. I don't need some sort of certification to provide for these needs- I provide simply because I love to, and I must. If I had to constantly answer to some governing institution, the care of my children would suffer. 

My midwife is the same: the more answerable she is to regulatory bodies, malpractice insurance agencies, hospitals, and filling in forms, the less accountable she is to me. I would trust an experienced, unlicensed midwife with my birth far more readily than I would a licensed, accredited one- lay midwives have consistently better outcomes. Again, less is more: a certified nurse-midwife's medical training can get in the way- being too medically oriented increases, not decreases, a mother's complications and intervention rate. 

Teachers can have a tough time homeschooling their own children- they become too accustomed to working within narrowly set learning guidelines, and frequently forget what natural learning looks like: they try too hard to be their children's teachers, instead of their loving learning partners. Children don't need teachers- they learn best when their curiosity is their teacher. And the less a parent knows about teaching "by the book", the better a child will learn. 

Yet many teachers distrust homeschooling parents, and certified nurse-midwives begrudge lay midwives: it seems to me that this is because the "professionals" really resent what a good time "lay" people have by simply doing what they love, without having to constantly answer to regulatory bodies through status reports, pupil or parturient woman assessments, and documentation of practices; and they must find it particularly exasperating that lay people have consistently better outcomes. 

Interests are kept closer to heart: a homeschooling parent better serves her child by reading her stories rather than spending a lot of time providing evaluations to the school board; a birthing woman is better served if her midwife is rubbing her back or fetching her ice water, instead of filling out medical reports for the hospital and government. 

Through homeschooling, my mind has been unbridled and expanded; through homebirthing, my body knows it can birth with dignity and joy. I have been made very powerful in these life events. I can do anything! I can give birth beautifully, anywhere; I can learn about anything, even the complex maths and sciences I was terrified of as a girl are now within my grasp. My children will do whatever they want in life, unhampered by pointless and humiliating classroom practices. We all profit in the emancipation of one another. 

Birth, and learning, happen best where there are comfort, security and respect. When we trust our surroundings, we can open up to birth, and to knowledge. If these things are forced on us, we can survive, and appear to prosper- but the rewards are few, and deeply veiled with regret. We may give birth artificially and quickly, but then we have to live with the belief that we are unable to give birth by ourselves. Children may cram information into their heads to appease the shallow monster of an expected outcomes machine, but who is accountable to the child whose joy of learning has been obliterated? A child crams unrelated data into his head only to regurgitate it soon after; then he never wants to think about it again. Who can begin to gauge what is lost? How many adults never want to look at a science book, or hear a word of poetry again? But if a child learns because she wants to, knowledge becomes her own: no one wants to see the learning laid bare on a soulless test; she shares it when she wants to, and it is hers to keep. 

A woman in the hospital is made to expel her baby rapidly and painfully; and after the birth, she is loathe to go through another one. Can she ever know of what was taken from her? Better yet- will she want to know? How can a woman reclaim birth and babies after she's had her tubes tied in disgust? But if a woman is private in her birth, without her sacred insides either fingered by strangers, or on display in the operating room, birth will be enormously rewarding, no matter how long or sometimes difficult it may be. Her birth is powerfully, sweetly hers; not the doctors', nurses', or hospitals'. And like birthing for one's own profit, knowledge that is privately staked and claimed is retained and cherished forever. 

The ultimate similarity between homebirth and homeschooling is that both are inevitably controlled by women: women giving birth at home believe in their own power to birth, and surround themselves with other women; and usually, it is the mother who stays home with her child all day, and assesses what he needs for his mind to prosper and grow: from a woman's body and mind does her child spring freely forth. The revolutionary passion of mothering defines power in itself. But inevitably, woman-centered birthing and child-centered learning are open to ferocious assault from many sectors: many say that birth is too hazardous to entrust to a low-tech environment; and that learning is too regimented a process to entrust with lay people. 

The truth is, women aren't believed capable of handling their birthing bodies and children's growing minds- they are thought to be- in classic, rabid early- twentieth century anti-midwife-ese- dirty and ignorant. It is far more trustworthy for our society to lead a woman to a scalpel-wielding obstetrician than have her feel powerful in her birth- and ultimately, her own sexuality; it is safer to sever a woman from her children than to rob society of its appropriated role of indoctrinating children into the poisons of society itself. 

And women uniquely suffer when their power is usurped: in a hospital birth, women are open to assault of their bellies, vaginas and veins, must submit themselves to highly questionable mandatory practices (such as electronic fetal monitoring, regular cervical assessments, being confined to bed, and even now, shaving of pubic hair), and are beaten into believing their own helplessness to birth without intervention; in conventional schooling, children feel their physical, intellectual, and emotional freedoms erode through enforced confinement, the compulsory performance of meaningless rote tasks, and exposure to intense peer pressure and bullying. And in both cases, women come to believe in the futility of their own power, and the inevitability of self-interested, monolithic institutions and the rightness of their actions. Women honestly come to believe that they can't "mother" on their own. 

People's intimate lives unfold uniquely. The end results are the same; a baby is born, a child can read. These processes can be respected, or they can be twisted and manipulated to serve external, selfish interests. But birth and learning are trustworthy events. Of course a mother will give birth! When her body is ready, she will give birth. A child is designed to learn: the very qualities we consider inherent to childhood (and annoy schools so immensely)- such as restlessness, mischievousness, and voracious curiosity- are in fact required fuel for the inscrutable act of learning. Natural process can be helped along, but only very carefully. Trust with all your might, then stand back. 

Copyright ©1999 Leilah McCracken all rights reserved. 

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What about Barbie?  
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What every parent should know about commercial infant formula,  
The Family Bed -- An evolutionary approach to family sleep,  
Virtual Motherhood, 
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