Letters from Readers Page 3
I do believe that your site has redefined the meaning of the term...'award winning site'...Keep up the great and terrific work. Your site is awesome.
Patrick M. D'Acre
Wow, Jan. I adore and affirm your article on 10 reasons for sleeping with children, although my main reason has always been to get sleep with three children none of whom slept through the night before age 4 (third one shows no signs of breaking that sequence). I also love cuddling up to a warm little body especially when said child is much less interested in cuddling during the day.
Sylvia Wallis
I've spent a part of naptime today enjoying your responses in the advice column! And I have one thing to say... You rock, sister friend!!!! More power to you...Thank you so much for validating my choices!
Lots of Love and Appreciation!
Tracy Wheeler-Smith
Your site is WONDERFUL... absolutely the best family oriented, child centered site I've found. We are recommending your Natural Child Project to everyone we come across!
Name withheld
The Global Children's Art Gallery is outrageously impressive! It's completely clean and organized, and takes almost no time at all for me to load pages, or to see enlargements. I think this site gives a lot of people a lot of happiness. It really communicates the togetherness of all human life!
M.H.
Greetings from Ohio, Jan!
I really love your parenting advice column, and I check often to see if you have any new letters.
Keep up your wonderful work!
Mary
This web site has been a literal Godsend for me and my babies. I was caving in to society, and its pressure to be a "fake mother" as coined by Dr. Kimmel, ignoring my instincts to be nothing but tender to my children. Everyone - including my own mother - told me I was wrong for wanting my 22-month-old to continue nursing, and that I should not give her what she wants so desperately... me. "She has to learn."
My newborn son was crying constantly, because I began to think that he should learn not to need me so much. I was so wrong, and I knew it. I heard my heart screaming for me to do the only right thing: be there for my babies, love them fully, constantly, completely, with everything I have to offer and more. Listen only to my heart, only to love. I prayed for guidance, I found this web site.
With this return to truth, many former problems in my family have been solved. My daughter wasn't sleeping well alone, now she is where she belongs - next to me - sleeping wonderfully, and still nursing! My sweet new baby boy is never left to cry, and is happier than ever. Now I listen only to my babies; they show me what they need and I respond. This is the only way, and I urge every mother to do the same. Take on your role as a mother in its full meaning and be proud. It is the only way.
Katie Giroux
What a wonderful site! Someone suggested I take a look and I think you've done a great job with both the content and site design. Having read Mothering magazine and other similar publications for years, I was attracted by the content of your site, and wondered whether you were doing all this and taking care of little ones at the same time. Just wanted to say hi, and how much I enjoyed your site.
Helene Meurer
I really love your web site for its content and the beauty and simplicity of its design - nothing distracting, design follows function!
John Hoffman
Dear Jan:
Thank you so much for your website! It is wonderful and just what a first time parent needs to feel confident in her decision to have a family bed!
Angela Marler
Thank you for your efforts to present information and support to those of us who see our children as wonderful, special people who deserve only our very best tenderness and presentness.
Renee
I would just like to say thank you for the Natural Child site. It's the happiest, most positive thing I've seen on the web, and I will certainly recommend it to friends. The world needs more of this.
Kind regards from Kate Schoonees
Thanks so much for this wonderful site! The Natural Child Project is a place of wisdom, for sure.
Mark Harris
Dear Jan,
I just learned about your website in Mothering magazine. It looks great! My wife is not even pregnant yet, but I am so excited I'm reading your advice column already. Who are you? - I mean, what is your background?
Your advice is totally right-on. Thanks.
Paul Goldberg
[Note: see Jan's biography]
I very much enjoy your website and I regularly share it with friends and especially expectant parents. I find The Natural Child Project to be compassionate, stimulating, intelligent, and inspirational.
Debbie McCallister
Jan,
I just read your "Ten Reasons Not to Hit Your Kids". It is
brilliant, cogent and lucid. I wish I could e-mail it to my parents in 1944 the year my older brother was born.
I find that much of what you say translates directly to my work with addicts in jail. For me recovery begins with receiving and then giving respect. Part of breaking denial is accepting the need for love and attention. In my understanding drugs and alcohol are a direct substitute for parental love and acceptance.
Keep on going! You all are doing great work.
Allen Wood, educator and consultant on the cult phenomenon and addiction.
HI,
The Natural Child Project is, in our opinion, the most significant site on the internet. We can all turn on the TV
and radio to hear the latest news or to get stock quotes, sports results and what have you. However, the best place
to find real human content and vital parenting information is at The Natural Child Project.
Thank you Jan Hunt, and your technical support people for providing us, and the world, with honest, non-commercial content. Your site has the power to improve the way human beings treat one another.
Lots of Love,
Shawn, Mia, & Hannah Goodall
Jan,
Discovering the Natural Child Project has been wonderful this year. It has been so caring and inspiring; a wonderful peaceful place to visit.
Kathy
I visited your site today for the first time in quite a while. You've really put together something wonderful. I read through almost all the articles and they really spoke to me. Your respect for children and their feelings really came through and was just what I needed to hear after a difficult week. So thank you. I will be adding a link to you shortly.
Happy holidays,
Lisa Janice Cohen
I was browsing around today and found your site as a link from La Leche League International page. The article "So I Nursed Him Every 45 Minutes" was an inspiration to me. I printed it and am going to hang it on my refrigerator for those tough days.
Thank you so much for supporting those of us who really do put our children first.
Deanne Rickey
I am a mother of a 22-month-old daughter. Your web page is such an inspiration for us. We refer people to it all the time. I always believed that nursing and attending to all my daughter's needs was the right thing to do, but after reading your articles, I now know for sure that it is the only way to do it.
I hope that parents will realize the importance of nurturing their child before they miss their chance. I urge everyone to tell as many people as you can about this site.
Thank you, Jan, for your commitment to the future of our world.
Mia Goodall
We've just discovered your site [Global Children's Art Gallery] and it's a delight to see the drawings. Thank you for the opportunity.
Greetings,
Ramaiah
I am a mother of a 22-month-old daughter. Your web page is such an inspiration for us. We refer people to it all the time. I always believed that nursing and attending to all my daughter's needs was the right thing to do, but after reading your articles, I now know for sure that it is the only way to do it. And I hope that parents will realize the importance of nurturing their child before they miss their chance. So I urge everyone to tell as many people you can about this site.
Thank you, Jan, for your commitment to the future of our world.
Mia Goodall
Dr. Kimmel,
It is through tears that I write this. Your book poses the question "Where have all the mothers gone?" We are here!!! We do exist! Though in small numbers and with quiet voices, your book and books of its kind, will give us the support to continue on.
FOR THE CHILDREN OF AMERICA, I THANK YOU!!!
Shelley Franco
Hello,
I wanted to write to convey my gratitude for presenting this most wonderful page [Global Children's Art Gallery]. I have no children and am not involved in education or art in any way. I am, however, isolated by almost 1,000 miles from my two wonderful nieces, age 3½ and 2½. These two little girls are my heart and I miss them more than I could have ever realized.
I visited this page for the first time after seeing it highlighted on CNN. It has brought me more happiness than you can imagine. Though my nieces are not found on these pages, I have found so much joy from viewing the works of art that other children have submitted, that the beauty and joy I see in my nieces whom have so touched my life is amplified and intensified. The wonder of childhood is so magnificent. I thank you for this opportunity.
Kathryn Kusel
I am absolutely charmed, exhilarated and delighted by the children's art! What a wonderful project for the children and for their Web audience.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Sincerely,
Jane Watson
I enjoyed reading your piece on manners [The "Magic Words" Must be Spoken from the Heart]. It put the whole issue very much in perspective for me.
Thanks,
Kathy Mill
Jan,
I loved your web site! It seems there are not enough support places out there for those of us taking a more natural approach to parenting.
Your article on "I Love Lucy" was great, I agree totally! I thought the thing about Shakespeare was so true. If you look at it as entertainment, people get into more, but when it's shoved down your throat in school, it's hard to see the "fun" in it.
Good job on the web site!
Robyn M.
I read the new article about the infant not being a separate individual from the mother until much later in development ["The Imaginary Infant"]. I think that this is an important issue. We need to look at the way that our society's practices have caused the problems we read about daily in newspapers.
The main point that I want to make is this: with the common practice of segregating individuals by age, and putting children in schools away from their parents, we have developed a society of people who are not able to live in community. They do not understand commitment, bonding, trust - these things were denied them at a younger age. It is then no wonder that we have lonely, separate, alienated adolescents who will seek any community, whether this is something moderately positive like a sports team, less good like a clique, or horrible like a criminal gang. The wanting to bond is strong, but when one is not bonded to parents and through them to the adult community, these immature pseudo-communities are the obvious and inevitable result. Most people decry "peer pressure," without realizing that it is our system of separating parents and children that has set it up, mainly at schools.
Nancy Winningham