Thoughts for prospective parents

• Don’t treat parenthood as if it were a ‘THING’.
• Being a parent is a natural evolving human process throughout a normal life span.
• Without people with intelligence who are willing to be parents, we will continue to have plenty of children bred by those who are less able, and few or none, by those who are more able.
• For the survival of our mammal species we need girls and boys in equal numbers. Tinker with that quotient at the risk of everyone.
• Children are people who will remember often in great detail EVERYTHING YOU DO. They are not pets, nor are they property or inconvenient baggage. Treat children like this at your peril.
• Your children need to know what their basic needs are: Water, food, shelter, warmth/cooling, companionship.
• If you don’t teach your children practical skills, you are letting them down. They need to know how to use tools to make things, get food, re-use things, adapt things to the use they want it for.
• Your kids need to be able to grow food, prepare food from raw, cook food and preserve food. How to live without electricity, how to get about without transport, how to identify what will kill them. How to make things, invent solutions to problems, thrive even under stress.
• In my experience all children under the age of 10 are keen participants in all these things.
• Teach your teens that their bodies want to reproduce, first and foremost. Any emotions, urges, must-dos are often associated with this urge to make pregnant, and get pregnant.
• Teach your kids martial arts and self defense. How to defend yourself is a key part of living among other humans, who are the most dangerous animals on the planet.