Tea, bread and angels

My experiences with the Steiner parent and child group

She approached me at the end of a ‘Busy Babies’ session at my local library.

A petite, moon-faced blonde looking near biblical in flowing white muslin. I recognised her accent as similar to mine and immediately warmed to a fellow red rose in a white rose town.

“I can see your little lad likes it here”

She offered, smiling at my son, all adoring Mother Mary.

Liked it?  Was she taking the piss?

Surely she’d noticed me on pins as he teetered precariously on the flimsy verge of ‘just managing’ and ‘screaming the fucking place down’.

“And I thought….”

She continued, her outstretched hand offering a flyer

“….. perhaps you’d like to come along to a group I take my daughter to. We have simple crafts and song, seasonal celebration……lots of tea, home baked bread and organic snacks……..”

Her voice tailed off like a drowsy meditation.

I can’t lie, my ears pricked up on one part of that pitch.

“Tea, home baked bread and organic snacks”

She’d said it enticingly, the way the White Witch purrs ‘Turkish Delight’ to Edmond, as though she’d deliberately put those words at the end of the sentence as bait, knowing they would be the very thing a frazzled mum latched on to.

Okay, it wasn’t ‘tea and cake’, but those words sent a delightful ripple through my fried brain. I felt a welcome waterlily settling on my pond of chaos.

A place I could go with my little one, be fed, watered, and not feel like I was bothering someone? Really? I decided to go along and check it out.

I was keen to tell my mum friends of this possible Mamatopia. I use the word ‘friends’ loosely here. Obviously, in the trenches of new motherhood, bonds were formed on the scant basis of whoever had a spare sachet of Calpol or a pouch of Ella’s on them.

“Oh……you’re going THERE!”

one said, ominously.

This group, you see, was a ‘Steiner’ group. The organisers followed the teachings of a man named ‘Rudolph Steiner’ and apparently, they were a bit…..you know…..cult-like and attracted an odd crowd.

“I think they’re religious”

The friend carried on.

“The mums who go there are all wadded”

said another.

“They’re the sorts who don’t discipline their kids. Let em do whatever they want”

A third piped up, raising an eyebrow.

“Rudolph Steiner was racist….he only liked white people.”

Another exclaimed.

The more these opinionated voices chimed in to shit on my ‘tea, home baked bread and organic snack’ parade, the more curious I became to see this place for myself. It intrigued me like a forbidden haunted house, a Mr McGregor’s garden.

Tuesday morning arrived, and my toddler son and I found ourselves led into a modestly furnished, pastel coloured room by a softly spoken lady who introduced herself as Sarah, the group leader.

“The walls are painted a similar colour to the womb”

She murmured.

“We find it calms them”

I looked again at the shade before me.

A pale pinkish peach.

It was a relaxing colour, granted, but I couldn’t help ponder that the inside of my womb would in reality, probably look more like clots of blackcurrant jam. Judging by the gunk my son had come out covered in, anyway.

Sarah was a doughy pillow of a woman with the alabaster complexion of an Edwardian doll. The sort of lady you imagined cleansing with ‘glycerine and rose water’ and ‘taking in’ air. In her mid forties, with long hazel tresses and soulful blue eyes, she had the appealing appearance of a mother woodland creature in a picture book; all round face and apron. She was conservative in manner, kind and attentive yet very serious. Her eyes rested upon you in a way that both nursed and scolded.

“We don’t make the activities about the child”

She explained, guiding me to a low table strewn with yarn, fabric and other crafty bits. Ooh, it felt like being back at ‘Brownies’.

“We work on lots of different projects. Making felted angels for example.”

She said, holding up something ivory coloured and floaty to the window allowing the sun to dance upon it.

“When we busy ourselves, we find that the children absorb that modelling and learn to occupy themselves too.”

I was liking this more and more.

I wanted to believe it but it just didn’t sound plausible. That my loving little limpet would freely detach himself and go find a smooth wooden animal to marvel over on the fluffy sheepskin rug.

A child who had the equivalent of a Blackpool fun house in his bedroom but still preferred to follow his mother to the bathroom to watch her pee.

Plausible, no. But an attractive proposition, absolutely. You mean it was perfectly okay to sip copious amounts of tea, scoff fresh bread and make angels from felt?

Worth a try, hey?

“This is Julie”

Sarah announced to the other women. Like a new classmate, I smiled nervously. There was definitely a slight ‘Stepford wives’ vibe going on, I considered, as they peered up shrewishly from blanket stitch to greet me in unison like the cast of Bagpuss. But that could’ve just been because they were firmly bonded and I was new. I pulled up a sturdy wooden chair and waited to be served that promised ambrosia as though a last supper.

As the session continued, it became clear Sarah’s role was ‘mothering the mother’. She lit candles, held babies whilst mum popped to the loo and helped to thread needles. All whilst dispensing golden nuggets of parenting know-how, lending a sympathetic ear and offering the steering gaze of wise elder.

The mothers hung on her word as though law. Each suggestion a revealed pearl.

“We don’t tell the child what we don’t want them to do, but rather, we stress what we’d like them to do”

She explained in low tones.

“So, we wouldn’t say, stay away from the road…..but instead we’d say stay close to me, hold my hand”

This made sense.

As the weeks went by, I came to enjoy Sarah’s wisdom. She had an insightful, sensitive way with children and adults alike. And she was astutely observant, stepping in at just the right moment to assist a burnt out, fraying mother, knowing exactly who most needed a reassuring chat.

The mothers in the group, I came to discover, fell broadly into two categories.

There were the whimsical Wendys with dreadlocks, stoned crocodile smiles and more piercings than a Saturday at ‘Claire’s’.

I say ‘Wendy’ but maybe ‘Peter Pan’ fits better seeing as they were completely away with the bloody fairies. The kind who arrived with their child, not just in a carrier but seemed to have somehow incorporated them into their outfit. A crude papoose would be secured by what looked like a collection of bohemian scarves and garden twine.

Taking the child out of said arrangement, appeared to be akin to deconstructing fabric origami. I’d watch mesmerised as various pieces of cloth were unfolded, as if de-cocooning a caterpillar. And at the end, there baby would be, a chubby, snoozy grub of a thing, completely unfazed by his ceremonial unwrapping.

Must be something in the breast milk, I mused.

These women had artsy or ‘helping’ jobs. They were painters, musicians, doulas, healers and therapists. They had children whose names were clearly from the book of Zappa - Kite, Orbit and Berlin.

Then, there were the bookish Beths and hennared Helens. Bespectacled au naturel types who made a point of eating lots of garlic and using ineffective deodorant. These women tended to work for large charities or local government. Usually the sorts of jobs you wished you’d never asked about because they were as interesting as advanced algebraic equations.

They had stern mustard voices that threaded them tightly as the sturdy boots they wore. Voices with two distinct settings, constrained muffle and hearty boom. They were the sort of women who played charades at Christmas parties, told you loudly they bought organic meat, went ‘wild’ swimming and doubled over chuckling at Sandi Toksvig.

These types had kids with names more suited to a nursing home - Ronald, Agnes and Harold. Usually a dog called something like ‘Bronte’ too, just so they could sound a bit educated down the park.

I was probably the most un-Steiner person in that group, the entire year or two I was there. My heathen Rochdale tones cutting through the softly tumbled vowels of middle class plum like a vat of pickling vinegar.

As is common in these situations, when you feel yourself different to the others, I’d feel myself aware of the notch of my voice climbing as uncouth ghetto blaster at a luvvie’s garden party. My natural giggle resented containment and would break rebelliously and ridiculously into freakish snorts and subhuman wheezes.

Thank goodness for Kim.

Kim was a welcome Sesame Street Big Bird in a world of watercolour. With the appearance of a unkempt farmer’s wife and the innocence of a toddler, Kim was a sliced white amongst the sourdough. If I was  ‘unfiltered’, she was ‘straight from the source’.

Kim broke every wardrobe ‘rule’ in the book which I loved her for. Checks with stripes? No problem. Sandals with socks? Why the hell not!

Kim had a habit of saying the most inappropriate thing anyone could think of, including me.

Like the time she announced to everyone she was giving up breast feeding because her husband “wanted them back to himself now” and he “had shared them long enough”. Or the occasion I asked her what she hadn’t liked about her year in Portugal and she’d answered matter of factly, much to everyone’s horror and awkwardness “when my tutor raped me”.

I adored her child-like lack of self-awareness. It was attractive and refreshing. She rose like an over arching sun in that room, exuding pure warmth and authenticity, endearing both rag dolly warriors and posh dullards alike.

The way she mothered her children was also enviable. Certainly, I envied it. You can display good parenting in hand gestures and voice tone, but the mothering one does with eyes can not be artificially replicated.

When a woman is truly in love with her offspring, her eyes hold their light bright as Olympic torches, willing them to succeed at every opportunity. Kim sincerely prized each tiny achievement her kids accomplished. To this day, she remains the mother I aspire to be.

So, there we all sat, week after week at a craft table. Making hobby horses from hiking socks and mop sticks, teasel hedgehogs or stuffing dried lavender into wholesome looking squares to be sold at summer fayres.

All as my son clutched my lower legs frantically like a baby primate spotting an advancing poacher.

Occasionally, a father would attend and instantly acquire celebrity status. We would survey him with keen interest. The environment felt very much a feminine space and as such, maleness rubbed up against it as sandpaper friction. Coarse, hard and rather exciting.

There was a rhythm to the sessions, an ebb and flow. Ample time to chat followed by periods when quiet reflection was encouraged. Materials were primarily wood, wool and felt. Crayons were beeswax and came in flat rectangular tins from Germany. Toys were sourced from the impressive and massively over priced ‘Myriad’ catalogue. The ‘Argos’ of the artsy fartsy.

All dolls were faceless, which took a bit of getting used to. Apparently, Steiner devotees believe that this way, a child can better use their imagination by imposing a face of their own choosing upon the blank fabric. I’ll admit, seeing toddlers push featureless baby dolls about in prams, looked plain creepy. How I resisted picking a marker pen up and scrawling on a smile, I’ll never know.

The back of the room hosted a shelf full of Steiner books, which did not make for light reading. Indeed, whenever I had a quick peek, I felt myself daunted by the spiritual ideas, diagrams and philosophies presented. Motherhood for me at that point was about survival and shallow though it may have been, I was there for the warm and fuzzies.

As mid day loomed, we would take our little ones for a pootle around the park, embracing the seasons, avoiding dog shit and pretending to not mind the rain. We’d take back acorns and conkers to place lovingly on the nature table as ‘treasure’, and then finally, the end of the session would arrive.

The group would turn to Sarah like flowers to the light as she began to sing her ‘tidy away’ song.

The idea being, that these kids would magically transform into the helpful animals in Snow White’s ‘Whistle while you work’ and merrily chip in.

To be fair, some did.

Oh yes, you could definitely spot the people pleasers, even at a young age. Usually, ignored little girls, batting their lashes for scraps of acknowledgement.  You probably remember the types from when you were at school. The ones diligently picking up each fallen gummed star and slither of sugar paper from a dusty floor. The unthanked catfish of the classroom, looking to adults like proud puppies taking their first pees in the garden. Dutifully awaiting that small crumb of recognition.

My heart sank knowing it would never change for those kinds of kids. I already pictured them as needy adults.

My son was definitely not that child.

And as time went by, that pleased me.

He was never a ‘Steiner’ kid.

Much as I tried to give him that childhood - the childhood I would have wanted - it was not, in retrospect, the experience he needed.

And so often, we do that with our kids, don’t we?

Give them the childhood we, the adult desire. Want to make right our own youth through them.

The older he became, and certainly when he started attending the linked Steiner school, I had to ask myself, did he really want to come home mud splattered and smelling of woodsmoke or was that my own romantic ideal I was foisting upon him?

I concluded the latter.

In retrospect, the Steiner years taught me a lot.

Maybe not what I had imagined I’d learn when I’d first stepped into that tranquil, blush coloured space.

It didn’t end as I’d wanted it to, with my child constructing willow dens and making nettle soup.

But I got a valuable insight into a micro culture. An understanding of a different way of doing things.

I met women I would not usually have crossed paths with.

I took part in festivals I would not have normally entertained.

And the more we can do that, try things on for size, expose ourselves to new experiences, particularly those at odds with our own norm, the more we reveal ourselves, often by a process of elimination.

I never got the ‘faceless doll’ thing at the time but these days, I quite like to embrace the concept for myself. After all, the idea lends itself to continued reinvention. It reminds us that who we are is constantly changing.

That every day is another chance to project something new and unique on a blank canvas.

And that, can only be a wonderful thing.