When I was pregnant and announced that I would quit my job, after the baby was born, a lot of people didn’t understand. "Aren’t you afraid that you won’t be able to talk about anything else but diapers after a while?" they would often ask me. I believe that it all depends on the way you experience motherhood: if you’re only aware of the material aspect and think that motherhood is all about changing diapers and making sure your children are dressed and well fed, than it could indeed become mind numbing after a while. When you realize that you’re also responsible for your child’s emotional well being motherhood becomes a lot more interesting and when you’re also aware of the spiritual aspect motherhood will become an extremely satisfying and interesting job. Holistic parenting, taking care off the physical, emotional and spiritual well being of your children, will help them to grow into happy and healthy adults while, at the same time, it will help you to become more aware of who you really are. When I announced that I wanted to take care of my children’s education by myself the reactions from others weren’t usually understanding. "That’s a huge responsibility; I would never dare to do it." and "How can children learn when they don’t go to school?" Just like in Holistic Parenting it all depends on your own personal awareness. I had already experienced what Holistic Parenting could do for my children and our entire family and now I wanted to expand that philosophy to their education. When Rutger couldn’t cope with the schoolsystem anymore it gave us a reason to start unschooling, but the deeper underlying philosophy was my holistic approach to motherhood and education. Unschooling allows children to follow their own, individual, learning path. As a mom I am there to encourage them and advise them and lovingly lead them back on to their path whenever they have lost track of it. The children learn to follow their hearts and pursue their interests; they learn to take responsibility for their own personal growth. As a mother you have to have a certain level of spiritual awareness to be able to guide them in this way; you have to work on your own personal growth as well. The universe has intended for mother and child to grow and learn together though, and you will find that you’re the perfect ‘teacher’ for your child just like your child is the perfect ‘teacher’ for you. Of course there are also schools which have a holistic approach to education; like the Steiner Schools. Still, it’s a different situation altogether. Unschooling is like a home cooked meal that you’ve prepared with love and that contains all of your child’s preferences while a Steiner School will prepare a lovely, healthy meal in which your child’s preferences may or may not be included. They can’t possibly make something totally different for each child. It also depends on the teacher: I believe that the most important thing about Holistic parenting and Education is to be able to see the loving essence, the light, within a child. Nobody is better at that then a child’s own mother and when you become more spiritual aware your own light becomes brighter and it will become easier to see it reflected within your children. It’s a life long mission to guide your children in this way and personally I think it’s impossible to do in a classroom with say twenty kids, without compromising the quality of education.