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Quote by Jean Liedloff

“The broader unquestioned premises upon which my own culture founded its view of the human condition, such as the one that Unhappiness is as legitimate a part of experience as happiness and necessary in order to render happiness appreciable, or that it is more advantageous to be young than to be old: those still took me a long time to pry loose for reexamination.”

Quote by Jean Liedloff

Book:The Continuum Concept: Allowing Human Nature to Work Successfully

Work

The Continuum Concept: Allowing Human Nature to Work Successfully

This book delves into the idea that human beings thrive when their development is uninterrupted and continuous, advocating for a holistic approach to raising children and living life. more

Author

Jean Liedloff was a renowned author known for her research on primitive cultures and her unique insights into human development. Her work primarily explored the impact of early human cultures on individual growth, particularly on children. more

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“It's perfectly clear that the millions of babies, who are crying at this very moment, want unanimously to be next to a live body. Do you really think they're all wrong? Theirs is the voice of nature. This is the clear, pure voice of nature, without intellectual interference.”

Thinking Want Moments Body Next Voice Millions Clear Cry Baby Pure Intellectual Want U Interference

Author:Jean Liedloff

“This, at last, was where things were as they ought to be. Everything was in its place -- the tree, the earth underneath, the rock, the moss. In autumn, it would be right; in winter under the snow, it would be perfect in its wintriness. Spring would come again and miracle within miracle would unfold, each at its special pace, some things having died off, some sprouting in their first spring, but all of equal and utter rightness.”

Firsts Would Be Earth Lasts Perfect Tree Special Rocks Ought Equal Spring Miracle Died Winter Snow Autumn Pace Moss

Author:Jean Liedloff

“It is our genetic nature as a species to believe as young children that our parents and elders are right. We watch them to see what's what. Later on we can judge for ourselves and rebel if need be, but when we're just months old, or a year or two, and a parent looks at us with impatience, or disgust, or disdain, or just leaves us there to cry and doesn't answer us even though we're longing to be embraced and nurtured, we assume that something must be wrong with us. Unfortunately, at that age it's impossible to think there might be something wrong with them.”

“As a child I was attracted to Tarzan and everything that had to do with jungles. It seemed to me -- and this is in retrospect -- that there was something primal, something right about it. Tarzan represented a pure being, somehow before the fall.”

Children Fall Pure Jungle Primal Retrospect

Author:Jean Liedloff

“Children need to see that they are assumed to be well-intentioned, naturally social people who are trying to do the right thing and who want reliable reactions from their elders to guide them.”

People Want Needs Trying Wells Children Social Guides Reactions Right Thing Elders

Book:The Continuum Concept: Allowing Human Nature to Work Successfully

Source: The Continuum Concept: Allowing Human Nature to Work Successfully

“Nobody's born rotten. You just don't have bad kids. It's not true. There is no such thing. But we can make them bad.”

Kids Born Rotten

Author:Jean Liedloff

“I knew, even at eight, that the confusion of values thrust upon me by parents, teachers, other children, nannies, camp counselors, and others would only worsen as I grew up. The years would add complications and steer me into more and more impenetrable tangles of rights and wrongs, desirables and undesirables. I had already seen enough to know that.”

Source: The Continuum Concept: Allowing Human Nature to Work Successfully

“The two words that I've arrived at to describe what we all need to feel about ourselves, children and adults, in order to perceive ourselves accurately, are worthy and welcome. If you don't feel worthy and welcome, you really won't know what to do with yourself. You won't know how to behave in a world of other people. You won't think you deserve to get what you need.”

People Ifs Thinking Knows World Needs Feels Children Two Order Know How Adults Deserve Worthy Welcome Perceive Behave

Author:Jean Liedloff

“Our parents, our tribesman, our authority figures, clearly expect us to be bad or anti-social or greedy or selfish or dirty or destructive or self-destructive. Our social nature is such that we tend to meet the expectations of our elders. Whenever this reversal took place and our elders stopped expecting us to be social and expected us to be anti-social, just to put it in gross terms, that's when the real fall took place. And we're paying for it dearly.”

Real Self Fall Social Parent Term Figures Authority Expectations Expected Selfish Dirty Destructive Expecting Greedy Gross Elders Self Destructive Reversal Anti Social Authority Figures

Author:Jean Liedloff

“We take it for granted that life is hard and feel lucky to have whatever happiness we get. We do not look upon happiness as a birthright, nor do we expect it to be more than peace or contentment. Real joy, the state in which the Yequana spend much of their lives, is exceedingly rare among us.”

Feels Looks Real Hard States Life Is Joy Lucky Granted Look Up Contentment Birthright Life Is Hard Real Joy

Book:The Continuum Concept: Allowing Human Nature to Work Successfully

Source: The Continuum Concept: Allowing Human Nature to Work Successfully