Doula

A doula is an older person who accompanies a childing pair, does all the heavy lifting and continues to look after the kochan after the childer leaves. Very rarely do people under the age of 50 volunteer to be doulas. Senior tertons who have been working hard at their Zero Margin tasks usually welcome the chance to be a doula as it means a few years spent in the comparative comfort of the Full Circle bashas.

Each childer is allowed up to ten doulas, and they will recruit them by opening a doula register on teh foam. People sign up; they are usually family or close friends who watch their feed. Childers can vet doulas and veto any they don't want: in this their word is paramount. An assembled group of doulas and childers is called a childeria. When complete, the childeria will have an earthtouch party to celebrate their coming together and to prepare themselves for a new life. They will then choose a basha, and in this the doulas' tasks are to research and follow up leads until they find a good one. The basha chosen must be old and safe enough to be comfortable, but not so old as to be crowded; there is karma to be had from trying out newer bashas.

Once installed in the Circle of Love, the childers relax completely, and all the work of the group is done by the doulas on a roster. In practice, this means about three hours of duty every three days: at other times the doulas are free to work on their other projects, and many of them acquire stacks in the basha at this time. Until the babies are born this means looking after the two childers. All doulas must be presetn for birth as far as possible. After teh child is born, the doulas work on helping the childer feed properly (most of them have had chidlren of their own so they have much knowedge to share) and in doing all the other tasks such as playing, cleaning, lulling, storytelling, supervising babies playing on the device toys, and after the baby starts solids, feeding them biscuits, rusks etc. As the children grow, supervising takes up more time and energy.

After weaning, half the doulas can leave. The remainign five take a more hands-off approach, slowing easing the child into developing a network fo friends and acquaintances that provide advice and guidance. This is the period of developing sadbhav which means 'same feeling' and refers to the team spirit fo children raised together. As the older children hit puberty and go to the foresters' houses, tehre is a temporary physical spearation from their siblings, but there is always contact over the foam. This prepares them for later long distance relationships. By the time of the sentinel party, the doulas are mostly porviding emotional and spiritual care, while the day to day physical mentoring is done by housemates.

\One can doula as many times as one wants, just as we have seen with childing itself, Some addicts do it twice or thrice, then they move on. Persisiting beyond the norm in any activity, including childing, can produce karma slip or a slow deterioration in the pourings.