In the Spring of 1998, I was pregnant with our first child. We soon discovered that, from the time you are expecting a baby, there is a Set Way of Doing Things in this society. We looked at available publications, including research, asked people why they thought one way was better than another, then decided simply to follow our own instincts. We found our common sense approach worked well for us, and we were quite happy about it.

As we talked to people about Alternative Ideas, there was quite a lot of interest, but they generally didn't want to do something different from their mother/sister/brother/friend because it was too high a risk.

I decided to put some information on a few websites to show that there are enough people quite happily not following the Set Way of Doing Things that it isn't actually a big risk to try it after all. I used the slogan 'common sense parenting', because I wanted people to realise that the Set Way of Doing Things might actually not be that sensible!

I registered domains for Mothersense, Fathersense and Educationsense. Mothersense didn't develop much and Fathersense didn't even get off the ground because interest in Educationsense was so overwhelming. At the time of writing, it receives over 500 visitors a day and I am constantly receiving messages asking me for more information and requesting new additions to the site. It keeps me busy!

I did, however, want to develop the other two sites, and I have also had ideas for more Sense websites that I hope to implement over the coming months. I have created the World of Sense Portal for people to find a way to access all the websites without having to hunt around. I'll add more links to the Portal as the sites are developed.

I also wanted a central place for users of the various Sense sites to meet each other, so you'll also find the World of Sense Community at the Portal.