This is absolutely delightful. Tippi Degré is a French girl born in Namibia. Her parents let her live a fairly wild existence playing with animals and befriending the tribespeople. It seems a wonderful childhood. There’s not much to say. I’ve embedded the documentary made about her childhood, Le Monde selon Tippi (The World according to Tippi) and a few photos. They say it all. Enjoy. Oh, and btw, Tippi was home schooled and seems intellectually gifted. She has since passed her Baccalauréat and is studying cinema at the Sorbonne.
Note: there is an interesting contrast to be drawn between Tippi and Bindi Irwin. I have no wish to detract from Bindi in the slightest. I fully support the way she has been raised. The contrast is one between the more liberal and relaxed French culture and the more prudish Anglophone cultures. We just would never have seen images of Bindi wandering around the Australian bush naked or semi-naked. There would have been an outcry.
See also Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
Bliss is a young hippie girl with an extraordinary, untamed mind: a guitar prodigy, a synesthete, but can she tame her wild talent?
Greenfields Site.
Funny, a friend of mine and I were just talking about Tippi a week ago. She’s a big animal lover and so am I, and we agreed that it would’ve been fantastic to grow up like that, with all those wonderful animal companions and free of all the repressive bullcrap that comes with growing up in the “civilized” world. What a remarkable and blessed childhood this girl had. I am a little jealous, to be honest, but I love Tippi and what she has done with her life now that she’s back in France.
Actually there is a video of Bindi Irwin and her father swimming, and Bindi (who appears to be about 3 or 4) is nude, but it’s a short clip and, if I recall correctly, not very revealing. Incidentally, what triggered the conversation between my friend and I was a video she posted on Facebook of Tippi images put to Enya’s song “Wild Child.” It comes around full circle. :)
Oddly, in Anglophone cultures nude toddlers are okay, but 3 or 4 seems to be the arbitrary cut off age.
Thanks for this. Even without my knowing French, it told me a story about how to raise a good human being. It used the people and animals of the southern African bush to make the point, but the wildness required lives within.