Mentoring is a keystone. It is a common thing in many societies. At one level it has come under suspicion in western society as a result of our increased awareness of paedophilia and of people in situations of power using their privilege to take sexual or other advantage of their proteges. What a great loss! We must resist responding to social evils in ways that give criminals the power to rob us of keystones of a well-functioning society. Skimming through some internet articles to make this article a little fuller I found that Mentoring is undergoing a revival, by which I mean it is being institutionalised. Businesses, professions, schools and universities, and support groups are all waking up to the power of mentoring to help people to achieve more than they could without a mentor.In many societies that we now call less developed an integral part of the social structure was to attach a young person, often at puberty, to an elder who would assist the youth through the trials of adolescence until the formal ceremony of coming of age. The getting of wisdom was not a hit or miss, boof your way through, affair as it often is in our so-called developed culture.It is well known that those who choose to formally join a religious order are usually under instruction by a supervisor. This varies in flexibility. Some are expected to learn without challenging and others are expected to grow in a more organic way. I was surprised to learn a few years ago that the old Celtic form of Christianity that was destroyed by the Romanization of British Christianity or perhaps by the increasing power of the priesthood in Roman Christianity included mentoring in the freer sense of a spiritual partner, friend and guide. As I am in no way knowledgeable in this you could go to Google to search the term anamchara.I have been fortunate in my life to have met several older people who I admired very much and who let me spend time with them asking questions and being guided by them. I am not talking about ’successful’ people, I am talking about really admirable human beings who I could go to when I was troubled and who had the wisdom to help me through. If I have any wisdom of my own today I owe it to these wonderful human beings. Seek such people out and grow through their company.Accept it of your children need another adult to learn from. The parent-child relationship is often complex and more ancient societies than ours institutionalised the need for a more detached person to become acceptable to a young person as a guide. In the highly sexualised culture we have created we do need to be watchful but let us not be driven by such fear that we keep our children from paths to full maturity.