School was open today and weather forecasters are predicting a big thaw over the weekend. Now I’m starting to panic how I will cope next week without my “snow day”. Despite my objections to the principles, I’ve got used to our days off. It's become a treat to be protected by the muffler of snow from the normal requirements to chase and chivvy and frantically dash to school. The twilight, ethereal, glowing world of snow has become a sanctuary where we can enjoy being at home and catch up with ourselves.
Joking apart, my whole point in these last few postings has been to highlight the bigger issues behind the decision to close schools. With this in mind I thought this article in The Sunday Times was interesting. Jenni Russell discusses how the state has interfered in our lives to such an extent because Labour don’t trust us to make our own decisions. This goes to the core of my problem with schools closing – we can’t be trusted to decide whether it's safe for us to get to school and there are endless petty health and safety rules strangling every practical decision. “By putting the state in the middle of everything, we’re destroying society” says a mother whose 15 year old son was forbidden to do work experience with a stockbroker in London because the council’s health and safety officer had to check all premises beforehand and he was not allowed to travel that far.
I appreciate that all these rules are supposed to be for our benefit, but they are actually counter-productive because, rather than protecting people in a practical and pragmatic way, they simply annoy and frustrate, turning people away from what would be sensible behaviour. I’m not launching into politics on this blog but I would love to see a government who can allow society to be responsible and stop marring our lives with petty and nonsensical regulations.
Showing posts with label Our Society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Our Society. Show all posts
Thursday, 14 January 2010
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Living with Snow
Okay, so it's quite hard work getting children in and out of coats, hats, gloves and boots, but I'm quite enjoying living with snow. It's beautiful; cold and crisp, huge crystals glittering in the sunshine. We are finally experiencing the stereotypical images of winter that are usually only seen in Christmas cards and history books.
Maybe it's because I got used to this way of life when we lived in Kyrgyzstan where there can be snow for months. Schools stay open (unless it gets to minus 20) and roads are certainly never gritted, so everyone just gets on with it. Dilapidated Ladas, held together mostly by string, keep on sliding over ever thickening ice. Kyrgyz girls refuse to give up their fashion - stilettos. Watching them it occurred to me that this is actually quite sensible footwear for these conditions because the heels act like crampons in the snow and ice.
This morning our brilliant Sunday School was open - on the school site. Lots of people turned up, keen to keep life as normal as possible. We discussed schools closing - there's already talk of school closing tomorrow, even though the snow hasn't yet fallen. Twenty-four hour media, we decided, is part of the problem. They keep a story live, updating every hour, squeezing every detail from it - if I see one more report from a gritting depot I will scream! This means we are always on alert about something that we might just calmly get on with if not constantly bombarded by media hype.
It's also occurred to me that one of the saddest things about this whole schools closing issue is the reflection of our society. Schools close because there is a presumption that if someone falls over and hurts themselves in the playground, they will sue. That says more about the attitude of society as a whole, the blame culture we have created, than the actual decision to close schools.
Maybe it's because I got used to this way of life when we lived in Kyrgyzstan where there can be snow for months. Schools stay open (unless it gets to minus 20) and roads are certainly never gritted, so everyone just gets on with it. Dilapidated Ladas, held together mostly by string, keep on sliding over ever thickening ice. Kyrgyz girls refuse to give up their fashion - stilettos. Watching them it occurred to me that this is actually quite sensible footwear for these conditions because the heels act like crampons in the snow and ice.
This morning our brilliant Sunday School was open - on the school site. Lots of people turned up, keen to keep life as normal as possible. We discussed schools closing - there's already talk of school closing tomorrow, even though the snow hasn't yet fallen. Twenty-four hour media, we decided, is part of the problem. They keep a story live, updating every hour, squeezing every detail from it - if I see one more report from a gritting depot I will scream! This means we are always on alert about something that we might just calmly get on with if not constantly bombarded by media hype.
It's also occurred to me that one of the saddest things about this whole schools closing issue is the reflection of our society. Schools close because there is a presumption that if someone falls over and hurts themselves in the playground, they will sue. That says more about the attitude of society as a whole, the blame culture we have created, than the actual decision to close schools.
Thursday, 7 January 2010
School is Opening!
Tonight I have been to book club - what joy it was to get out of the house and talk to adults! Inevitably, we discussed school closures. Someone made a point I wanted to share - that the fact schools close so easily is actually a sad indictment of society. It's because we've all become too litigious, too quick to cast blame and sue for any upset, that schools have become so anxious to limit risk.
On a positive note, T's school is open tomorrow! Starting later and requesting children take packed lunches. As my husband said, do they read this blog...?
On a positive note, T's school is open tomorrow! Starting later and requesting children take packed lunches. As my husband said, do they read this blog...?
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Snow: Do we give up too easily?
During the snow in February 2009 I had a rant about how easily schools closed and how this sets a bad example to our children. “...What it says to them is that when things get tough we just give up...” I fear I must vent again!
This morning my 6 year old was crying because, at 7am, there had not been an announcement that his school was closed. There was snow so he assumed that school would close. This is the example he has been set so this is now what he expects. By 7.30 the inevitable announcement had been made.
I’ve just read on the website that the school will be closed again tomorrow and I am disappointed. This snow is not a surprise. We have had plenty of warning. Other people are managing to get around, with care. Why can’t teachers get to work? Why can’t a skeleton staff open up for those pupils who can get in? I know some will say there’s a health and safety risk, someone might fall in the playground etc – but these days there’s always a health and safety excuse if you want one.
Why did the school not spend today preparing, such as gritting the playground and surrounding pavements? Why can’t they show some initiative and be adaptable. For example, why not start later, to give people more time to get in? Why not ask pupils to bring packed lunch? To give up and close with so little effort sets a poor example of perseverance, something I discussed in more detail in my February 2009 post.
The media don’t help. The morning news was full of melodrama and drastic advice – “don’t take your journey unless it’s absolutely necessary...” Do they consider the responsibility of going to work absolutely necessary? With this being said on the news, it becomes too easy for everyone to absolve themselves from even trying.
Maybe I feel like this because I’ve lived in countries where people cope in snow much deeper than this for months at a time. Maybe I feel like this because my parents have always been self-employed so I’ve grown up with a strong work ethic and an understanding of what it means to be entirely responsible for your business, every day, whatever the circumstances. For us, today, work had to go on. We run day nurseries and all three were open – with full credit to our staff who made huge efforts to get in. We feel a duty to the parents to stay open so that they can go to work. Why can schools not show the same care? They close and this impacts on all the working parents.
I am very aware that many of these decisions are taken by the council rather that the schools. But it’s too easy for some distant civil servant to declare all schools closed without any thought about what this really means. I’m sure some of you will tell me that roads are treacherous and it’s irresponsible to be out. That may be so in some areas, but around here, things really aren’t that bad. Most of the pupils could walk to school - something that is endlessly discussed in assemblies when they are promoting the health and environmental benefits of walking to school!
I'm not entirely miserable, I can appreciate that it's wonderful to be able to spend the day pottering at home and playing in the snow, but I do believe there is a bigger issue and that the collective reaction to snow is unfortunate. Yes, there’s more effort involved when our world is covered in snow, but what is teaching all about? Why, as a society, do we not try and persevere through adversity any more?
Ps, in February 2009 I gave credit to our milkman, Dave, who didn’t miss a delivery. At 4am this morning, Dave was out in the snow leaving our milk by the gate. Well done Dave, and thank you!
This morning my 6 year old was crying because, at 7am, there had not been an announcement that his school was closed. There was snow so he assumed that school would close. This is the example he has been set so this is now what he expects. By 7.30 the inevitable announcement had been made.
I’ve just read on the website that the school will be closed again tomorrow and I am disappointed. This snow is not a surprise. We have had plenty of warning. Other people are managing to get around, with care. Why can’t teachers get to work? Why can’t a skeleton staff open up for those pupils who can get in? I know some will say there’s a health and safety risk, someone might fall in the playground etc – but these days there’s always a health and safety excuse if you want one.
Why did the school not spend today preparing, such as gritting the playground and surrounding pavements? Why can’t they show some initiative and be adaptable. For example, why not start later, to give people more time to get in? Why not ask pupils to bring packed lunch? To give up and close with so little effort sets a poor example of perseverance, something I discussed in more detail in my February 2009 post.
The media don’t help. The morning news was full of melodrama and drastic advice – “don’t take your journey unless it’s absolutely necessary...” Do they consider the responsibility of going to work absolutely necessary? With this being said on the news, it becomes too easy for everyone to absolve themselves from even trying.
Maybe I feel like this because I’ve lived in countries where people cope in snow much deeper than this for months at a time. Maybe I feel like this because my parents have always been self-employed so I’ve grown up with a strong work ethic and an understanding of what it means to be entirely responsible for your business, every day, whatever the circumstances. For us, today, work had to go on. We run day nurseries and all three were open – with full credit to our staff who made huge efforts to get in. We feel a duty to the parents to stay open so that they can go to work. Why can schools not show the same care? They close and this impacts on all the working parents.
I am very aware that many of these decisions are taken by the council rather that the schools. But it’s too easy for some distant civil servant to declare all schools closed without any thought about what this really means. I’m sure some of you will tell me that roads are treacherous and it’s irresponsible to be out. That may be so in some areas, but around here, things really aren’t that bad. Most of the pupils could walk to school - something that is endlessly discussed in assemblies when they are promoting the health and environmental benefits of walking to school!
I'm not entirely miserable, I can appreciate that it's wonderful to be able to spend the day pottering at home and playing in the snow, but I do believe there is a bigger issue and that the collective reaction to snow is unfortunate. Yes, there’s more effort involved when our world is covered in snow, but what is teaching all about? Why, as a society, do we not try and persevere through adversity any more?
Ps, in February 2009 I gave credit to our milkman, Dave, who didn’t miss a delivery. At 4am this morning, Dave was out in the snow leaving our milk by the gate. Well done Dave, and thank you!
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
Pressure and Perspective at Christmas
This morning I heard a woman being interviewed on the radio, claiming that she was not sure how she’d cope if her delayed Ocado delivery did not arrive. Oh please, I thought, is this what we've come to. Could she not lift herself from her despair and go to a shop? And is it really THAT important, will it change her life? Have we gone mad as a society, have we completely lost perspective?
I felt saddened by this woman’s whining and it encouraged me to finally post something I’ve been thinking about for a while...
On Sunday I had a strop. I seemed to be in the kitchen clearing up all day and felt more like a skivvy than a mother. The next morning I chatted with a friend who said she’d had a similar day. With my hands in the sink I’d started to think about all the mums feeling the same. I don’t want to seem bitter, a martyr of my role “oh poor me with all the washing up to do”. I’m not getting into the male-female-shared housework debate here; my husband contributes (when he’s at home). I am very aware that men and women are different animals who see and do things differently and this creates pressures when living together. That’s not what I’m thinking about here. The point for this post is; what is it about Christmas that does this to us, why was I feeling stroppy and hard-done by at the supposedly happiest time of the year?
Is it just the sheer weight of celebrating – there are more meals, more parties, more people so more mess and clearing up? Is it because it’s the middle of winter when living is harder, it takes longer to do simple things in the cold and dark? Or is it because emotions are more intense – we so want everything to be perfect for our families on that one day that we put more pressure on ourselves?
I’m sure some would dismiss me as a miserable old bag but there are aspects of Christmas I find difficult. I like it to be a family time when we can enjoy being together without the pressure of deadlines. Last year M and I eventually stopped rushing around and got down on the floor and played their new board games with the children and it was great, for all of us. But this can be a difficult moment to get to.
I refuse to get stressed about Christmas – it is, after all, supposed to be simply about celebrating the birth of Jesus. One wise person told me to separate the two Christmases, to accept that there is one religious festival and one occasion of consumerism and feasting. That goes some way to helping justify the contradictions between the two. Although this week, with the Copenhagen summit in the news, I feel uncomfortable about the excesses of Christmas. As individuals I believe we all have to do our bit to help preserve the Earth’s limited resources. Obviously we do not have the power of world leaders, who have prevaricated then flown home in their private jets. But we all have to take responsibility, in whatever way we can. So much is wasted at Christmas, so much packaging sent to landfill. This is not a way of life I feel comfortable with.
“But it’s Christmas,” people say, “lighten up!” Okay, so if this is supposed to be the most joyous time of the year, why does it make so many people unhappy in different ways? I’ve seen mums distressed about Nativity plays – because they couldn’t get there or because their child didn’t perform as expected. Should we be creating this pressure on everyone? Children line up for school ghostly pale, exhausted by the hysteria – do they want to sing these songs and perform these plays for their expectant parents or would they be happier in the classroom? People ask “are you ready”, in expectant tones, creating the intensity of a crucial deadline. Is it really that important what we have for pudding on Christmas Day? And I’ve not touched on the major issues of people spending money they don’t have or domestic violence increasing. When did this become “celebrating”?
My point is, if Christmas is supposed to be a special family time, why have we created a plethora of fuss around it so that mums, with their hands in the sink, just feel stressed and unable to enjoy their families? I understand that celebrating Christmas is about traditions – everyone has their routines they like (or have) to go through, without which it doesn’t feel like “Christmas”. But surely there is a way of preserving these traditions without making it such a contradictory Event? Certainly, I often find my “Christmas moment” in the most unlikely of places. Maybe it’s since I had a baby at Christmas, but I can’t help feeling emotional about how it all began; Mary, raw in her motherhood, and her precious new baby, wondering how their life together was going to turn out.
If we could take a step back, reduce the obsessive consumerism, just give a few gifts and enjoy a few simple family meals together, would it not mean that everyone could properly enjoy the occasion rather than feeling harassed about the next job that has to be done in the seemingly endless quest to create the perfect, fabled, but elusive Christmas?
I felt saddened by this woman’s whining and it encouraged me to finally post something I’ve been thinking about for a while...
On Sunday I had a strop. I seemed to be in the kitchen clearing up all day and felt more like a skivvy than a mother. The next morning I chatted with a friend who said she’d had a similar day. With my hands in the sink I’d started to think about all the mums feeling the same. I don’t want to seem bitter, a martyr of my role “oh poor me with all the washing up to do”. I’m not getting into the male-female-shared housework debate here; my husband contributes (when he’s at home). I am very aware that men and women are different animals who see and do things differently and this creates pressures when living together. That’s not what I’m thinking about here. The point for this post is; what is it about Christmas that does this to us, why was I feeling stroppy and hard-done by at the supposedly happiest time of the year?
Is it just the sheer weight of celebrating – there are more meals, more parties, more people so more mess and clearing up? Is it because it’s the middle of winter when living is harder, it takes longer to do simple things in the cold and dark? Or is it because emotions are more intense – we so want everything to be perfect for our families on that one day that we put more pressure on ourselves?
I’m sure some would dismiss me as a miserable old bag but there are aspects of Christmas I find difficult. I like it to be a family time when we can enjoy being together without the pressure of deadlines. Last year M and I eventually stopped rushing around and got down on the floor and played their new board games with the children and it was great, for all of us. But this can be a difficult moment to get to.
I refuse to get stressed about Christmas – it is, after all, supposed to be simply about celebrating the birth of Jesus. One wise person told me to separate the two Christmases, to accept that there is one religious festival and one occasion of consumerism and feasting. That goes some way to helping justify the contradictions between the two. Although this week, with the Copenhagen summit in the news, I feel uncomfortable about the excesses of Christmas. As individuals I believe we all have to do our bit to help preserve the Earth’s limited resources. Obviously we do not have the power of world leaders, who have prevaricated then flown home in their private jets. But we all have to take responsibility, in whatever way we can. So much is wasted at Christmas, so much packaging sent to landfill. This is not a way of life I feel comfortable with.
“But it’s Christmas,” people say, “lighten up!” Okay, so if this is supposed to be the most joyous time of the year, why does it make so many people unhappy in different ways? I’ve seen mums distressed about Nativity plays – because they couldn’t get there or because their child didn’t perform as expected. Should we be creating this pressure on everyone? Children line up for school ghostly pale, exhausted by the hysteria – do they want to sing these songs and perform these plays for their expectant parents or would they be happier in the classroom? People ask “are you ready”, in expectant tones, creating the intensity of a crucial deadline. Is it really that important what we have for pudding on Christmas Day? And I’ve not touched on the major issues of people spending money they don’t have or domestic violence increasing. When did this become “celebrating”?
My point is, if Christmas is supposed to be a special family time, why have we created a plethora of fuss around it so that mums, with their hands in the sink, just feel stressed and unable to enjoy their families? I understand that celebrating Christmas is about traditions – everyone has their routines they like (or have) to go through, without which it doesn’t feel like “Christmas”. But surely there is a way of preserving these traditions without making it such a contradictory Event? Certainly, I often find my “Christmas moment” in the most unlikely of places. Maybe it’s since I had a baby at Christmas, but I can’t help feeling emotional about how it all began; Mary, raw in her motherhood, and her precious new baby, wondering how their life together was going to turn out.
If we could take a step back, reduce the obsessive consumerism, just give a few gifts and enjoy a few simple family meals together, would it not mean that everyone could properly enjoy the occasion rather than feeling harassed about the next job that has to be done in the seemingly endless quest to create the perfect, fabled, but elusive Christmas?
Tuesday, 8 December 2009
Christmas Nativity
I love the one-off comments children come out with – funny but at the same time often sad and poignant, an insight into their perceptions, fears or passions. I have a book called Lots of Love, a collection of such phrases edited by Nanette Newman. “My mother ses she’s cold and then she makes me put on a coat”...”you couldn’t make everyone in the world love each other. They dont even get on in blocks of flats”...”babees need to be loved by their mother in case everybody hates them when they grow up”...”vikars dont larf much. I think its because Jesus didnt tell many jokes”.
At Sunday School we were discussing the Christmas Story. “And what did the angel do?” H, the leader asked. L, a three year old with beautiful blond hair put up her hand. “She sprinkled fairy dust everywhere” she answered seriously. It was a wonderful image, God’s messenger scattering glitter from the heavens. We then moved on to the annual Awkward Moment when we thought about why Joseph might not be pleased when his girlfriend Mary told him she was having a baby. A couple of the teenagers raised their hands. “Is your answer age appropriate?” H asked. The hands were put down again.
As the children trotted out the set answers they have learnt over the years ...Bethlehem...the inns were all full...in a stable...I couldn’t help wondering if by turning the Christmas story into a photogenic tableau we have belittled its meaning and power. If you think about it, riding a donkey when you are very pregnant and giving birth in a cold, smelly stable is not romantic at all. And yet we all coo over it every year, without thinking beyond the images we have manipulated and sanitised.
When a letter came home from school asking for a costume for my son I was reminded how we have corrupted the story of Jesus’ birth with our western interpretation. T is a narrator and required “plain pyjamas, a dressing gown and a stripy tea towel” – none of which we have. Refusing to buy a dressing gown I asked if I could make him a tunic. I was told this would have to be clarified by another teacher. For goodness sake, I thought, who wore dressing gowns in biblical times!
I looked in a child’s bible and found no dressing gowns but lots of men wearing stripy tunics. I also found a disturbing image which reminded me, as H and I discussed at Sunday School, that the most traumatic result of Jesus’ birth is often overlooked; hundreds of baby boys were murdered on King Herod's orders. The picture I saw is of a mother (in a tunic) kneeling over her baby and pleading with a soldier holding a bloody knife. What a terrible thing to have happened. Maybe that is why we never think of it; it’s easier to dress three boys up in crowns and watch them hand over golden caskets. But life was hard and violent in biblical times. And no-one wore towelling dressing gowns.
PS, You will be pleased to hear that my tunic was sanctioned by the teachers and T looked fantastic in it. The play was really very good: Tiny four-year-old angels angelically flapping their wings; wise men telling jokes (my son’s favourite part); great facial expressions from reluctant camels; raucous singing and excellent acting from Mary and Joseph. It even had some realism to satisfy cynical me – an acknowledgement that it was hard for Mary and Joseph to toil across the desert in the heat of the day and cold of the night; genuine concern about there being “no room at the inn”; a mention of the stable being smelly. I was also heartened to see, amongst the Ben 10 nightwear, other creative adaptations of the dressing gown theme.
Pps. Don’t dismiss me as a total killjoy; it does bother me that that I can’t just take these things at face value and sit back and enjoy 90 primary school children performing for half an hour a year. I do also appreciate that there is an element of teachers asking for costumes easily accessible to most parents. I’m just concerned that our children will grow up with a distorted assumption of what was worn in Bethlehem. Some simple context would help restore authenticity. Maybe in the melee of preparing for these plays we should make sure we find time to discuss what people actually wore, and why.
At Sunday School we were discussing the Christmas Story. “And what did the angel do?” H, the leader asked. L, a three year old with beautiful blond hair put up her hand. “She sprinkled fairy dust everywhere” she answered seriously. It was a wonderful image, God’s messenger scattering glitter from the heavens. We then moved on to the annual Awkward Moment when we thought about why Joseph might not be pleased when his girlfriend Mary told him she was having a baby. A couple of the teenagers raised their hands. “Is your answer age appropriate?” H asked. The hands were put down again.
As the children trotted out the set answers they have learnt over the years ...Bethlehem...the inns were all full...in a stable...I couldn’t help wondering if by turning the Christmas story into a photogenic tableau we have belittled its meaning and power. If you think about it, riding a donkey when you are very pregnant and giving birth in a cold, smelly stable is not romantic at all. And yet we all coo over it every year, without thinking beyond the images we have manipulated and sanitised.
When a letter came home from school asking for a costume for my son I was reminded how we have corrupted the story of Jesus’ birth with our western interpretation. T is a narrator and required “plain pyjamas, a dressing gown and a stripy tea towel” – none of which we have. Refusing to buy a dressing gown I asked if I could make him a tunic. I was told this would have to be clarified by another teacher. For goodness sake, I thought, who wore dressing gowns in biblical times!
I looked in a child’s bible and found no dressing gowns but lots of men wearing stripy tunics. I also found a disturbing image which reminded me, as H and I discussed at Sunday School, that the most traumatic result of Jesus’ birth is often overlooked; hundreds of baby boys were murdered on King Herod's orders. The picture I saw is of a mother (in a tunic) kneeling over her baby and pleading with a soldier holding a bloody knife. What a terrible thing to have happened. Maybe that is why we never think of it; it’s easier to dress three boys up in crowns and watch them hand over golden caskets. But life was hard and violent in biblical times. And no-one wore towelling dressing gowns.
PS, You will be pleased to hear that my tunic was sanctioned by the teachers and T looked fantastic in it. The play was really very good: Tiny four-year-old angels angelically flapping their wings; wise men telling jokes (my son’s favourite part); great facial expressions from reluctant camels; raucous singing and excellent acting from Mary and Joseph. It even had some realism to satisfy cynical me – an acknowledgement that it was hard for Mary and Joseph to toil across the desert in the heat of the day and cold of the night; genuine concern about there being “no room at the inn”; a mention of the stable being smelly. I was also heartened to see, amongst the Ben 10 nightwear, other creative adaptations of the dressing gown theme.
Pps. Don’t dismiss me as a total killjoy; it does bother me that that I can’t just take these things at face value and sit back and enjoy 90 primary school children performing for half an hour a year. I do also appreciate that there is an element of teachers asking for costumes easily accessible to most parents. I’m just concerned that our children will grow up with a distorted assumption of what was worn in Bethlehem. Some simple context would help restore authenticity. Maybe in the melee of preparing for these plays we should make sure we find time to discuss what people actually wore, and why.
Friday, 23 October 2009
In Celebration of Lego
In his book Superpowers for Parents (click here for my review), Dr Stephen Briers writes “The pace of our modern world conditions our children to expect everything instantly...most children play computer games that deliver a rapid succession of satisfying “hits” in return for very little sustained effort. One drawback of this is that today’s children often have very little experience of the benefits of perseverance. They have never had opportunities to prove to themselves that it can be worthwhile tolerating frustration and pressing through unyielding circumstances.”
My mother, a nursery nurse, calls it “instant gratification”, that children expect everything to give them pleasure immediately.
This is a worrying trend of our increasingly technological world. I have therefore been very reassured to see my children endlessly enjoying Duplo and now Lego. T was given sets of Lego for his 6th birthday and I love watching the systematic way he goes about making the items, tipping the pieces from each bag into separate pots and methodically following the pictorial instructions, mostly by himself.
Maybe it helps having an engineer for a father. I once read an editorial about Lego in the New Civil Engineer (M gets the magazine and I like the pictures of incredible structures!) Antony Oliver wrote enthusiastically about the many virtues of Lego. Firstly, he said, it was his most successful foil at attracting his children away from the television and computer. Secondly he commented that compared to “so much of the tat which is put in front of our young, Lego is a very honest toy. You get out of it what you put in.”
His third point related to the positive impact for engineering if more children are playing with lego (his editorial was about sales of Lego being up) and this point ties in with Dr Briers. “Construction toys like Lego provide a vital part of the education process. They really do provide the bedrock for young minds to learn the basics of design, construction and problem solving and fuels their imagination as they construct something from nothing, over and over again.”
It’s not all perfect with Lego. T is currently building a house which is quite complicated so there’s more “mummy! There’s just one problem here...can you come and have a look”. Trying to ascertain why there was a green space where there should have been the end of a long white block whilst trying to lift his 18-month old sister out of the bath was not particularly easy. Neither was trying to get him away from the project and into bed.
But I am very grateful for his interest. Stephen Briers writes that “good emotional control and strong problem solving skills consistently emerge as two characteristics of children who are better at coping with life. In reality these two factors are related.” With all the challenges facing children in their lives, I am grateful that a toy my child loves is also helping him learn important emotional lessons.
My mother, a nursery nurse, calls it “instant gratification”, that children expect everything to give them pleasure immediately.
This is a worrying trend of our increasingly technological world. I have therefore been very reassured to see my children endlessly enjoying Duplo and now Lego. T was given sets of Lego for his 6th birthday and I love watching the systematic way he goes about making the items, tipping the pieces from each bag into separate pots and methodically following the pictorial instructions, mostly by himself.
Maybe it helps having an engineer for a father. I once read an editorial about Lego in the New Civil Engineer (M gets the magazine and I like the pictures of incredible structures!) Antony Oliver wrote enthusiastically about the many virtues of Lego. Firstly, he said, it was his most successful foil at attracting his children away from the television and computer. Secondly he commented that compared to “so much of the tat which is put in front of our young, Lego is a very honest toy. You get out of it what you put in.”
His third point related to the positive impact for engineering if more children are playing with lego (his editorial was about sales of Lego being up) and this point ties in with Dr Briers. “Construction toys like Lego provide a vital part of the education process. They really do provide the bedrock for young minds to learn the basics of design, construction and problem solving and fuels their imagination as they construct something from nothing, over and over again.”
It’s not all perfect with Lego. T is currently building a house which is quite complicated so there’s more “mummy! There’s just one problem here...can you come and have a look”. Trying to ascertain why there was a green space where there should have been the end of a long white block whilst trying to lift his 18-month old sister out of the bath was not particularly easy. Neither was trying to get him away from the project and into bed.
But I am very grateful for his interest. Stephen Briers writes that “good emotional control and strong problem solving skills consistently emerge as two characteristics of children who are better at coping with life. In reality these two factors are related.” With all the challenges facing children in their lives, I am grateful that a toy my child loves is also helping him learn important emotional lessons.
Friday, 9 October 2009
Perforations on Kitchen Roll
This morning I’ve been making a birthday cake. It’s a perilous occupation. I have on my shoulders the weight of expectation of a 5 turning 6 year old and it’s heavy. A few weeks ago I heard him tell someone “my daddy knows how to make a cake shaped like a six”. Sh**, I thought. His daddy is working away in Bangladesh so it falls to me to achieve the perfection that everything must be when you are six and it is your most special day of the year.
Baby J was watching in her high chair, begging for bits of cake mixture with an open mouth like a fledgling, cheeping “me-me-me-me”. We were listening to Dame Ellen MacArthur on Desert Island Discs. Something Dame Ellen said resonated with me to the extent that I went to iPlayer and have listened again and transcribed it. (I am fortunate that the relatives of the show’s founder recently agreed to make it available on iPlayer! This interesting fact I had read in The Week and disregarded as irrelevant until today!)
Why am I spending my morning transcribing this when I should be concentrating on a cake? Because it’s easy to get bogged down in the world of motherhood. As important as that role is, I believe it helps to put things in a wider context. It’s so important to me to think and reflect and other people’s perspective can be so valuable as a prompt to evaluate your own life and priorities.
Dame Ellen said: “The winter after the Round the World I went down to the southern ocean again and I went down to an island called South Georgia and I spent two months down there, part of that was camping on an island and for the first time I actually stopped. And I realised something for the first time that really jarred inside me and that was the fact that when you sail around the world on a boat you take with you the minimum of resources and you don’t waste anything. You never leave a light on, you never leave a computer screen on, everything is looked after. You only have what you have and if it doesn’t last til the end, you won’t make it, and that could be your life or it could be the fact you simply don’t break the record.
And then whilst I was in South Georgia I realised that on land we do not do the same thing. We don’t see things as precious any more, we take what we have for granted, you’d never do that on a boat. If you need some kitchen roll you tear off a corner, not a whole square because someone somewhere thought that perforated line is what everyone needs. It jarred inside me and it started to make me think and I was looking at plans for the future and it just hit home to me that we cannot keep doing that because this world I thought as a child was the biggest most adventurous place you could imagine is actually not that big and there’s an awful lot of us on it and we’re not managing the resources that we have as you would on a boat because we don’t have the impression that these resources are limited.”
I love the comment about kitchen roll, I think it’s a great analogy for our wastefulness and arrogance about what we have – why use less when a whole piece is available – and the knock-on effect that an arbitrary decision can often have.
You can listen to the whole interview (for the next week) here.
Baby J was watching in her high chair, begging for bits of cake mixture with an open mouth like a fledgling, cheeping “me-me-me-me”. We were listening to Dame Ellen MacArthur on Desert Island Discs. Something Dame Ellen said resonated with me to the extent that I went to iPlayer and have listened again and transcribed it. (I am fortunate that the relatives of the show’s founder recently agreed to make it available on iPlayer! This interesting fact I had read in The Week and disregarded as irrelevant until today!)
Why am I spending my morning transcribing this when I should be concentrating on a cake? Because it’s easy to get bogged down in the world of motherhood. As important as that role is, I believe it helps to put things in a wider context. It’s so important to me to think and reflect and other people’s perspective can be so valuable as a prompt to evaluate your own life and priorities.
Dame Ellen said: “The winter after the Round the World I went down to the southern ocean again and I went down to an island called South Georgia and I spent two months down there, part of that was camping on an island and for the first time I actually stopped. And I realised something for the first time that really jarred inside me and that was the fact that when you sail around the world on a boat you take with you the minimum of resources and you don’t waste anything. You never leave a light on, you never leave a computer screen on, everything is looked after. You only have what you have and if it doesn’t last til the end, you won’t make it, and that could be your life or it could be the fact you simply don’t break the record.
And then whilst I was in South Georgia I realised that on land we do not do the same thing. We don’t see things as precious any more, we take what we have for granted, you’d never do that on a boat. If you need some kitchen roll you tear off a corner, not a whole square because someone somewhere thought that perforated line is what everyone needs. It jarred inside me and it started to make me think and I was looking at plans for the future and it just hit home to me that we cannot keep doing that because this world I thought as a child was the biggest most adventurous place you could imagine is actually not that big and there’s an awful lot of us on it and we’re not managing the resources that we have as you would on a boat because we don’t have the impression that these resources are limited.”
I love the comment about kitchen roll, I think it’s a great analogy for our wastefulness and arrogance about what we have – why use less when a whole piece is available – and the knock-on effect that an arbitrary decision can often have.
You can listen to the whole interview (for the next week) here.
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
A Mother's Tears
This morning I went to Town. I don’t like going to Town. I’ve adapted to living next to cows and green fields so that in Town I feel claustrophobic. It felt crowded; there were students everywhere, making me feel old in their frighteningly fashionable clothes. There were roadworks and ambulances and runners and cyclists and lots and lots of mums. Mums pushing prams with baby toes peeping out. Mums pushing buggies with grumpy toddlers who’d rather be walking. Mums with young babies scooped into car seats, smiling because the sun was coming out and they’d managed to leave the house. One mum had a white faux leather pram; I thought it was hideous, then had to remind myself that we are all different and it is those differences which made the world so exciting.
Another mother, walking down hill in a residential part of town, was crying. I wanted to stop and ask if I could help but there’s never anywhere to park quickly in Town.
All the way home I thought about her tears. Motherhood can be so isolating. You so badly want to do it right which just makes it worse when you feel you are doing it all wrong. Everyone else around you seems to be laughing and coping. You hear nauseating clichéd comments “I wouldn’t have it any other way!” What does that actually mean? Is it realistic to love every minute of motherhood? Of course I love my children and live in constant fear of them being run over on the way to school, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t moments when I wish they’d all go away and leave me alone.
I often wonder why we have children. Why do we put ourselves through these extraordinary years of relentless work and worry? In my cynical moments I decide we only have children so that we won’t be lonely at Christmas when we are old. I read somewhere that having a family is “life-enhancing” and despite my cynicism I can relate to that. I love the dynamic between my children (when they aren’t fighting) and enjoy the things they say and do with each other that make me laugh. But I still don’t think that enjoying and loving your children has to mean “you wouldn’t have it any other way”.
Having children is a tough choice, it changes your life. My life would have been very different if I’d committed to being a lawyer and strived for partnership. Over the years I have stood at crossroads and had to make decisions about which path to take. I feel that none of those paths have been right or wrong, they just lead to very different lives. When feeling down and finding things tough it's easy to pile on the self-blame thinking, "well, you chose this life". I've realised it's important to remember that just because you make a choice doesn’t mean everything about it will always be easy.
The scientific answer to why we have children is that we are biologically programmed to reproduce. Yes, I got to a stage in my life when having children felt like the right thing to do. Whether you stay at home with them is another difficult decision for a modern mother. In Town, stay-at-home mums were in abundance, striding across pavements with “I’m doing it right for my children” confidence. Last night on the news there was a feature on some research which had concluded that children of stay-at-home mums had healthier lifestyles. Or something, I wasn’t really listening, I was watching the pictures. A group of mums were at a music and movement group in a park, smiling ecstatically while their toddlers danced to Bob the Builder. I couldn’t help wondering how many smiles were real and how many mums were really thinking “I wish I was at home reading the paper”. Is this a dreadful secret that all mums carry? That very often we’d rather be using our brains than endlessly posting blocks through round holes? To my great relief, the Yummy Mummy who was interviewed as part of the news item completely dismissed the research and said “mums can’t win can they”!
It’s this solidarity of mums which has saved me – I am lucky to live in a fantastic community. My wish, for the sake of the crying mum who I saw this morning, is that we can all avoid the clichés and admit that mothering is hard. There are good days when you do love every moment and bad days when the trick is to just get through the day without yelling too much or crying. Yes, having children can be a wonderful and unique experience, even bettering - my life would be more lonely and selfish without my children and I’ve learnt a lot about myself and my less attractive traits by looking in the mirror of my children who reflect back what they see.
But motherhood can also be claustrophobic and utterly overwhelming. Children push us to our limits and attitudes of society pressure us to strive for perfection. “Never has parenting been such a self-conscious and guilt stricken affair.”* These are all issues I hope Emmeline, my fictional mum, will explore in the book I am planning. This morning on Radio 4 I heard someone say “human life is now too hurried. We need to take the time to find special moments; they can make such a difference.” I missed the context but have taken the phrase and a mother’s tears as a reminder that I must always find moments for my “mum” friends when they are struggling.
*Superpowers for Parents by Dr Stephen Briers
Another mother, walking down hill in a residential part of town, was crying. I wanted to stop and ask if I could help but there’s never anywhere to park quickly in Town.
All the way home I thought about her tears. Motherhood can be so isolating. You so badly want to do it right which just makes it worse when you feel you are doing it all wrong. Everyone else around you seems to be laughing and coping. You hear nauseating clichéd comments “I wouldn’t have it any other way!” What does that actually mean? Is it realistic to love every minute of motherhood? Of course I love my children and live in constant fear of them being run over on the way to school, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t moments when I wish they’d all go away and leave me alone.
I often wonder why we have children. Why do we put ourselves through these extraordinary years of relentless work and worry? In my cynical moments I decide we only have children so that we won’t be lonely at Christmas when we are old. I read somewhere that having a family is “life-enhancing” and despite my cynicism I can relate to that. I love the dynamic between my children (when they aren’t fighting) and enjoy the things they say and do with each other that make me laugh. But I still don’t think that enjoying and loving your children has to mean “you wouldn’t have it any other way”.
Having children is a tough choice, it changes your life. My life would have been very different if I’d committed to being a lawyer and strived for partnership. Over the years I have stood at crossroads and had to make decisions about which path to take. I feel that none of those paths have been right or wrong, they just lead to very different lives. When feeling down and finding things tough it's easy to pile on the self-blame thinking, "well, you chose this life". I've realised it's important to remember that just because you make a choice doesn’t mean everything about it will always be easy.
The scientific answer to why we have children is that we are biologically programmed to reproduce. Yes, I got to a stage in my life when having children felt like the right thing to do. Whether you stay at home with them is another difficult decision for a modern mother. In Town, stay-at-home mums were in abundance, striding across pavements with “I’m doing it right for my children” confidence. Last night on the news there was a feature on some research which had concluded that children of stay-at-home mums had healthier lifestyles. Or something, I wasn’t really listening, I was watching the pictures. A group of mums were at a music and movement group in a park, smiling ecstatically while their toddlers danced to Bob the Builder. I couldn’t help wondering how many smiles were real and how many mums were really thinking “I wish I was at home reading the paper”. Is this a dreadful secret that all mums carry? That very often we’d rather be using our brains than endlessly posting blocks through round holes? To my great relief, the Yummy Mummy who was interviewed as part of the news item completely dismissed the research and said “mums can’t win can they”!
It’s this solidarity of mums which has saved me – I am lucky to live in a fantastic community. My wish, for the sake of the crying mum who I saw this morning, is that we can all avoid the clichés and admit that mothering is hard. There are good days when you do love every moment and bad days when the trick is to just get through the day without yelling too much or crying. Yes, having children can be a wonderful and unique experience, even bettering - my life would be more lonely and selfish without my children and I’ve learnt a lot about myself and my less attractive traits by looking in the mirror of my children who reflect back what they see.
But motherhood can also be claustrophobic and utterly overwhelming. Children push us to our limits and attitudes of society pressure us to strive for perfection. “Never has parenting been such a self-conscious and guilt stricken affair.”* These are all issues I hope Emmeline, my fictional mum, will explore in the book I am planning. This morning on Radio 4 I heard someone say “human life is now too hurried. We need to take the time to find special moments; they can make such a difference.” I missed the context but have taken the phrase and a mother’s tears as a reminder that I must always find moments for my “mum” friends when they are struggling.
*Superpowers for Parents by Dr Stephen Briers
Monday, 28 September 2009
Love My Rifle More Than You by Kayla Williams
Kayla Williams enlisted in the US army at the age of twenty-three and learnt Arabic in order to be Military Intelligence. She was posted to Iraq, staying for a year. This book was sold as telling how it was to be “Young and Female in the US Army.”
On some pages I was really disappointed, on others I was fascinated. The beginning is frustrating, lots of anecdotes about the injustices of sexual inequality then compromising paragraphs about “partying with the guys” and having casual sex. I’d heard Williams on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and was attracted to the book by her seeming intelligence and eloquence. This I was not getting from Love My Rifle. Just a lot of sex and swearing.
However, once in Iraq, in between the swearing and gripes about the reality of being female, there were interesting insights. All depressing.
War is degrading and dehumanising. It turns people crazy so that they do things they wouldn’t normally do. Williams describes the situations they live in; the clothes you have to wear, the heat, the deprivations, no showers or toilets - if you had dysentery, would you like to deal with it holding a plastic bag to your mouth and one to your backside with nowhere to wash? And the pressure of wondering if you are going to get killed, what that does to you and your attitude towards locals – “If you see someone heading toward you, he could be approaching to offer you information. He could have an explosive device strapped to his waist and be about to kill you. He might want to ask for food. You have to make that call – instantaneously...It did occur to me that I was seeing a part of myself I would never have seen otherwise”.
But if you spend time in this aggressive and unnatural environment, you’re going to lose the connection to what is normal and acceptable in regular society. Williams’ war wasn’t really about killing people but about living in uncomfortable conditions doing not a lot that seems productive. This book allowed me a little more understanding about how people can be warped into committing atrocities. It made me think that war, the way it’s fought and lived, can never be productive for anyone on any side.
It was the small, seemingly insignificant details which I found most distressing and did most damage to my opinion of the US army. For example, when they are in convoy they hurl their rubbish out of the trucks. I imagined thousands of American soldiers littering Iraq with plastic bottles and chocolate wrappers, an image of utter ignorance and disrespect.
Williams describes the depressing incompetence of the military; inept officers; no apparent coherent strategy; soldiers just hanging around getting nervous and as a result intimidating Iraqis; orders to secure locations with razor wire, ending healthy and uplifting interaction with local people. “You had to wonder if the subsequent souring of relations with the locals was connected to the escalation in our security. Whether when you cut people’s access off to their religious shrines and began to treat them like criminals, they then maybe started to act like criminals?”
There were sections of the book when I felt Williams belittles her intelligence and let herself down – but then she was just being honest about what she’d done and they were aspects of her character I wasn’t so keen on – she admits she learnt much from the army. I’m still not sure what work she actually DID, “running ops” was just listening I think, but that’s probably just a fault of my ignorance. But her reflections and mental wrangling were interesting – and reassuring. Speaking Arabic she is able to interact and relate to Iraqis on a positive level, they’re not all just “the enemy” a categorisation she admits many soldiers default to when they are constantly being shot at or ambushed. It’s interesting to see her culture shock when she returns home, how she views her compatriots having seen a very different life. “Everyone in America was fat. Everyone was on some stupid diet. How could a diet encourage you to eat bacon and forbid you to eat bananas?”
She’s not positive about the war; she went into the army for financial rather than ideological reasons. Was that foolish or naive? But at least she questions the deeper purpose of what exactly was trying to be achieved in Iraq. “The more we know about what brought about this war in the first place, the harder and harder it gets. It was a year of my life. And what the fuck for? What was it all about? Not having an answer for that makes it hard. Makes it feel dirty.” Soldiers are professional; war is what they’re paid to do. That may be so, but as this book so vividly shows, soldiers are also human.
As for the reflections on being Young and Female in the US Army, this is a tough issue. If you are a female in a male dominated environment, do you put up and shut up or do you feel angry about men looking at your boobs as you walk across the “chow” hall? Surrounded by hundreds of young men, full of fear and adrenaline, sexually frustrated, can you do your job properly or is the sexually-discriminating reality that you are, as a woman, by definition a distraction, a temptation, however good at your job you might be? Can there ever be true equality in such an unnatural social situation?
On some pages I was really disappointed, on others I was fascinated. The beginning is frustrating, lots of anecdotes about the injustices of sexual inequality then compromising paragraphs about “partying with the guys” and having casual sex. I’d heard Williams on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and was attracted to the book by her seeming intelligence and eloquence. This I was not getting from Love My Rifle. Just a lot of sex and swearing.
However, once in Iraq, in between the swearing and gripes about the reality of being female, there were interesting insights. All depressing.
War is degrading and dehumanising. It turns people crazy so that they do things they wouldn’t normally do. Williams describes the situations they live in; the clothes you have to wear, the heat, the deprivations, no showers or toilets - if you had dysentery, would you like to deal with it holding a plastic bag to your mouth and one to your backside with nowhere to wash? And the pressure of wondering if you are going to get killed, what that does to you and your attitude towards locals – “If you see someone heading toward you, he could be approaching to offer you information. He could have an explosive device strapped to his waist and be about to kill you. He might want to ask for food. You have to make that call – instantaneously...It did occur to me that I was seeing a part of myself I would never have seen otherwise”.
But if you spend time in this aggressive and unnatural environment, you’re going to lose the connection to what is normal and acceptable in regular society. Williams’ war wasn’t really about killing people but about living in uncomfortable conditions doing not a lot that seems productive. This book allowed me a little more understanding about how people can be warped into committing atrocities. It made me think that war, the way it’s fought and lived, can never be productive for anyone on any side.
It was the small, seemingly insignificant details which I found most distressing and did most damage to my opinion of the US army. For example, when they are in convoy they hurl their rubbish out of the trucks. I imagined thousands of American soldiers littering Iraq with plastic bottles and chocolate wrappers, an image of utter ignorance and disrespect.
Williams describes the depressing incompetence of the military; inept officers; no apparent coherent strategy; soldiers just hanging around getting nervous and as a result intimidating Iraqis; orders to secure locations with razor wire, ending healthy and uplifting interaction with local people. “You had to wonder if the subsequent souring of relations with the locals was connected to the escalation in our security. Whether when you cut people’s access off to their religious shrines and began to treat them like criminals, they then maybe started to act like criminals?”
There were sections of the book when I felt Williams belittles her intelligence and let herself down – but then she was just being honest about what she’d done and they were aspects of her character I wasn’t so keen on – she admits she learnt much from the army. I’m still not sure what work she actually DID, “running ops” was just listening I think, but that’s probably just a fault of my ignorance. But her reflections and mental wrangling were interesting – and reassuring. Speaking Arabic she is able to interact and relate to Iraqis on a positive level, they’re not all just “the enemy” a categorisation she admits many soldiers default to when they are constantly being shot at or ambushed. It’s interesting to see her culture shock when she returns home, how she views her compatriots having seen a very different life. “Everyone in America was fat. Everyone was on some stupid diet. How could a diet encourage you to eat bacon and forbid you to eat bananas?”
She’s not positive about the war; she went into the army for financial rather than ideological reasons. Was that foolish or naive? But at least she questions the deeper purpose of what exactly was trying to be achieved in Iraq. “The more we know about what brought about this war in the first place, the harder and harder it gets. It was a year of my life. And what the fuck for? What was it all about? Not having an answer for that makes it hard. Makes it feel dirty.” Soldiers are professional; war is what they’re paid to do. That may be so, but as this book so vividly shows, soldiers are also human.
As for the reflections on being Young and Female in the US Army, this is a tough issue. If you are a female in a male dominated environment, do you put up and shut up or do you feel angry about men looking at your boobs as you walk across the “chow” hall? Surrounded by hundreds of young men, full of fear and adrenaline, sexually frustrated, can you do your job properly or is the sexually-discriminating reality that you are, as a woman, by definition a distraction, a temptation, however good at your job you might be? Can there ever be true equality in such an unnatural social situation?
Monday, 21 September 2009
Role Model
There is no doubt that parents are role models for their children. One of the saddest thing I've heard recently involves pupils in a school in a deprived area of Kent. A friend of mine teaches there and he told me that if you ask children in his class what they want to be when they grow up, they tell you they want to be on benefits. They can aspire to nothing else if every adult they see makes claiming benefits their entire vocation.
Many feminists accuse stay at home mums of being bad role models for their daughters - will daughters aspire to anything other than homemaking if they don't see their mothers working? This argument may have its roots in the guilt of working mothers; a convenient excuse for their absence. The relationship between feminism and what it means to be a modern woman and mother are complex; issues I’ve written about before and will keep coming back to. I write about this today because at tea time my sons gave me a strong illustration of the power of role models and gender stereotypes.
I was bustling around in my usual way, fetching drinks and mopping up when T, the five year old, commented "it's hard being a mummy, that's why I'm glad I'm a boy". "We will go to work when we're daddies won't we" B, the three year old added. Baby J smiled at me from her chair. Although I was amused by their simplification of life - mummy mops up spilt milk, daddy goes to work, I hope, for my daughter's sake, they will learn that these roles can cross gender boundaries. A positive aspect of our complicated modern society is that women are no longer forced into roles by etiquette and expectation. As my children understand more about my life I hope they will appreciate that I have enjoyed a variety of vocations and have chosen to be a housewife. An important example I wish to teach them is that a worthy goal to work towards is the luxury of choice.
Many feminists accuse stay at home mums of being bad role models for their daughters - will daughters aspire to anything other than homemaking if they don't see their mothers working? This argument may have its roots in the guilt of working mothers; a convenient excuse for their absence. The relationship between feminism and what it means to be a modern woman and mother are complex; issues I’ve written about before and will keep coming back to. I write about this today because at tea time my sons gave me a strong illustration of the power of role models and gender stereotypes.
I was bustling around in my usual way, fetching drinks and mopping up when T, the five year old, commented "it's hard being a mummy, that's why I'm glad I'm a boy". "We will go to work when we're daddies won't we" B, the three year old added. Baby J smiled at me from her chair. Although I was amused by their simplification of life - mummy mops up spilt milk, daddy goes to work, I hope, for my daughter's sake, they will learn that these roles can cross gender boundaries. A positive aspect of our complicated modern society is that women are no longer forced into roles by etiquette and expectation. As my children understand more about my life I hope they will appreciate that I have enjoyed a variety of vocations and have chosen to be a housewife. An important example I wish to teach them is that a worthy goal to work towards is the luxury of choice.
Sunday, 20 September 2009
Reflections on New Tarmac
Isn’t it depressing when, trying to clean the house, your children manage to mess up where you’ve been by the time you get to the other end of the room.
In the same way I feel for the workmen resurfacing a road in our village. As it goes down the tarmac is black and glossy, the surface pristine. By the time they’ve altered the contra-flow and let us all back on, it’s marred by dust and encrusted with horse poo.
How disheartening for the men to end the week with an already imperfect road.
In the same way I feel for the workmen resurfacing a road in our village. As it goes down the tarmac is black and glossy, the surface pristine. By the time they’ve altered the contra-flow and let us all back on, it’s marred by dust and encrusted with horse poo.
How disheartening for the men to end the week with an already imperfect road.
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Let's Play Pirates!
We have been lent some garden toys by a friend who’s having an extension done and can’t currently use them in their garden. They arrived at the weekend, a slide and a plastic caterpillar tunnel. B, the three year old, immediately climbed on top of the tunnel and said “it’s a pirate ship” and the boys launched into huge game of being pirates at sea. It was great to see their creativity.
Watching them I wondered where they first learn about pirates. Pirates are not part of everyday life, at least not in our village, so the concept must be introduced to them. Normally make believe games reflect what children see in the world around them, they play “going to the doctor”, “mums and dads”, “shopping at the supermarket”. “Pirates”, I realised, is a game we actively introduce to our children. And I couldn’t help but wonder why.
Pirates are violent criminals. I’m not just thinking about those off the coast of Somalia, even cartoon pirates carry cutlasses, walk the plank, fly a flag with a skull on it and go through life with the intention of stealing someone else’s treasure, or at least beating someone else to the treasure. But, despite these criminal undertones, “pirates” has been identified as a theme appealing to little boys – along with dinosaurs, farmers, and builders – and incorporated into children’s culture. There are books and television programmes about pirates, people theme birthday parties around pirates, toy manufacturers produce toys and dressing up outfits and you can buy games, cards and clothes with pirates on. Pirates are deemed socially acceptable.
It occurred to me it’s an odd thing to encourage boys to play. Do children even really know what pirates do? They know what they are taught, the parody of cartoon pirates, so wear handkerchiefs on their heads and say “ah-ha me hearties”. But I wondered what my boys would answer if I asked them what pirates do. They know what farmers do, they know what builders do. “Pirates” are just good fun, oddly dressed men who sail around on ships all day.
Watching my boys today I thought how refreshingly different this was in our modern society obsessed with what’s politically correct and “nice”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not disapproving of playing pirates, just sharing a thought process. I was told today about a little girl who came home from pre-school singing “baa baa rainbow sheep”. In our paranoid society where sheep are not even allowed to be black any more, pirates have slipped through the “niceness” net. I wonder how long it will be before an anxious official realises this and decides pirates should come off the list of approved games so our children can no longer play pirates without taboo.
Watching them I wondered where they first learn about pirates. Pirates are not part of everyday life, at least not in our village, so the concept must be introduced to them. Normally make believe games reflect what children see in the world around them, they play “going to the doctor”, “mums and dads”, “shopping at the supermarket”. “Pirates”, I realised, is a game we actively introduce to our children. And I couldn’t help but wonder why.
Pirates are violent criminals. I’m not just thinking about those off the coast of Somalia, even cartoon pirates carry cutlasses, walk the plank, fly a flag with a skull on it and go through life with the intention of stealing someone else’s treasure, or at least beating someone else to the treasure. But, despite these criminal undertones, “pirates” has been identified as a theme appealing to little boys – along with dinosaurs, farmers, and builders – and incorporated into children’s culture. There are books and television programmes about pirates, people theme birthday parties around pirates, toy manufacturers produce toys and dressing up outfits and you can buy games, cards and clothes with pirates on. Pirates are deemed socially acceptable.
It occurred to me it’s an odd thing to encourage boys to play. Do children even really know what pirates do? They know what they are taught, the parody of cartoon pirates, so wear handkerchiefs on their heads and say “ah-ha me hearties”. But I wondered what my boys would answer if I asked them what pirates do. They know what farmers do, they know what builders do. “Pirates” are just good fun, oddly dressed men who sail around on ships all day.
Watching my boys today I thought how refreshingly different this was in our modern society obsessed with what’s politically correct and “nice”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not disapproving of playing pirates, just sharing a thought process. I was told today about a little girl who came home from pre-school singing “baa baa rainbow sheep”. In our paranoid society where sheep are not even allowed to be black any more, pirates have slipped through the “niceness” net. I wonder how long it will be before an anxious official realises this and decides pirates should come off the list of approved games so our children can no longer play pirates without taboo.
Friday, 5 June 2009
Saffia Farr on Saffia Corden
I cannot believe there have been ten years of Big Brother. I’m not a fan but it’s become an unwanted milestone of the year, so much so that a period of my life can be measured against it.
When the Big Brother phenomenon first dominated I was still working as a lawyer in London. I did not join the craze and watch it but it still impacted on my life – friends would agree to meet for the evening, but only if they could stop to watch the Big Brother update at 11pm.
The only year I paid any attention was when we were living in Aswan in southern Egypt. I had few friends and little social life so, I am almost ashamed to admit, I became very attached to the housemates. Every morning when my husband left for work I would go on line and vicariously live a piece of home by catching up with their news. I was also listening to Wimbledon on-line, a frustrating occupation as we often lost connection and Tim Henman kept almost losing. Big Brother was great entertainment for a lonely ex-pat. That was the year of Jade Goody.
Since then I have had no interest in Big Brother, I could not tell you who won or name any of the contestants since Jade. This year, however, I’m feeling myself inexorably drawn in because a housemate has my name! Last night my brother texted me with the news. I turned on the television and had the odd experience of seeing MY name on the screen behind Davina McCall.
It’s not always easy being Saffia. Most people pronounce it wrong and everyone spells it differently. When I was at school I hated it, wishing I was called Sarah as another new teacher stumbled when she came to me in the register. As an adult I love my name and its relative uniqueness – until now the only other Saffia I knew of was the one I was named after.
Sadly that is all to change as a Saffia enters the ubiquitous Big Brother house. Saffia will now become a household name, more children will be called Saffia and I will lose my insignificant air of mystique. I have some comfort in that her Saffia is pronounced differently, but pronunciation counts for nothing on the Internet.
It’s also slightly worrying that the other Saffia is already controversial, not the greatest role model for our name. Saffia Corden is also a mother. She has two children, one just seven months old I learnt when I googled our name last night. There was already outrage at her leaving her children for reality TV. Saffia was already a “b*tch”, “selfish”, accused of a “kind of child abuse”. “Can you imagine how the kid will despise its mum in years to come when the BB scrapbook is brought out?” people were asking in chat rooms. “A baby of 7 months old will change DRAMATICALLY (if she stayed in the house for the full three months), how could anyone miss out on their child’s life for Big Brother?!” Other contributors suggested calm, saying she should take this chance if she had it, but the general conclusion about Saffia was negative.
I agreed with some of the sentiments – I feel guilty for leaving my children to go to a pilates class - but was surprised by the speed of the vitriol. As my blog is about motherhood I’m wondering if anyone will get confused and start sending me hate-mail-e-cards, Internet Howlers. Only time will tell what the Big Brother media spotlight will do to my much loved name. But right now I’m feeling nostalgic for the old days of Saffia obscurity.
When the Big Brother phenomenon first dominated I was still working as a lawyer in London. I did not join the craze and watch it but it still impacted on my life – friends would agree to meet for the evening, but only if they could stop to watch the Big Brother update at 11pm.
The only year I paid any attention was when we were living in Aswan in southern Egypt. I had few friends and little social life so, I am almost ashamed to admit, I became very attached to the housemates. Every morning when my husband left for work I would go on line and vicariously live a piece of home by catching up with their news. I was also listening to Wimbledon on-line, a frustrating occupation as we often lost connection and Tim Henman kept almost losing. Big Brother was great entertainment for a lonely ex-pat. That was the year of Jade Goody.
Since then I have had no interest in Big Brother, I could not tell you who won or name any of the contestants since Jade. This year, however, I’m feeling myself inexorably drawn in because a housemate has my name! Last night my brother texted me with the news. I turned on the television and had the odd experience of seeing MY name on the screen behind Davina McCall.
It’s not always easy being Saffia. Most people pronounce it wrong and everyone spells it differently. When I was at school I hated it, wishing I was called Sarah as another new teacher stumbled when she came to me in the register. As an adult I love my name and its relative uniqueness – until now the only other Saffia I knew of was the one I was named after.
Sadly that is all to change as a Saffia enters the ubiquitous Big Brother house. Saffia will now become a household name, more children will be called Saffia and I will lose my insignificant air of mystique. I have some comfort in that her Saffia is pronounced differently, but pronunciation counts for nothing on the Internet.
It’s also slightly worrying that the other Saffia is already controversial, not the greatest role model for our name. Saffia Corden is also a mother. She has two children, one just seven months old I learnt when I googled our name last night. There was already outrage at her leaving her children for reality TV. Saffia was already a “b*tch”, “selfish”, accused of a “kind of child abuse”. “Can you imagine how the kid will despise its mum in years to come when the BB scrapbook is brought out?” people were asking in chat rooms. “A baby of 7 months old will change DRAMATICALLY (if she stayed in the house for the full three months), how could anyone miss out on their child’s life for Big Brother?!” Other contributors suggested calm, saying she should take this chance if she had it, but the general conclusion about Saffia was negative.
I agreed with some of the sentiments – I feel guilty for leaving my children to go to a pilates class - but was surprised by the speed of the vitriol. As my blog is about motherhood I’m wondering if anyone will get confused and start sending me hate-mail-e-cards, Internet Howlers. Only time will tell what the Big Brother media spotlight will do to my much loved name. But right now I’m feeling nostalgic for the old days of Saffia obscurity.
Friday, 29 May 2009
The Hollie Steel dilemma
It’s very unlike me but I have been watching Britain’s Got Talent. As a mother I felt slightly strange watching Hollie Steel tonight. She was clearly struggling and then broke down, pleaded to be allowed to start again and lost it when she was told that was not possible – just like a ten year old would. She reminded me of my five year old when his artwork doesn’t go the way he wants it – but Hollie was doing this in front of millions of people on live TV. Should she have been there at all?
Her mum was clearly anxious, leaping onto the stage, and with her as she faced the final vote. I felt nervous watching it at home. Hollie is through to the final but, as I prepare to go to sleep tonight, I can’t help wondering whether the right decision would have been for the judges to send her home. Should she be repeating the ordeal tomorrow night or spending the weekend preparing for a return to school like a normal ten year old? Would that be a happier end to half term or is it okay to let her chase her dream in front of the whole world?
Her mum was clearly anxious, leaping onto the stage, and with her as she faced the final vote. I felt nervous watching it at home. Hollie is through to the final but, as I prepare to go to sleep tonight, I can’t help wondering whether the right decision would have been for the judges to send her home. Should she be repeating the ordeal tomorrow night or spending the weekend preparing for a return to school like a normal ten year old? Would that be a happier end to half term or is it okay to let her chase her dream in front of the whole world?
Thursday, 7 May 2009
Food for Thought
I was supposed to go to the gym this evening but instead felt I had to stay in and write this blog. I’m sure you’re thinking “yeah right, good excuse for being lazy”. But there is a reason deeper than lethargy.
This afternoon I had tea with Bishop Alphonse and his wife Evelyne from Nebbi Diocese in northern Uganda. I have a link with Nebbi Diocese because I lived there for four months after law school. I stayed with the then Bishop and his family. He’s now Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Luke Orombi, who you may have seen in western media due to his controversial thoughts on homosexuality.
I warmed immediately to Bishop Alphonse. He is a gentle man, softly spoken, wise words drifting from his lips if you listened above the tumult of children and afternoon tea. The cadence of his voice took me back to my days in Nebbi when I listened to the tribal language Alur and smelt the smoke of cooking fires. Bishop Aphonse told me I would see changes if I went back. “Food is now short” he said simply. He explained that due to lack of rain the crops have failed and people are hungry. “We have nothing; our supermarkets are our gardens. People eat one meal of porridge a day after long hours of work. Mothers stay in the garden so they can’t hear their babies crying.” Can we help? I asked, can we send some bags of rice or maize flour? “But that will only help very few for a short time,” he said wisely “and will cause problems with those we cannot help.”
I couldn’t eat my sandwich. Neither could I go to the gym. I felt it was wrong to go and burn calories from excess food when I’d heard about true hunger. So I’ve stayed at home to pass out this message.
We sometimes say we’re hungry but we know nothing of hunger. I recently read an essay by Katherine Barrett*, a Canadian currently living in South Africa. She describes how what she’s seen in South Africa has caused her to “recalibrate her scale of hardship”. She writes about her daily struggles of bringing up three small children, then shows how she’s learnt what real struggles are – camping in temporary shelters; worrying about xenophobic violence; scraping together enough food for a family enhanced by orphans taken in through selfless kindness.
I’m not sure what we can do, maybe understanding and trying to appreciate the cliché of how lucky we are is a good start. Bishop Alphonse said they hope to have crops by July. Until then, he was not sure what would happen to his flock, hoping, vaguely, that the government would help.
Today it’s raining and we’re complaining it’s cool for May. But people in Nebbi are starving because it’s not rained enough on them. When I lived with Archbishop Henry he told me that rain was a blessing. Now I’m starting to understand why.
* Carrying On by Katherine Barrett is featured in the recently published Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering edited by Suzanne Kamata. It’s a wonderful and thought provoking book which I will be reviewing on this blog as soon as I’ve finished it!
This afternoon I had tea with Bishop Alphonse and his wife Evelyne from Nebbi Diocese in northern Uganda. I have a link with Nebbi Diocese because I lived there for four months after law school. I stayed with the then Bishop and his family. He’s now Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Luke Orombi, who you may have seen in western media due to his controversial thoughts on homosexuality.
I warmed immediately to Bishop Alphonse. He is a gentle man, softly spoken, wise words drifting from his lips if you listened above the tumult of children and afternoon tea. The cadence of his voice took me back to my days in Nebbi when I listened to the tribal language Alur and smelt the smoke of cooking fires. Bishop Aphonse told me I would see changes if I went back. “Food is now short” he said simply. He explained that due to lack of rain the crops have failed and people are hungry. “We have nothing; our supermarkets are our gardens. People eat one meal of porridge a day after long hours of work. Mothers stay in the garden so they can’t hear their babies crying.” Can we help? I asked, can we send some bags of rice or maize flour? “But that will only help very few for a short time,” he said wisely “and will cause problems with those we cannot help.”
I couldn’t eat my sandwich. Neither could I go to the gym. I felt it was wrong to go and burn calories from excess food when I’d heard about true hunger. So I’ve stayed at home to pass out this message.
We sometimes say we’re hungry but we know nothing of hunger. I recently read an essay by Katherine Barrett*, a Canadian currently living in South Africa. She describes how what she’s seen in South Africa has caused her to “recalibrate her scale of hardship”. She writes about her daily struggles of bringing up three small children, then shows how she’s learnt what real struggles are – camping in temporary shelters; worrying about xenophobic violence; scraping together enough food for a family enhanced by orphans taken in through selfless kindness.
I’m not sure what we can do, maybe understanding and trying to appreciate the cliché of how lucky we are is a good start. Bishop Alphonse said they hope to have crops by July. Until then, he was not sure what would happen to his flock, hoping, vaguely, that the government would help.
Today it’s raining and we’re complaining it’s cool for May. But people in Nebbi are starving because it’s not rained enough on them. When I lived with Archbishop Henry he told me that rain was a blessing. Now I’m starting to understand why.
* Carrying On by Katherine Barrett is featured in the recently published Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering edited by Suzanne Kamata. It’s a wonderful and thought provoking book which I will be reviewing on this blog as soon as I’ve finished it!
Friday, 6 February 2009
But well done Dave the milkman!
I forgot, in my rant about schools closing, that I wanted to counter the negativity by saying thank you to Dave the milkman. At 8 this morning, when everyone seemed to be giving up for the day, he arrived on the doorstep with our milk. This was extra impressive because we live down a very narrow country lane which is never salted. We were about to run out of milk so his perseverance and commitment saved me a lot of hassle. Well done and thank you to Dave from Dairy Crest!
A bit of snow and we all give up!
Okay, so we’ve had the worst snow in years but I still think they close the schools too easily these days. My eldest son goes to the village school where most people walk, or could walk to school, and yet it has been closed for two days. By mid-morning roads were easily passable and I know lots of people were travelling about to see friends and family – if travel logistics were the reason for closing, why could they not have just opened school later?
I hope that whoever was responsible for closing the school – the headmistress, teachers who didn’t make enough effort to get in, overly-cautious council officials – feel ashamed of their over-reaction, especially when watching stories on the news about conscientious nurses who walked for two hours to make sure they got to work and honoured their commitments.
Closing the school sets a bad example to the children. What it says to them is that when things get tough we just give up. Surely it would be more inspiring, and in keeping with the school's ethos, to adapt and pull together, to rise to the challenge of a snowy day rather than give in to slight inconvenience.
I’ve drafted an email to the headmistress and governors expressing my disappointment; I’m sure they’ll be delighted to hear from me and I’m still undecided on whether to press send. I have no illusions that it will make any difference; it will just leave me earmarked as a pain in the arse. But is it not important to speak up and let officials know that we don’t all agree with their defeatist attitude?
I’m sure there were many concerns for “health and safety”. Of course we must give consideration to safety but I do believe that reasoning is over-used in current society. Parents are capable of taking more time and using more care in getting their children to school and the pupils at the school are of the calibre to understand why they might not, for example, be allowed to play in certain areas of the playground that day. Wouldn’t it be more impressive if the school administration showed it had more strength of character, that it wasn't going to feebly give up because some litigious minded official suggested it should?
One of the school’s strengths is that it is part of the village community and on days like today I think it should be proudly functioning, like many other aspects of our hard working community were despite the snow, thanks to the determination of many people. Perseverance is a virtue missing to the detriment of today’s society and we can only teach our children that through example.
I hope that whoever was responsible for closing the school – the headmistress, teachers who didn’t make enough effort to get in, overly-cautious council officials – feel ashamed of their over-reaction, especially when watching stories on the news about conscientious nurses who walked for two hours to make sure they got to work and honoured their commitments.
Closing the school sets a bad example to the children. What it says to them is that when things get tough we just give up. Surely it would be more inspiring, and in keeping with the school's ethos, to adapt and pull together, to rise to the challenge of a snowy day rather than give in to slight inconvenience.
I’ve drafted an email to the headmistress and governors expressing my disappointment; I’m sure they’ll be delighted to hear from me and I’m still undecided on whether to press send. I have no illusions that it will make any difference; it will just leave me earmarked as a pain in the arse. But is it not important to speak up and let officials know that we don’t all agree with their defeatist attitude?
I’m sure there were many concerns for “health and safety”. Of course we must give consideration to safety but I do believe that reasoning is over-used in current society. Parents are capable of taking more time and using more care in getting their children to school and the pupils at the school are of the calibre to understand why they might not, for example, be allowed to play in certain areas of the playground that day. Wouldn’t it be more impressive if the school administration showed it had more strength of character, that it wasn't going to feebly give up because some litigious minded official suggested it should?
One of the school’s strengths is that it is part of the village community and on days like today I think it should be proudly functioning, like many other aspects of our hard working community were despite the snow, thanks to the determination of many people. Perseverance is a virtue missing to the detriment of today’s society and we can only teach our children that through example.
Friday, 16 January 2009
The enduring magic of Enid Blyton
Back to school, back to blog. The holidays flashed by without a moment to write. I was too busy playing Guess Who with my children. It was great fun; the old games are the best - as are the old books. A good example is The Faraway Tree series by Enid Blyton, one of my childhood favourites. I remember spending hours reading and loving those books so, before Christmas, I went on line to Amazon to buy new copies. I was horrified to discover, courtesy of the wonderfully scathing Amazon reader reviews, that versions published today have been edited by politically correct idiots. Jo, Bessie and Fannie are now Joe, Beth and Frannie. WHY? Many chapters have been completely removed. Its original innocence has been modified: it’s not considered appropriate for the girls to help Mother with the ironing while Jo digs the garden with Father.
As one Amazon reviewer puts it, it’s pathetic. Enid Blyton is a piece of social history, why do we have to insult our children by hiding the true style of these books from them? Even my five year old can understand they were written years ago when words and lifestyles were different. Rather than being problematic for modern children, I think the characters serve as good role models – Jo, Bessie and Fannie are helpful, respectful, able to entertain themselves and wonderfully grateful – Jo makes terribly appreciative noises when his mother promises them jacket potatoes with butter for supper!
It's very sad that publishers feel they have to tamper with these books. Many modern readers may hanker after this seemingly golden era when children had freedom – Mother doesn’t flinch when three children under 10 creep in at midnight after wandering around in a wood. And in contrast, why should we be ashamed of the “bad” characters who do things no longer socially acceptable? My son can cope with stories about Dame Slap, a rogue teacher who slaps naughty pupils and locks them in cupboards. She’s a character, in a book, why does she have to be edited as if to assuage some shame about the way things were done in the past?
I am loving watching my children enjoying these books. They are completely absorbed and, like I was, wrapped up in the stories, transported, so that they talk about the characters, wonder what might happen, discuss scenarios or what should have been done, pretend to be Saucepan Man and play at visiting different lands.
My copies have pages falling out where I’ve read them so much. In respect to Enid Blyton and her imagination, and in protest of the absurd abuse of these precious books, I will be buying my children second hand copies of original versions on Ebay.
As one Amazon reviewer puts it, it’s pathetic. Enid Blyton is a piece of social history, why do we have to insult our children by hiding the true style of these books from them? Even my five year old can understand they were written years ago when words and lifestyles were different. Rather than being problematic for modern children, I think the characters serve as good role models – Jo, Bessie and Fannie are helpful, respectful, able to entertain themselves and wonderfully grateful – Jo makes terribly appreciative noises when his mother promises them jacket potatoes with butter for supper!
It's very sad that publishers feel they have to tamper with these books. Many modern readers may hanker after this seemingly golden era when children had freedom – Mother doesn’t flinch when three children under 10 creep in at midnight after wandering around in a wood. And in contrast, why should we be ashamed of the “bad” characters who do things no longer socially acceptable? My son can cope with stories about Dame Slap, a rogue teacher who slaps naughty pupils and locks them in cupboards. She’s a character, in a book, why does she have to be edited as if to assuage some shame about the way things were done in the past?
I am loving watching my children enjoying these books. They are completely absorbed and, like I was, wrapped up in the stories, transported, so that they talk about the characters, wonder what might happen, discuss scenarios or what should have been done, pretend to be Saucepan Man and play at visiting different lands.
My copies have pages falling out where I’ve read them so much. In respect to Enid Blyton and her imagination, and in protest of the absurd abuse of these precious books, I will be buying my children second hand copies of original versions on Ebay.
Tuesday, 2 December 2008
Toys R Us
Toys R Us, I’ve decided, is an odious place. You go in there with a list and rational intentions but once inside get sucked into a panic that your child needs one of everything in the shop for a fulfilled life. I think it’s the noise that disturbs your mind. In every aisle a different jingle is playing. It’s hard to make a sensible decision about playmobil when “Baby Born Baby Born” is ringing in one ear and Dora the Explorer chatting in the other.
My husband says I’m miserable and it’s fun but no-one else there looked like they were having fun. They all had gloomy faces, wandering aimlessly round and round the shop looking for what they really came for while wondering how they were going to afford the huge boxes which seemed to have found the way into their trolleys.
I finally lost all hope when trying to chose a puzzle and went instead to some alternative toy outlets – charity shops. There I bought four puzzles for the cost of about three pieces of a puzzle in Toys R Us. Charity shops and nearly new sales are wonderful places for children’s toys. Why pay a premium for something new when your little dears will break or bend or scratch or lose bits of the toy within minutes. Second hand toys are economic and the ultimate in recycling. Sorry Toys R Us, I’m doing my Christmas shopping with The Heart Foundation.
My husband says I’m miserable and it’s fun but no-one else there looked like they were having fun. They all had gloomy faces, wandering aimlessly round and round the shop looking for what they really came for while wondering how they were going to afford the huge boxes which seemed to have found the way into their trolleys.
I finally lost all hope when trying to chose a puzzle and went instead to some alternative toy outlets – charity shops. There I bought four puzzles for the cost of about three pieces of a puzzle in Toys R Us. Charity shops and nearly new sales are wonderful places for children’s toys. Why pay a premium for something new when your little dears will break or bend or scratch or lose bits of the toy within minutes. Second hand toys are economic and the ultimate in recycling. Sorry Toys R Us, I’m doing my Christmas shopping with The Heart Foundation.
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