Parents' Forum

I was at a conference recently and a debate started about the book bag. For those of you who don’t have children at primary school in the UK a book bag is a bag in which children bring home their reading books from school. As well as books the bag contains a document which the parent has to sign off to prove to the teacher that thet have read the school books with their children.

The debate went something like this (and I have to admit I was part of this). “I resent having to prove to the teacher that I have read these school books to my child. In fact I read much more interesting books than the ones they give them at school. What I do is write on the paper that my child has read a “home book” and put the title on the paper.” The other category of parent said:”I shouldn’t have to prove that I read these books to the teacher. I refuse to sign the paper.”

But are these parents misguided? Is it unreasonable for schools to send books home with the kids; and, yes, in an ideal world, we wouldn’t have to sign things off…but aren’t these parents undermining the teachers with their reaction to the book bag? Aren’t we just trying to prove what a superior parent we are having a whole load of home books and refusing to abide by the rules and creating our own way of doing things. In effect aren’t we being a right royal pain in the arse? Should we be setting our kids a lesson by helping them do what is asked of them by their teacher?

March 2010 7pm

In our seemingly ceaseless appetite to problematise teenagers, the latest discussion is the sexualisation of children. Cameron and Balls are fighting it out as to who identified this issue first, and who can introduce the most regulations against advertisers.

This forum critically examines are children being sexualized? What does this mean? What is the content of the strategies proposed to counteract this alleged sexualisation and what do they mean for how we think about children, sex, and adult authority.

The forum will be introduced by Dr Jan McVarish.
Dr Jan Macvarish is a researcher and lecturer at the University of Kent. Her interests lie in the sociology of interpersonal relationships, parenting, family life, sex and intimacy.

Contact Jane Sandeman at parents@instituteofideas.com for details of the venue.

Some articles to read beforehand:
Linda Papadopoulos on the Sexualisation of Young People

Stop sexualising children, says David Cameron

Carol Sarler: The dressing-up box is a pretty safe place for little girls to play

Let children be children

February 25, 2010

Angus Kennedy will be introducing why the family has become the pre election topic debate. With Labour publishing its Green Paper on the family in January (with a particular emphasis on the roles of fathers) and David Cameron announcing that the Tory party will mend Broken Britain.

There are news articles on this topic every day. Perhaps the two big questions to muse on are:

• Why are they bringing this centre stage?
• How successful can it be as an area to campaign on?

Links:
The Government’s proposals

Contact Jane Sandeman at parents@instituteofideas.com for details of the time and venue.

There is something so profoundly upsetting and depressing about the implementation of Sarah’s law.

10 years ago Sarah Payne was abducted and murdered by a convicted sex offender. It was a crime of opportunity-Sarah was playing in a field, and her abductor happened to be driving by and seized the child. It is every parent’s worst nightmare but a) it happens rarely (not even twice in 10 years) and b) the abductor had no relationship to the child; so no amount of information would have prevented this event happening.

And yet we have Alan Johnson today saying that preventing paedophiles is the top of his agenda. Surely the top of a ministers agenda should be to govern a country wisely and well and not both pander and use the darkest nightmares of parents to grab a quick headline? A climate of mistrust and fear is stalking the land in the name of child safety; and an erosion of civil liberties on an unprecedented scale. Parents should not be able to ask or be given information on adults they don’t like the look of. As a parent keep your kid away from someone who gives you the creeps but do not let us be in the forefront of this mistrust in society.

The Tories do seem to be making the family a main plank of the election build up. David Cameron was at Demos yesterday declaring that “What matters most to a child’s life chances is not the wealth of their upbringing but the warmth of their parenting.” Presumably Cameron’s life chances were not enhanced by being educated at Eton and Oxford-and presumably his parents were only able to demonstrate the warmth of their parenting during the school holidays.

But given the issues of marriage and parenting do seem to be raising their heads as key election issues how should we respond?

Has anyone been following the whole saga about will the Tories give married couple tax breaks? In one way I don’t get the whole thing. Presumably what it means is that tax breaks apply to a situation whereby one of the spouses goes to work and the other one stays at home; so the working spouse can get the additional tax free allowance of the stay at home spouse.

I’m not against this- the families I know that have one of the spouse’s stay at home and not earn could do with a little bit of extra cash. So fair enough-I guess it would show that the tories believe that that is the ideal model-a married couple, one of whom stays at home. But in reality is this going to change any social behaviour? If you are both earning as married or unmarried parents the tax break is not an incentive to get married or stay at home. And if you are the feckless poor a tax break that would result in £900 pa in your pocket wouldn’t cover the cost of the registry fee and a few drinks down the pub to celebrate the wedding day!

The British Family looks to be an interesting 4-part series presented by Kirsty Young. On BBC2 at 9pm from Monday 11 January 2010.

Here’s the promo: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00q08ft

And here’s a piece about the background to the series: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8441207.stm

“A ban on parents smoking in front of their children is being considered by the Government.” (The Daily Telegraph, Monday, December 14, 2009). How does this work? Does the government put CCTV into all parents’ houses? Is there a phone line for neighbours to shop you? Is it OK to smoke in your bedroom if you lock the door and your children are not in front of you? Do your children get taken away if you do smoke in front of them? Can you smoke in front of other people’s children?

But of course this is a crusade of the mind, rather than a practical one. It is another nail in the coffin to the idea that parents should see themselves as human beings with their own vices, otlooks and concerns. Parents should only see themselves as determiners of outcomes for their children and behave in the way that society dictates-no matte r how unfounded the rational behind the dictates of acceptable behaviours are. And of course…another nail in the coffin that there should be any notion of locked doors-if you have children all should be open to scrutiny.

So I’m participating in the local Santa chatter this year. It’s usually along the lines of how does one negotiate the question of two religions in a household, what about the kids at school who say he doesn’t exist, what if we’re atheists, kind of thing. But this year the discussion has taken a slightly different, and to my mind, disturbing turn for the worse. It’s not so much that some parents aren’t playing along with Santa, it’s why they’re not playing along. They don’t want to “do” Santa because it’s “wrong to lie” to the children.

Now just to say from the outset, I LOVE Santa and Christmas with every humanist bone in my body. They will have to pry the holly from my cold dead hand before I give up on Christmas. But I do recognise that not everyone celebrates the holiday (although I personally think we all should – it’s about as religious as The Grinch and the return of the light after the solstice is a universal symbol of hope) and there’s no reason why, whatever a family celebrates, it shouldn’t be a magical occasion for the kids – Santa or no Santa. But to eschew Santa because it’s dishonest seems to me to miss the whole point.

Not only do I think it’s okay to lie to kids. I think it’s important to lie to them. Lies we tell to children are really more like over simplifications. Because, as Jack “St” Nicholas says in  A Few Good Men, they “can’t handle the truth”. There are things they need to know something but not everything about.  There are things they don’t need to know about and shouldn’t know about until they are adults.  And Santa?  Santa is in a class of his own.

To ban Santa on the principle  that we some how owe it to them not to participate in The Myth of Santa isn’t just an awfully worthy and rather kill joy thing to do, it undermines one of the last vestiges of the distinction between kids and adults. Santa Claus is a vast adult conspiracy carried out on behalf of the next generation. It’s a tacit agreement that for a few years we will give our children the gift of fancy. We’ll make keep faith with their belief in magic and collectively make it real.  For me, this is one of the most genuinely miraculous things about Christmas and to see it eroded this way is a bad tiding indeed.  Bah! Humbug!

There is a good article by Michele Ledda on the Guardian site, here.