If you have to get up and out early in the morning, today has been a good day to do so. Granddaughter Number One was expecting a plumber to come and attend to her various plumbing problems this morning, arriving at 9.00am. As she is of a nervous disposition, suffering from anxiety, and as her housemate was going to be heading for the airport to meet a visitor from America, she had asked me if I could go and be her support person. So I was up with the lark and by 7.45 was on my way to the bus stop.
All went well with the plumber. Everything now works better than it ever did before. Granddaughter Number One and I had a good long chinwag about anything and everything. Incidentally I managed to show her how to pour from the moka-style coffee maker which we bought her for Christmas without spilling coffee all over the show. Basically she has been tipping the pot up too close to horizontal, causing the contents to rush out, pushing the lid open and sending coffee all over the kitchen side. A slow and careful pouring works fine!
We had thought we might take her dog for a walk but by the time the plumber had finished (he took time out to go and purchase new taps for the bathroom) the morning was slipping away, her housemate and American friend were on their way back from the airport and we just ran out of time. They would walk the dog when the airport people arrived. I set off walking from her house to Greenfield, having just missed a bus.
But it was still a fine day to be out and about and there is an excellent bridle path walk almost all the way to Tesco. I picked up a couple of items from Tesco and emerged just in time to catch the little bus that takes the scenic route through the back streets of Greenfield, into Uppermill, makes a tour of Diggle and Dobcross before eventually reaching Delph. From there it follows an equally convoluted route all the way into Oldham!
Finally I reached home, made a cup of tea and took a look at the papers online.
The Tory MP for Penistone and somewhere or other (not too far away from here) has been addressing the National Conservatism gathering and telling them, among other things, that western countries face an existential threat fro falling reproduction. We aren’t having enough babies and this is largely because too many young people are attending university, motherhood has been devalued, and then there is what she described as the mass indoctrination of young minds.
“Having a home, a secure job and support from your family, community and nation are not the only conditions to starting a family,” MP Miriam Cates told the event in Westminster.
“You must also have hope for the future. And that hope is not reaching so many of our young people today, because liberal individualism has proved to be completely powerless to resist a cultural Marxism that is systematically destroying our children’s souls.”
(My aside: liberal individualism is apparently bad but capitalist individualism is okay! Hmmm! )
She went on: “When culture, schools and universities openly teach that our country is racist, our heroes are villains, humanity is killing the Earth, you are what you desire, diversity is theology, boundaries are tyranny and self-restraint is oppression, is it any wonder that mental health conditions, self-harm and suicide, and epidemic levels of anxiety and confusion characterise the emerging generation?”
No-fault divorce and the expansion of childcare (yes, the expansion of childcare!) were also to blame. Austerity, low wages and the need to resort to foodbanks were, of cpirse, not mentioned.
She went on again: “Many graduates are saddled with debt, and so are unable to afford to buy a house and start a family. Spending so much time and money on education also makes it much more difficult, particularly for women, to decide when is a good time to pause and have children.”
It begins to seem that only the wealthy can afford to have children - perhaps because they can afford to pay for the childcare! Incidentally, they can also afford to pay for private education. Maybe it’s state education that should not have money spent on it. And if being a stay-at-home mum is to be a serious, realistic option, some way of subsidising it will have to be found.
Ironically enough, this article point out that richer graduates in England will pay less for degree than poorer students. It’s all to do with reforms to student loans and how and when they are to be paid back. “The research forecasts that a graduate earning £37,000 by 2030 would pay back £63,100 over the course of their career, while a graduate earning £70,000 would pay back just £55,000.”
Life is unfair. I am on e again relieved that I benefitted from being a child in the 1950-60s and a student at the end of the 60s, when my future looked decidedly rosy!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.
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