There is a saying which goes, “If you can’t beat them,
what’s the point in having kids?” It’s funny because at times every parent has
found themselves in a position where for a bleak moment it appeared the only
option. You can’t give in to them when they get whiny and snotty – that’s how
you end up with people like Tim Farron or Natalie Bennett – but sometimes the
boundaries of parental wisdom are stretched to breaking point to come up with
any other recourse than to run away and hide until the little fuckers – and you
- have calmed down.
But beating is nothing to what you already did. The
cruellest thing you can do to your children is to have them in the first place.
They have no choice in the matter, you didn’t ask their permission and you have
absolutely no idea if you will turn out to be the good parent you imagined
before the sleepless nights and two decades of worry until they finally pack
their red-spotted handkerchiefs and leave home... only to return a few months
later, jobless, potless and bored to tears by the cruel grown-up world you
thrust them into. As far as they are concerned you have condemned them to
survive on the planet you wrecked, you selfish, selfish bastards.
But it needn’t be this way. You could put them up for
adoption, or have them taken into the care system, or – and here’s a novel
thought – you could undergo restorative justice for the crime you committed and
put in the time to get them off on the right track. Don’t indulge their
childish instincts for social justice and espousing any cause, it seems, that
involves freely spending resources to which they have yet to contribute. If
only there was a way to encourage them to pay for their own indulgences...
When I was a kid we couldn’t wait for the half-terms and
the summer holidays. Weeding crops on our hands and knees, hoeing for the
bigger kids, strawberry picking, stacking straw bales, potato picking and my
personal favourite throughout the horse-racing year, paper-picking after meetings at Thirsk Racecourse. Dirty work, hard graft, cold and wet, sunburned at times,
but – and here’s the thing - it’s true that where’s there’s muck there’s brass.
And there is nothing quite the same as spending (or saving) your own money, the money you have
earned, hour by back-breaking hour.
So what was so risible about Andrea Leadsom’s comments
regarding fruit picking? The work ethic, the notions of effort before reward,
living within your means, paying your own way and expecting nothing for
nothing. These things don’t spontaneously arrive in young brains, they have to
be firmly inserted. There is no need for college course, or apprenticeships or
extensive awareness and sensitivity training before stepping into wellies and
getting your hands dirty. You have to be cruel to be kind and cruelty begins at home; after all, you started it.
They may hate it. Good; incentive to work harder at
school. They may love it, Good; forget the Diversity Studies and get on a farm
management training programme. Degrees in esoteric nonsense devalue all of academia and every company can point to the battalion of degree-qualified morons who
haven’t yet grasped the basic notions of timekeeping, shaving, showing willing and accepting
that on company time you are supposed to be doing company work.
Traditional Irish farm workers... in the paddy fields.
But, but, you say, my little darlings are better than
that. There’s your problem. For every Internet billionaire there are billions
more who haven’t two pennies to rub together. For every Alan Sugar there are
millions who will never break even at the end of the month. Entrepreneurship is
all well and good but none of those who made it did so without understanding
the value of simple hard work. Suffer, the children? They’ll thank you for it
in the end.
Ah, the joys of summer holiday fruit picking at age 13 and 14. Cycle 10 miles, pick soft fruit all day for 4p per punnet, cycle another 10 miles home with either nearly or sometimes over £1 in my pocket. Early sixties when a good adult wage was only about £7 per week so a good return for the effort involved. And yes, it did develop a good work ethic.
ReplyDeleteI hope I can't be tracked down or the kids will be taken away. I must confess I make the kids work for their pocket money.
ReplyDeleteI confess I am a cruel and heartless parent.
You're no socialist, bruv...
DeleteHear! Hear!
ReplyDeleteGreat post sir, thank you.