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According to the BBC, ‘Japan’s princess is getting better’. Her illness came as news to me, not being as well read on matters of Asian politics as I could be, unless it has to do with angry Vietnam vets or underage Thai prostitutes or the latest scare that North Korea is just going to say to hell with it, and nuke us all. Apparently the president of North Korea is very keen on his luxury goods, and an embargo from Vuitton was enough to keep him on the straight and narrow for a while, so I’ve heard, so there’s a sigh of relief. Thank god for greed, right?
This story concerns the Crown Princess of Japan, who has not been seen out in public since 2003, which is starting, I would have thought, to be a seriously long time. She was a multi-lingual diplomat before she, like so many others, fell sway to the Cinderella legend, and married the Crown Prince. Perhaps it was love. Who knows. Rumour has it that she is suffering from what is gently named, ‘adjustment disorder’. What a great title for an illness. Stop slipped discs, depression, anything bipolar. No, adjustment disorder. My first thought was that it was an adjustment to life in the royal family. Possibly the biggest lie Cinderella told us was that moving to the palace was a good idea. Ok, she got to stop washing floors, and watching her less sexually endowed sisters get nice clothes and go out, which would annoy any girl of spirit, but who said everyone loved this idea? Can you honestly imagine a royal family welcoming someone who was ‘not one of us’? It’s a phrase that you can hear any weekend at bistros from Wandsworth to Richmond, in case you thought it was outmoded. Not to mention the fact that no family becomes the royalty without chopping a few heads here and there. These aren’t nice, welcoming people. They are the leaders, the ones whose ancestors schemed and planned their way, if not to get to the top, to stay there.
But the couple has been married since 1993. Since then, again according to articles on the BBC website, she has only been permitted to travel infrequently, as she needed to focus her energies on ‘conceiving’. One miscarriage led to fertility treatments, which resulted in a girl. Happy days, one would have thought. But no, these are funny times we live in, where our mediatised image of slick modern life convinces us that we have escaped a feudal, dogmatic past. Fortunately, our religious training has allowed us to accept any manner of ‘truth’ without calling upon it to actually make sense. So we have our heroine, the poor princess; not lucky enough to produce ‘the heir and the spare’, as Diana managed, she only came out with a girl. Not good enough to assure the succession. But there’s more. Plot twists worthy of any good soap. The Empress, the mother-in-law, does not like her, surprisingly, it seems, for she as well is a ‘commoner’, that funny term given to those who have something to do with royals when they oughtn’t. The sister-in-law has managed to drop a boy sprog, so the royal family will keep going. Some pressure off. But a close friend of the Princess, a cousin of the Emperor, died playing squash at the Canadian Embassy. Call me old-fashioned, but I see conspiracy. The man could have been putting the line at risk. What if he was going to father the next emperor? Possibly a greater danger is that he was on her side. Boom. Off he goes, no one the wiser, and the princess’ camp is one fewer.
I have the impression we get into problems when we start putting women in these fixed categories – princess (of all kinds), breeder, diplomat, wife, sex symbol. But this has been going on for a long time. Women, conform to your ‘highest and best use’ – a little like a tax assessment – or else be subject to the nasty sounding ‘adjustment disorder’. As the princess said herself in 1996, ‘at times I experience hardship in trying to find the proper point of balance between traditional things and my own personality’. Find me a woman who hasn’t said something like this at least once in her life, though probably not as politely.
We have seen a number of Cinderella fantasies go wrong in the past few weeks. There’s the tragic demise of Anna Nicole Smith, who may have been a junkie, but was smart enough to get her hands on the fortune, and savvy (if cold) enough to know that her baby daughter was going to be of more interest for her money, than for any intelligence, beauty, or humanity she might bring to the world, and wrote her out of the will. It’s a little bit like Onassis’ daughter, who finally died from the weight (literally) of her loneliness and misery, a vast fortune not able to prevent her from terrible depression. Then we have the fascinating spectacle of Britney and her shaved head, a woman who is certainly trying to ‘adjust’. Britney, who, as teen conventional wisdom would have it, was never the same after Justin, the love of her life, left her. But everyone was so excited when she finally dumped the loser who got her pregnant not just once, which might have been an accident, but twice, which appears like carelessness. What was she thinking? And who pushed whom? Now, like many single mothers, she is caught between a rock and hard place. Be your former self: sexy, slutty, making money for everyone. Go back to being the cash cow. But there’s a problem; she’s got the little ones to think of, and maybe she’s a little pissed off. It’s possible she’s going to have to fight the father, who may still want to prove a point about who is the better person. There can’t be many stronger incentives than having an entire country dislike you. Must be the kind of case lawyers dream of, and again, there’s money up for grabs, a lot of money. But the Cinderella story isn’t supposed to end with Cinders contacting the best lawyer she can find, or going into rehab. I can still remember the movie and Cinderella’s hair when she is dressed for the ball: blond, upswept, with those strange little lines drawn on the side. Imagine what I might have thought as a child if the last frame of the film was her letting her hair down, just to cut it off.
Which sort of ‘adjustment disorders’ are these women suffering? They had talent and their beauty and it was supposed to get them the Cinderella story that ‘every little girl dreams of’. Of course there were a few variations on the theme. Anna was a Playboy bunny hooking up with a man 3 times her age. Philip Roth territory, and someone was bound to get hurt. Then there’s poor Britney, who went from Mickey Mouse good girl to nymphette with cash. She seems to have lost her way, or found it. Cutting off your long, flowing blonde hair can’t be a clearer sign that you don’t want to play the secondary sexual characteristic game. Too bad we’re so hooked on the rules that as an audience we’re all happy to damn her to rehab hell without finding out what her second act might be. A lesser character in our shooting fairy tales in a bucket dream, Lindsay Lohan, just came out of a month stay in a facility. It’s too soon to see if it’s cured her ‘adjustment’ problem. And we can’t ignore Kate Moss, who bounded back so spectacularly from her fall into ignominy, she should write a how-to book. Or at least she could give Britney some advice. When you think that at the height of the media frenzy, she was not only accused of doing drugs – (imagine! – a model, doing cocaine - shocking), but of having sexual affairs with both men and women. The power of the story to keep us in line backfired a little, mostly because she seemed to be having so much fun. Kate has sorted out the adjustment problem, but it can’t hurt that she is in the business of making cash from her beauty and sexuality, rather than just trading it over in a relationship, for some kind of non-existent stability.
As a society, we are pretty happy to watch our heroes eat dirt. Men love Cinderella. They ‘save’ her, until she gets bored of being barefoot and pregnant, or playing the adoring fan, and reminds the men exactly how she managed to put up with washing floors unjustly all day. But what woman hasn’t gone through some kind of ‘adjustment disorder’? We have to play so many different roles, it’s easy to lose track of who you really are. Most women don’t demonstrate the extreme reactions of a Britney, or suffer the house arrest of the Japanese princess. But women are twisted into uncomfortable shapes frequently enough that the troubles of these iconic women should resonate. Our fictions are what we make the world out of; how difficult our world is finding it to live up to the myth.
It’s ironic that Cheney, everyone’s favourite saviour of democracy, just went to visit Japan, hot on the heels of the US government asking the Japanese to apologise for the use of women as sex slaves during World War Two. The Japanese were offended. Maybe he should have really carried interventionism a step further and visited the princess. But what do we do with the spectacle of women everywhere staggering under the weight of the roles society has handed out, calling it choice? At present all we manage is to watch women struggle, and condemn them, with prettily named stones right out of the DSM-IV, and if they are lucky, we might forgive them for letting us down.
Saturday 24 February 2007
Thursday 22 February 2007
Land of bones
This was a winter, and everyone coughed. That’s what it was like. There wasn’t a lot of time for thinking or anything approaching reflection, there was just the cold, and the shut windows covered with condensation on the crowded trains. Looking out at the building works designed to transform London, the largest structure so far an immediate and in your face concrete works, the beauty of the architect’s design was lost beneath the alcohol-drenched sweat that filled the train. Somehow, in the modern studios with slim secretaries and smart cappuccino machines, sheltered from the sound and fury of the urban environment, they surely hadn’t predicted this. Dust. Garbage. The iron slope of the new train bridge already decimated by a dangling group of agile graffiti artists, leaving the mark of their high wire temper as a morning sign for us, the workers of London, looking out grimly from the train as it passed. This was our life, standing on the platform, waiting. Waiting. Smoking. Pretending. And some went East, some went West, for no reason more plausible than chaos theory. Whether we chose our situation, or had it thrust upon us, we had no idea. And maybe, we wouldn’t want to. If you had asked any of us, we couldn’t have told you why we were there, what we hoped to do, or how it had all happened anymore than we could have explained the dirt on the seats, or the angle of the wintry sun, or how many times during an hour we could be likely to cough.
For us, it was just another day and I was trying to take some comfort in belonging to humanity. The four builders across from me, eager for money, come over from Eastern Europe because their expertise in building fast cheap concrete flats made them desirable, even more so than I was, a lowly member of the educated class, were alarmingly close to me. Plaster grimed and skin yellowed from smoking, they related to me not only by their proximity to my seat, but their connection to one of the perks of my job. Flats. New flats, cheap, half share, like the one I was angling to buy, the one would apparently fool me into thinking my job was worth something to the market at large. Apparently someone didn’t think I was watching them tear down the derelict factory every day from the train, the lone lot next to the scrap heap; that I wouldn’t mind living over some toxic waste site. Or having my bijou little terrace overlooking the scrap yard, the one they had somehow neglected to buy in their development fever, with its collection of fierce and dirty looking barking dogs that you could sometimes hear when the doors whooshed open at Homerton. A sorry lot, defending their collection of car doors with alacrity despite their dishevelled state. They thought I wouldn’t notice it was built on the oil-soaked ground of a former factory or that next door was a rotting alley I could have moved into for free with a caravan and no one would have noticed. This urban luxury was supposed to make my role as police teacher more palatable, supposed to make me feel I was doing something worthwhile, something rewarding and rewardable.
Meanwhile, as we passed through Hackney Wick, in the distance stood the towers of Canary Wharf. Masonic and forbidding, they reminded me that what ever I did, it was never going to have the smell of rich carpet and endless halls, silk shirts and new Swiss underwear. It would never be easy like Sunday brunch and hand knotted carpet and pushing the heavy curtains open to another reassuring day. It was never going to be like that again. Instead, life was going to smell of plaster and old brandy on the large floppy tongues of the Polish builders, soot and Persil, yellow rainy dust, hand cream and cheap perfume and beer breath. You could see into their mouths sometimes as they yelled to each other, either unreasonably cheerful or still hung over this early in the morning. The saddest one was the older man who took up two seats, stretching out his injured and inflamed leg, looking both weary and angry at anyone who approached him. With his leg stuck out in front and his grimly determined face that reminded of my mother, he made me pray every morning that she wouldn’t have to work until she could barely walk. His leg was stiff and awkward before him and his dark bushy eyebrows pulled together when he had to rise from his position, won and guarded on the crowded train, when, heaving his ancient leather toolbag onto his shoulder, he struggled his way out of the carriage. I always used to watch, holding my breath, as this progress to the door was so slow and wooden, I felt sure that he was on the verge of finding the door shut before him, and being forced to sit painfully down and try again at the next station. Somehow, he always made it out in time, and after weeks of this, I was no closer to admiring the suffering that he lived with as a daily occurrence. Instead, I kept wondering what he had fled from that made this grim trip that much better.
But then, I often reflected, I could have asked myself the same question. Which misguided concept led me to perch myself here, upon this train, watching the comings and goings of a million people, half of whom at least, I could no longer understand, after happily having chosen a country that spoke my mother tongue. Ha. What a nonsense all my notions of making my way in the world seemed now, and I stood on a quicksand of all the ideas I had once embraced. Here I was, a million miles from the clean crispness of the great Northern Woods, thousands of miles from wolves and pine trees and snow; on the same streets where Jack London had written that one never saw a family in the same place beyond two generations, because they all got the hell out or died. Which was it to be today, death, or another half-life? How much longer could I go on, pretending that I knew what I was doing, when I was just a sandbag between the cultured society and the flotsam, the brownish scum rising on the Bisto of modern British life that potentially threatened everything?
Pretending that the Other was harmless and grateful was as foolish as thinking your new shoes alone would get you past the velvet rope at the club. The original Brits left behind in Canning Town were not pleased that they hadn’t managed to escape to Essex, or that they and their children were now in the minority, in their own country. Their anger matched that of the newcomers who had taken all the promise literally, and were surprised at the little they had to enjoy. Their depression at not achieving what they saw quite plainly on the TV was intended for them, was what both groups had in common, and their frustrations led them down a road of suicidal depression or murder. Which would I lean toward today, myself? Fighting another day? Winning the war, not the battle? Because in this world where chicken bones littered the grease stained concrete sidewalks, going blue and soft after a heavy rain, a small disintegrating danger to be stepped over, beauty and faith were found in small protected pockets, noted and dissolved like a secret code before they were attacked. It was a place where ‘you cunt’ was sounded from the youngest throats a thousand times more often than ‘hello love’; a siren filled street where you could watch a mother kicking her child, her boyfriend looking on; see a gang of young mixed race teens running as fast as they could, brandishing wooden two by fours with nails jutting out; anything, anything was likely to happen. And I counted myself as one of the lucky ones. Where was my bedsit, covered with damp, filled with six fatherless boys all with various stages of psychotic disorder and general dysfunctional behaviour? By comparison, sitting next to the old man form Poland was a pleasure akin to cucumber sandwiches and Pimms on a hot day. I didn’t want either of them, but I wasn’t suffering, after all, was I?
I was stepping over the cracks, and the new crop of gnawed over bones that re-emerged on the pavements, with the smashed glass of the bus shelters, diamond-like scattered, hurt me like I was seeing my own body, sliced open. My relationship with the area was complicated, difficult. Co-dependent, on one side – mine. I was getting addicted to the rush of adrenaline that went along with fighting back, with fear. The feeling that I was seeing something I needed to learn. There were mornings where it was a life that revealed some kind of insanity. Who would willingly do this? I was a teacher, an outsider who belonged if only because I’d learned to hide my apprehension like everyone else. I was watching my step, and getting on with it. Fuck off. Disbelief becoming second skin. Like they all said out there – is it. Not a question. A statement that everything was up to be constantly questioned. The ultimate cynicism, born out of trusting in nothing. Is it.
Looking out the window at the remnants of Victorian houses built overlooking the railway cut, now bijou residences, to the square bungalow style wooden houses, with flat leaking roofs, past the new Tesco in Hackney, real shelter from the ugliness was unlikely.
For us, it was just another day and I was trying to take some comfort in belonging to humanity. The four builders across from me, eager for money, come over from Eastern Europe because their expertise in building fast cheap concrete flats made them desirable, even more so than I was, a lowly member of the educated class, were alarmingly close to me. Plaster grimed and skin yellowed from smoking, they related to me not only by their proximity to my seat, but their connection to one of the perks of my job. Flats. New flats, cheap, half share, like the one I was angling to buy, the one would apparently fool me into thinking my job was worth something to the market at large. Apparently someone didn’t think I was watching them tear down the derelict factory every day from the train, the lone lot next to the scrap heap; that I wouldn’t mind living over some toxic waste site. Or having my bijou little terrace overlooking the scrap yard, the one they had somehow neglected to buy in their development fever, with its collection of fierce and dirty looking barking dogs that you could sometimes hear when the doors whooshed open at Homerton. A sorry lot, defending their collection of car doors with alacrity despite their dishevelled state. They thought I wouldn’t notice it was built on the oil-soaked ground of a former factory or that next door was a rotting alley I could have moved into for free with a caravan and no one would have noticed. This urban luxury was supposed to make my role as police teacher more palatable, supposed to make me feel I was doing something worthwhile, something rewarding and rewardable.
Meanwhile, as we passed through Hackney Wick, in the distance stood the towers of Canary Wharf. Masonic and forbidding, they reminded me that what ever I did, it was never going to have the smell of rich carpet and endless halls, silk shirts and new Swiss underwear. It would never be easy like Sunday brunch and hand knotted carpet and pushing the heavy curtains open to another reassuring day. It was never going to be like that again. Instead, life was going to smell of plaster and old brandy on the large floppy tongues of the Polish builders, soot and Persil, yellow rainy dust, hand cream and cheap perfume and beer breath. You could see into their mouths sometimes as they yelled to each other, either unreasonably cheerful or still hung over this early in the morning. The saddest one was the older man who took up two seats, stretching out his injured and inflamed leg, looking both weary and angry at anyone who approached him. With his leg stuck out in front and his grimly determined face that reminded of my mother, he made me pray every morning that she wouldn’t have to work until she could barely walk. His leg was stiff and awkward before him and his dark bushy eyebrows pulled together when he had to rise from his position, won and guarded on the crowded train, when, heaving his ancient leather toolbag onto his shoulder, he struggled his way out of the carriage. I always used to watch, holding my breath, as this progress to the door was so slow and wooden, I felt sure that he was on the verge of finding the door shut before him, and being forced to sit painfully down and try again at the next station. Somehow, he always made it out in time, and after weeks of this, I was no closer to admiring the suffering that he lived with as a daily occurrence. Instead, I kept wondering what he had fled from that made this grim trip that much better.
But then, I often reflected, I could have asked myself the same question. Which misguided concept led me to perch myself here, upon this train, watching the comings and goings of a million people, half of whom at least, I could no longer understand, after happily having chosen a country that spoke my mother tongue. Ha. What a nonsense all my notions of making my way in the world seemed now, and I stood on a quicksand of all the ideas I had once embraced. Here I was, a million miles from the clean crispness of the great Northern Woods, thousands of miles from wolves and pine trees and snow; on the same streets where Jack London had written that one never saw a family in the same place beyond two generations, because they all got the hell out or died. Which was it to be today, death, or another half-life? How much longer could I go on, pretending that I knew what I was doing, when I was just a sandbag between the cultured society and the flotsam, the brownish scum rising on the Bisto of modern British life that potentially threatened everything?
Pretending that the Other was harmless and grateful was as foolish as thinking your new shoes alone would get you past the velvet rope at the club. The original Brits left behind in Canning Town were not pleased that they hadn’t managed to escape to Essex, or that they and their children were now in the minority, in their own country. Their anger matched that of the newcomers who had taken all the promise literally, and were surprised at the little they had to enjoy. Their depression at not achieving what they saw quite plainly on the TV was intended for them, was what both groups had in common, and their frustrations led them down a road of suicidal depression or murder. Which would I lean toward today, myself? Fighting another day? Winning the war, not the battle? Because in this world where chicken bones littered the grease stained concrete sidewalks, going blue and soft after a heavy rain, a small disintegrating danger to be stepped over, beauty and faith were found in small protected pockets, noted and dissolved like a secret code before they were attacked. It was a place where ‘you cunt’ was sounded from the youngest throats a thousand times more often than ‘hello love’; a siren filled street where you could watch a mother kicking her child, her boyfriend looking on; see a gang of young mixed race teens running as fast as they could, brandishing wooden two by fours with nails jutting out; anything, anything was likely to happen. And I counted myself as one of the lucky ones. Where was my bedsit, covered with damp, filled with six fatherless boys all with various stages of psychotic disorder and general dysfunctional behaviour? By comparison, sitting next to the old man form Poland was a pleasure akin to cucumber sandwiches and Pimms on a hot day. I didn’t want either of them, but I wasn’t suffering, after all, was I?
I was stepping over the cracks, and the new crop of gnawed over bones that re-emerged on the pavements, with the smashed glass of the bus shelters, diamond-like scattered, hurt me like I was seeing my own body, sliced open. My relationship with the area was complicated, difficult. Co-dependent, on one side – mine. I was getting addicted to the rush of adrenaline that went along with fighting back, with fear. The feeling that I was seeing something I needed to learn. There were mornings where it was a life that revealed some kind of insanity. Who would willingly do this? I was a teacher, an outsider who belonged if only because I’d learned to hide my apprehension like everyone else. I was watching my step, and getting on with it. Fuck off. Disbelief becoming second skin. Like they all said out there – is it. Not a question. A statement that everything was up to be constantly questioned. The ultimate cynicism, born out of trusting in nothing. Is it.
Looking out the window at the remnants of Victorian houses built overlooking the railway cut, now bijou residences, to the square bungalow style wooden houses, with flat leaking roofs, past the new Tesco in Hackney, real shelter from the ugliness was unlikely.
Thursday 15 February 2007
Child care uncovered - or we are no. 22, we don't try at all...
Here we go, another report on the state of the world, this time through the analysis of children’s lives, done by the very worthy charity Unicef. It’s caused a huge crisis in the UK, due to figuring last in the sweeps at number 22. Children here are worse off than anywhere else in the developed world, with the US one step above. However, little in the US papers mentioned beyond a brief one liner the status of the children in America, choosing instead to focus on the failure of the British government to provide an environment that cared for children. I haven’t had any personal letters yet telling me I chose badly when I came here, but it’s bound to happen.
Ironically, parents reading the New York Times could have discovered how to make snow for themselves at home with a small version of a ski trail snowmaker, which surely would make for happier children. Reading the papers is frequently the emotional equivalent of taking a very strange drug. Some elements are weirdly magnified, and some ideas take on the properties of magical life saving powder; add water, and presto! Things are instantly better. Questioning anything is beyond the power of the advertising driven media, who rely on quick messages to gain the trust of tiredly over sold people. Headlines need to be quick and snappy – Iran, bombs, happiness, failure, the dollar, talks continue, interest rates. Instant snow. It’s like instant white Christmas, and that means instant love, families, simpler times.
The British response to the public acknowledgement of what anyone with eyes to see on the tube at half-term could have told them – the Brits don’t really like children – seems disjointed. One columnist claims that it is no good to be upset – something must be done. But what? Tory oiks claim that it’s Labour’s fault, lack of investment, realistic planning, that sort of thing. Labour says it’s the result of Thatcherite policies that made poor parents of people and focused everyone’s attention on money. The one thing no one seems to be doing, despite the existence of a new website designed to ask children themselves about their own lives, is actually letting the children speak. Or talking to people who spend their entire lives with children, at least during the day – teachers. The other big news about children is being downplayed -the shooting of three boys in South London, all seemingly unrelated, all killed in the last week or so. Somehow, black boys in ghettoized suburbs don’t really come into the debate, which may be part of the problem. There is a deafening silence around what might be the cause of such a horrible tragedy, unless it is to mention that the area has had a great deal of investment. As if that should solve everything. And again, maybe that is a part of the problem.
As a teacher, I see it a little differently. I remember the time I had to bring in my son to work, something I will have to do again next week, as half terms are not lined up, which has been causing me a lot of stress. He was thrilled at the idea of helping out, and made sure every desk had a dictionary and a little note that said ‘welcome’. His enthusiasm and innocence twisted my heart, already corrupted by the lack of respect and long hours that teachers endure. Despite what people say about us deserving whatever we get, due to long holidays, it’s a pretty harsh road to walk, and your own sanity wins out over whatever impulse towards universal good you might have had at the start. I felt the initial thrill I had at the beginning of my training, when it really mattered that I got it right, and the whole business of teaching seemed a mystery to be unravelled, in order to help the whole world. My son apparently felt the same way, privileged in his connection to these students, none of whom he knew. But on the way out, we met up with one of the deputy heads. I introduced my son, and she asked him how he enjoyed being in the school. ‘It was wonderful!’ he cried, ‘I’d like to come back and help out when the kids are here.’ My heart swelled and then sank back down upon seeing the expression upon her face. Her small aging princess face, surrounded by her neat blond highlighted bob became pinched and her eyes grew cold. ‘Oh no’, she said. ‘That’s not possible. No. We are much too busy.’ Nothing more.
She turned away, busy upon whatever task she had set herself, saving a new crop of children from themselves and their lousy environment, out there where the Olympics are the latest sham thrust upon a disbelieving public. But to me she had already proved that she knew nothing about children, and was quite happy to crush their spirits in the endless search for a better bureaucracy. There was no room for a small boy wanting to help, just as there was little room for any enthusiasm. On a practical note, there was no concern for my interests as a parent. Anyhow, as a parent and a teacher, I am an anomaly, an oddity. Most teachers are single, a throwback to the times when female teachers were not allowed to be married. It allows them a free schedule, a chance to not be with children, a chance to see the children as part of their job, rather than part of their lives. There are teachers who do phenomenally well without being parents, and the profession would be poorer without them, especially when so many of them are gay and devote their time to the helping professions because they feel it is the right thing to do, not because it fits in with holidays or provides a meaningful stop on the way to marriage.
But there are others who see children as second-class citizens. Annoyances. Not adults. Not really important. This is shown in different ways, all revealing an awkward psychology as far as adults’ interaction with children is concerned. Sometimes the adults show a permissiveness that allows the worst students a constant stream of treats in order to keep them even vaguely in line, a ‘we are mates’ approach which does not teach them much about respect or boundaries, as other adults are used in a good cop/bad cop scenario where only one adult has the power. Sometimes it is shown by a callous disregard for what is appropriate around children. I’ve been in a pub twice now with my son where people thought it was necessary to swear either at him or over him. Why is it necessary to say ‘you’re a cunt’ to someone while sitting next to a child? I’m not sure, although the last time it happened, I overheard the man saying ‘but it’s a pub’ to his friend, who seemed shocked that his English friend had said ‘I don’t give a fuck what you do’ directly to a nine year old boy telling him what he was about to go and do. The shocked friend was from Ireland, so perhaps that’s a hint about the deeper instincts of the English. Maybe not. But I don’t see the friendly gestures that have been standard any time we go to France, the ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ idea that means any child, all children are potentially wonderful and worthy of being loved, just for the fact of being an innocent out in a big scary world, a small person just trying to figure things out, not all that different from the larger versions. No one has ever hugged my son here, while in France, he was routinely picked up and swung around by friendly adults, to their mutual delight. Here in the UK, I have the impression, just as in America, that children are best not seen or heard, unless it’s to show how the children are mimicking their elders, in terms of money or sophistication. Innocence is a debased offering; we don’t want to see what we have lost; only what we have corrupted. Maybe that’s why less than half of children trust their friends. Could their parents say any different?
Ironically, parents reading the New York Times could have discovered how to make snow for themselves at home with a small version of a ski trail snowmaker, which surely would make for happier children. Reading the papers is frequently the emotional equivalent of taking a very strange drug. Some elements are weirdly magnified, and some ideas take on the properties of magical life saving powder; add water, and presto! Things are instantly better. Questioning anything is beyond the power of the advertising driven media, who rely on quick messages to gain the trust of tiredly over sold people. Headlines need to be quick and snappy – Iran, bombs, happiness, failure, the dollar, talks continue, interest rates. Instant snow. It’s like instant white Christmas, and that means instant love, families, simpler times.
The British response to the public acknowledgement of what anyone with eyes to see on the tube at half-term could have told them – the Brits don’t really like children – seems disjointed. One columnist claims that it is no good to be upset – something must be done. But what? Tory oiks claim that it’s Labour’s fault, lack of investment, realistic planning, that sort of thing. Labour says it’s the result of Thatcherite policies that made poor parents of people and focused everyone’s attention on money. The one thing no one seems to be doing, despite the existence of a new website designed to ask children themselves about their own lives, is actually letting the children speak. Or talking to people who spend their entire lives with children, at least during the day – teachers. The other big news about children is being downplayed -the shooting of three boys in South London, all seemingly unrelated, all killed in the last week or so. Somehow, black boys in ghettoized suburbs don’t really come into the debate, which may be part of the problem. There is a deafening silence around what might be the cause of such a horrible tragedy, unless it is to mention that the area has had a great deal of investment. As if that should solve everything. And again, maybe that is a part of the problem.
As a teacher, I see it a little differently. I remember the time I had to bring in my son to work, something I will have to do again next week, as half terms are not lined up, which has been causing me a lot of stress. He was thrilled at the idea of helping out, and made sure every desk had a dictionary and a little note that said ‘welcome’. His enthusiasm and innocence twisted my heart, already corrupted by the lack of respect and long hours that teachers endure. Despite what people say about us deserving whatever we get, due to long holidays, it’s a pretty harsh road to walk, and your own sanity wins out over whatever impulse towards universal good you might have had at the start. I felt the initial thrill I had at the beginning of my training, when it really mattered that I got it right, and the whole business of teaching seemed a mystery to be unravelled, in order to help the whole world. My son apparently felt the same way, privileged in his connection to these students, none of whom he knew. But on the way out, we met up with one of the deputy heads. I introduced my son, and she asked him how he enjoyed being in the school. ‘It was wonderful!’ he cried, ‘I’d like to come back and help out when the kids are here.’ My heart swelled and then sank back down upon seeing the expression upon her face. Her small aging princess face, surrounded by her neat blond highlighted bob became pinched and her eyes grew cold. ‘Oh no’, she said. ‘That’s not possible. No. We are much too busy.’ Nothing more.
She turned away, busy upon whatever task she had set herself, saving a new crop of children from themselves and their lousy environment, out there where the Olympics are the latest sham thrust upon a disbelieving public. But to me she had already proved that she knew nothing about children, and was quite happy to crush their spirits in the endless search for a better bureaucracy. There was no room for a small boy wanting to help, just as there was little room for any enthusiasm. On a practical note, there was no concern for my interests as a parent. Anyhow, as a parent and a teacher, I am an anomaly, an oddity. Most teachers are single, a throwback to the times when female teachers were not allowed to be married. It allows them a free schedule, a chance to not be with children, a chance to see the children as part of their job, rather than part of their lives. There are teachers who do phenomenally well without being parents, and the profession would be poorer without them, especially when so many of them are gay and devote their time to the helping professions because they feel it is the right thing to do, not because it fits in with holidays or provides a meaningful stop on the way to marriage.
But there are others who see children as second-class citizens. Annoyances. Not adults. Not really important. This is shown in different ways, all revealing an awkward psychology as far as adults’ interaction with children is concerned. Sometimes the adults show a permissiveness that allows the worst students a constant stream of treats in order to keep them even vaguely in line, a ‘we are mates’ approach which does not teach them much about respect or boundaries, as other adults are used in a good cop/bad cop scenario where only one adult has the power. Sometimes it is shown by a callous disregard for what is appropriate around children. I’ve been in a pub twice now with my son where people thought it was necessary to swear either at him or over him. Why is it necessary to say ‘you’re a cunt’ to someone while sitting next to a child? I’m not sure, although the last time it happened, I overheard the man saying ‘but it’s a pub’ to his friend, who seemed shocked that his English friend had said ‘I don’t give a fuck what you do’ directly to a nine year old boy telling him what he was about to go and do. The shocked friend was from Ireland, so perhaps that’s a hint about the deeper instincts of the English. Maybe not. But I don’t see the friendly gestures that have been standard any time we go to France, the ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ idea that means any child, all children are potentially wonderful and worthy of being loved, just for the fact of being an innocent out in a big scary world, a small person just trying to figure things out, not all that different from the larger versions. No one has ever hugged my son here, while in France, he was routinely picked up and swung around by friendly adults, to their mutual delight. Here in the UK, I have the impression, just as in America, that children are best not seen or heard, unless it’s to show how the children are mimicking their elders, in terms of money or sophistication. Innocence is a debased offering; we don’t want to see what we have lost; only what we have corrupted. Maybe that’s why less than half of children trust their friends. Could their parents say any different?
Monday 12 February 2007
Unfeeling bitch
Well I promised myself I would write a blog every day that I was off on holiday. Some sort of present!
Today has been very strange in a way. I was able to take my child to school, which I usually cannot do, having to go to work. I should accept this as a matter of course, but I can’t. And now I see very clearly that I am missing time that I can never replace, with this stupid work thing. My son wanted me to stay in the room, but I said I had to leave. I’m not sure why. I felt as though I was in the way, as if the teacher needed to get started. But I think the real reason was that it was just too painful, or too pleasurable, to be able to stand there, and talk to the teacher and see his little class room, things I never get to imagine, rushing off as I do. And what kind of life is that for either of us? It’s pathetic. I should be able to stay home, or work some sort of flexi time so that I could see him at school. If I had been clever, I would have captured a good husband so I could have stayed home.
But no no, I had to have morals and standards. I had to be independent. And now where has it landed me? I can’t even take my child to school. Why did I do this to myself? There’s no way to make it better, and cleaning my bathtub this morning only added insult to injury. Other women managed to play this game a lot better. I’ve really screwed up and I still can’t manage it properly.
I said good bye to my son, and ran off. I don’t think I even focused on him. Why do I spend so much time trying not to think, not to focus, not to pay attention? Is it just the pain factor? He wanted my attention, and I couldn’t even manage that. What a loser. I try to look as though I know what I am doing, but I don’t. Not at all. And now he is at school, and I am here, and what am I doing?
All he wanted me to do was stay, and all I could think about was keeping up appearances. I am just sad.
In a dream world, I would quit my job, and take him to school every day. I don’t know how the rent would get paid, or who would keep us in food or clothing, but sometimes I don’t even care. He just wanted me there in the room with him, and he gave me a big hug, and did I respond? No, I just sort of pushed him away. I think there is something seriously wrong with me. And what should I do about it? I would like to spend the week off fixing it, if possible. When you think of all the things I don’t even know about my own child. What his class room looks like filled with children. Where he sits. What he does in the morning on the way to school. It’s ridiculous. What kind of stupid life is this? And why am I unable to show any love, or to receive any? I just run off and hide and try to go through the motions. That’s it, going through the motions. I spend my entire life talking crap and lying to others and to myself. And this is called being organised. Ha. Did I even look at him as I left? How does that make him feel? Who do I think I am kidding? I am messed up. And now I am lonely and alone. I deserve it. I reject normal life all the time, no wonder I am the way I am.
Did I even look at him properly as I left? Do I have any feelings left at all? What was I thinking? Just guilt. Do I belong there, should I leave him behind, what will people think? Did I wash my hair this morning? Really. This is the level of thinking I bring to my daily life. No wonder I am on the losing end of things. And to think I hurt my son. I rejected him. He hugs me, and I push him away. I am deranged, seriously. I spend all my life trying not to feel. And now I’ve just noticed, that I can’t feel any more. Except I can. I feel pain and anger, mostly at myself, for being so cold and unfeeling to everyone. I just can’t do it anymore.
The end of being in denial. Except I don’t really see what good it will do me, except the wonderful experience of feeling more pain, more failure. Can I change any of this? I don’t know. But I don’t know why I’ve just shut down. It’s eerie. I just want to give him love. So why can’t I? Or why didn’t I? Maybe that is what is going to change now, my own relationship with what I know and what I want. Work work work. As if that was going to solve anything. A teacher spends more time with my son than I do. Is that right? Hardly.
And here is the garbage truck. Well they can take my outdated ideas about who I am and who is watching me with it. What can I do to change all this? I suppose the first thing is to actually pay attention to what is going on around me. When I feel pain, instead of pushing it away, I should acknowledge that it is there. Stop trying to pretend it isn’t happening. The same for anything good, should I happen to feel it. Let others see me happy, for once. My child. Hugged me. I need to feel everything, and the trouble is that everything hurts.
Today has been very strange in a way. I was able to take my child to school, which I usually cannot do, having to go to work. I should accept this as a matter of course, but I can’t. And now I see very clearly that I am missing time that I can never replace, with this stupid work thing. My son wanted me to stay in the room, but I said I had to leave. I’m not sure why. I felt as though I was in the way, as if the teacher needed to get started. But I think the real reason was that it was just too painful, or too pleasurable, to be able to stand there, and talk to the teacher and see his little class room, things I never get to imagine, rushing off as I do. And what kind of life is that for either of us? It’s pathetic. I should be able to stay home, or work some sort of flexi time so that I could see him at school. If I had been clever, I would have captured a good husband so I could have stayed home.
But no no, I had to have morals and standards. I had to be independent. And now where has it landed me? I can’t even take my child to school. Why did I do this to myself? There’s no way to make it better, and cleaning my bathtub this morning only added insult to injury. Other women managed to play this game a lot better. I’ve really screwed up and I still can’t manage it properly.
I said good bye to my son, and ran off. I don’t think I even focused on him. Why do I spend so much time trying not to think, not to focus, not to pay attention? Is it just the pain factor? He wanted my attention, and I couldn’t even manage that. What a loser. I try to look as though I know what I am doing, but I don’t. Not at all. And now he is at school, and I am here, and what am I doing?
All he wanted me to do was stay, and all I could think about was keeping up appearances. I am just sad.
In a dream world, I would quit my job, and take him to school every day. I don’t know how the rent would get paid, or who would keep us in food or clothing, but sometimes I don’t even care. He just wanted me there in the room with him, and he gave me a big hug, and did I respond? No, I just sort of pushed him away. I think there is something seriously wrong with me. And what should I do about it? I would like to spend the week off fixing it, if possible. When you think of all the things I don’t even know about my own child. What his class room looks like filled with children. Where he sits. What he does in the morning on the way to school. It’s ridiculous. What kind of stupid life is this? And why am I unable to show any love, or to receive any? I just run off and hide and try to go through the motions. That’s it, going through the motions. I spend my entire life talking crap and lying to others and to myself. And this is called being organised. Ha. Did I even look at him as I left? How does that make him feel? Who do I think I am kidding? I am messed up. And now I am lonely and alone. I deserve it. I reject normal life all the time, no wonder I am the way I am.
Did I even look at him properly as I left? Do I have any feelings left at all? What was I thinking? Just guilt. Do I belong there, should I leave him behind, what will people think? Did I wash my hair this morning? Really. This is the level of thinking I bring to my daily life. No wonder I am on the losing end of things. And to think I hurt my son. I rejected him. He hugs me, and I push him away. I am deranged, seriously. I spend all my life trying not to feel. And now I’ve just noticed, that I can’t feel any more. Except I can. I feel pain and anger, mostly at myself, for being so cold and unfeeling to everyone. I just can’t do it anymore.
The end of being in denial. Except I don’t really see what good it will do me, except the wonderful experience of feeling more pain, more failure. Can I change any of this? I don’t know. But I don’t know why I’ve just shut down. It’s eerie. I just want to give him love. So why can’t I? Or why didn’t I? Maybe that is what is going to change now, my own relationship with what I know and what I want. Work work work. As if that was going to solve anything. A teacher spends more time with my son than I do. Is that right? Hardly.
And here is the garbage truck. Well they can take my outdated ideas about who I am and who is watching me with it. What can I do to change all this? I suppose the first thing is to actually pay attention to what is going on around me. When I feel pain, instead of pushing it away, I should acknowledge that it is there. Stop trying to pretend it isn’t happening. The same for anything good, should I happen to feel it. Let others see me happy, for once. My child. Hugged me. I need to feel everything, and the trouble is that everything hurts.
Sunday 11 February 2007
Dark days
I woke last night to the sound of thunder…it’s a line from a song from the late 70s or early 80s, but last night it was literally true. Sadly, unlike the song, which always made me think of summer nights and thinking about chance, and change, and memories, this thundering reminder only woke me up to consider that only a few days ago it had been snowing. There was shouting outside last night as well, possibly due to the rain, and someone at some point threw a bottle. Why they did so, is anyone’s guess. But these considerations are secondary, a preamble to a larger questioning. And this is it – why are things going so badly wrong? Not for everyone, as the saying would have it, it’s an ill wind that blows no one any good. At this very moment, I know people on holiday – I’m one of them – and they are having fun. There the resemblance ends.
At this moment in time, I feel as though I have woken up from yet another in a series of strange dreams which have led me astray, and been designed to hide the truth. A truth which a quick glance at my sister’s Vogue magazines, left behind as she went off to begin a new life elsewhere, will confirm. That there are people out there actually enjoying life. They have money, and friends. They own islands, and have managed to convince the world of their own special brand of madness. Of course these are extreme examples. But when you think of the mass hysteria brought on by the notion that if one were rich, everything would be fine, it doesn’t seem so extreme anymore. Dreams are for people with enough time and money to consider them a possibility. The rest of us…well, it’s hard to say. Why do we carry on? What makes us think that this spring is worth waiting for, that it will be any different from the previous disappointments?
At this point, after a week of having the flu, and many years of trying to convince myself that I know what I am doing, both health and intelligence have hit some sort of crucial wall, where anything but the hard truth seems an insult. And the truth seems to consist of some terrible family curse, designed to bring unhappiness and poor decision making skills with it. Of course, it could be worse. There are people in much worse situations. But I wonder if they feel the weight of the family disaster behind them, quite as strongly as I do at this moment. Badly chosen partners, lack of self control, money spent ill-advisedly, trust put in the wrong people, an unbearable sense that things will work out, when it is patently obvious that they won’t.
I think this all means that I have lost faith. Which is bad.
I’ve gone away and rested a bit after writing this. And it occurs to me that this is the root of all evil. This loss of faith. This endless insecurity, sure that everyone can see loss and aloneness. All our holidays have become encomiums to the absence of what it is that we should be celebrating. So at Christmas, we have suicides. At Valentine’s we have hatred and war – oh wait, I forgot – we have those all the time now. Those with something are sure that they are being hounded by those without, and children suddenly find themselves hounded from lesson to lesson, desperate to maintain their slippery hold on their social station, while those who traded money for morals quite successfully, get on with the business of impressing the world. The rest of us get on as best we can.
But funnily enough, after having my moment of reflection, I decided my biggest strength was going to be not giving in. I wasn’t going to let some background of madness dictate my future. That way lies madness. It’s perfectly possible to see how poor choices make for an uncomfortable bed to lie in. The difference is in whether you give in, accept defeat and the fact that you will never be a size zero, or a millionaire, as the only defining moments of your life. Or whether you go against the editorials, keep fighting and refuse to have mediocrity as your only goalpost. I have a million faults, and I’ve done a million stupid things. I probably will keep doing them, or at least new ones, idiocies that will make me cringe upon reflection. Like … oh never mind.
Isn’t that the essence of being alive? Forward, etc… And with those brave and foolish words, I will do my best to forget yet another Valentine’s without flowers, an endless parade of worries, and flaws, and try to see something beautiful in life. The chattering classes aren’t making it easy for me, and neither are the poverty stricken. I will have to look further afield for inspiration. Or maybe just within, as I cling to those moments where I actually believe you can overcome adversity. Perhaps some people will read this and decide I actually must be mad, trying to believe that my life holds anything of interest to anyone, and that my initial reaction, of doubt and fear, was the correct response. Maybe this instalment will be completely without merit. But if it is, then it should only show that I won’t give up, I won’t pretend that everything I do is perfect, and that at least, I continue trying, if nothing else. So. There.
Ah maturity.
At this moment in time, I feel as though I have woken up from yet another in a series of strange dreams which have led me astray, and been designed to hide the truth. A truth which a quick glance at my sister’s Vogue magazines, left behind as she went off to begin a new life elsewhere, will confirm. That there are people out there actually enjoying life. They have money, and friends. They own islands, and have managed to convince the world of their own special brand of madness. Of course these are extreme examples. But when you think of the mass hysteria brought on by the notion that if one were rich, everything would be fine, it doesn’t seem so extreme anymore. Dreams are for people with enough time and money to consider them a possibility. The rest of us…well, it’s hard to say. Why do we carry on? What makes us think that this spring is worth waiting for, that it will be any different from the previous disappointments?
At this point, after a week of having the flu, and many years of trying to convince myself that I know what I am doing, both health and intelligence have hit some sort of crucial wall, where anything but the hard truth seems an insult. And the truth seems to consist of some terrible family curse, designed to bring unhappiness and poor decision making skills with it. Of course, it could be worse. There are people in much worse situations. But I wonder if they feel the weight of the family disaster behind them, quite as strongly as I do at this moment. Badly chosen partners, lack of self control, money spent ill-advisedly, trust put in the wrong people, an unbearable sense that things will work out, when it is patently obvious that they won’t.
I think this all means that I have lost faith. Which is bad.
I’ve gone away and rested a bit after writing this. And it occurs to me that this is the root of all evil. This loss of faith. This endless insecurity, sure that everyone can see loss and aloneness. All our holidays have become encomiums to the absence of what it is that we should be celebrating. So at Christmas, we have suicides. At Valentine’s we have hatred and war – oh wait, I forgot – we have those all the time now. Those with something are sure that they are being hounded by those without, and children suddenly find themselves hounded from lesson to lesson, desperate to maintain their slippery hold on their social station, while those who traded money for morals quite successfully, get on with the business of impressing the world. The rest of us get on as best we can.
But funnily enough, after having my moment of reflection, I decided my biggest strength was going to be not giving in. I wasn’t going to let some background of madness dictate my future. That way lies madness. It’s perfectly possible to see how poor choices make for an uncomfortable bed to lie in. The difference is in whether you give in, accept defeat and the fact that you will never be a size zero, or a millionaire, as the only defining moments of your life. Or whether you go against the editorials, keep fighting and refuse to have mediocrity as your only goalpost. I have a million faults, and I’ve done a million stupid things. I probably will keep doing them, or at least new ones, idiocies that will make me cringe upon reflection. Like … oh never mind.
Isn’t that the essence of being alive? Forward, etc… And with those brave and foolish words, I will do my best to forget yet another Valentine’s without flowers, an endless parade of worries, and flaws, and try to see something beautiful in life. The chattering classes aren’t making it easy for me, and neither are the poverty stricken. I will have to look further afield for inspiration. Or maybe just within, as I cling to those moments where I actually believe you can overcome adversity. Perhaps some people will read this and decide I actually must be mad, trying to believe that my life holds anything of interest to anyone, and that my initial reaction, of doubt and fear, was the correct response. Maybe this instalment will be completely without merit. But if it is, then it should only show that I won’t give up, I won’t pretend that everything I do is perfect, and that at least, I continue trying, if nothing else. So. There.
Ah maturity.
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