Its snowing outside, well it is February and one might expect that. And that’s all I want to say about the snow. I do want say that if the schools close that’s fine, if it inconveniences a few parents and they have to negotiate a deal with their employers , so what, If the schools had all stayed open and kids had been splashed by snow or damped by a snowball, the idiots that report the “news” would have said they should have been closed. Now the story is that caution has overcome sanity and schools closed when they didn’t need too.
As to having to do a deal with the boss then go ahead and do the deal. I have yet to come across an employer that has specified “must not have school aged kids” in a person spec. I wouldn’t want to work for someone who wanted to do that sort of thing. Yes as a boss on occasions I have had the odd less that wholesome thought about a good members of staff disappearing off to have kids or needing the day off for some child related issue. I suspect part of the reason they are a good member of the team is because they have kids and when they need to they put them first and work second. I know I do. Yes there are times when it’s a pain to have to leave early and not meet a deadline, walk out on a meeting when you feel that those left will make all the wrong decisions etc. However, in my case all that gets left behind when I arrive at the school gate and have two over excited bundles of child leap into my arms because “Daddies come to pick us up” the same is true of the excitement in their voices when they discover that “Daddies taking us to school today”.
About the only place that one is not completely replaceable is the role of parent. Every employee can be replaced but I feel that no Mum or Dad can be. The Children Society report yesterday said that kids today have a harder life then they did in the past. Not certain what past that was. Normally the reference point for these reports is some sort of idealised 1950’s world view that owes more to Hollywood than reality. I grew up in the late sixties, not with hippy parents but what I would regard as a typical middle class, rural, conservative (with a small c) values. I to a degree have tried to pass these on to my daughters. I hear my mum and dad in my voice almost every days as I remind them that words have T’s on the end and that TV is to be enjoyed after spelling, reading and homework. I suspect that happens to all of us. Am I at home with my kids as much as my Dad, no, more. My father spent a lot of his working life away from home during the week. That’s what most working business folk do I suspect. My Mum didn’t go back to work until my sister was eleven an I was eighteen. Do my kids have a higher standard of living than I did. Not sure, they have colour TV and have been on foreign holidays. They have two parents in the same house. That’s the same.
I suspect if you quizzed my parents on how good they were at the parenting thing then they would look at their four kids and say “we did okay” they would be right. Did they know that when we were and collective of disparate teenagers? No did it worry them? Did they sit around with their friends and agonise about it? O I suspect it was discussed with a few very close friends but not exorcised in ay wider forum, that’s what we do.
Does this make us better parents. No. When Ella was born someone gave Michele and I one really good piece of adivce. “If you are going to read bringing up baby books then just pick one and stick to it. The worst thing is to try and use what you think are the best bits of each one.” This casserole approach was considered to be the worst of all world. The best? Work out what sort of parents you think you want to be and stick to it. Good advice. Have we followed? Just the bits we liked!!
I have been I bed for a little over 24 hours wondering what sort of lurggie it is that is twisting my guts and making me very sleepy.
The odd moments of waking today have been oceans of boredom punctuated by the rainbow that is the BBC IPlayer with Oz and James Drink to Britain. What is it about these two blokes that makes me laugh some much. If laughing is the cure for most ills then I should be back at work tomorrow. Hurrah, at least I won’t be bored.
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