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August 16, 2006
More nanny attempts from the UN?
As many of my readers will know the UN is not high on my list of useful organisations. Recently it has sunk even further down the list. The publication of their findings on "research" into "children at risk of violence or abuse" lies at the heart of my latest reason for contempt of this over expensive and frankly useless body. UNICEF has just published this latest load of manure - no doubt having destroyed the equivalent of the Brazilian rainforest to do it - as a supposedly "scientific" study of children suffering from violence in their own homes.
Now I am not one to deny that there is violence out there affecting children. I know there is, I even know that there is a strong chance that several children a day will be injured by someone close to them and some may even be killed. That is not my issue here, what is at issue is how the UN nannies have defined "violence". They have included any and every attempt at disciplining a child in their definition of violence. Dr Spock's discredited ideas on "reward withheld" is punishment, is once more driving these morons into making the assumption that every child will respond meekly to this ideal. Some patently do not. But that is not a reason to beat the living daylights out of them, but it does argue strongly that parents should have the final say over the appropriate punishment and not some bunch of overpaid bureaucrats in the ivory tower that is the UN's HQ in New York or wherever. As usual with this lobby group, there is confusion between legitimate chastisement for bad behaviour or misdemeanour and genuine abuse where the child is beaten simply because someone else cannot control their own feelings, temper or lives.
The report states, inter alia, that children who suffer violence at home suffer low self esteem in later life. Well, OK, I can identify with that since my own childhood, immediately post war with a father suffering all sorts of traumatic stress related problems that led to alcoholism and a mother struggling to cope with that and two small boys wasn't exactly an idyllic childhood. What I cannot identify with is the fact that a "womans" group has immediately adopted this report to support their appeal for more money to "provide support for women and children suffering violence in the home" and pointing the accusing finger at the males in the household as the abusers and perpetrators of violence. Again I can accept that there are many men who are the problem here - and many of them have something in their background which may well contribute to this - such as abuse as a child or a lack of parental guidance as to what is and is not acceptable behaviour. But where is the voice for the men who suffer misery at the hands of women. Where is the voice for the men and children who suffer violence and abuse at the hands of women in their lives? Believe me there are plenty out there, again, my day job has, at various times given me ample opportunity to witness this first hand.
In my own childhood, it was not my father's temper we were afraid of, it was my mother's. Now we know what caused that, but back in the fifties it was not something that could be treated. We lived with it, and we survived. My grandparents provided a refuge when things really got tough and perhaps that is what is lacking in todays "me centric" society. Have I got low self esteem? Well, yes, I would have to admit that I have. Has it held me back? I would say it has not, particularly once I found me true calling and a career that has helped me to help others. I have two degrees, a string of diplomas and the esteem of a wide range of my contempories and colleagues. The motivation for me was to rise above the baggage and get on with life! Feeling sorry for myself wasn't going to change anything, taking the positive stuff - and there was plenty to take alongside the negative - I have made the most of it and I recommend the same course to anyone else who has that background. When I look back, the positives I got from my parents and grandparents more than make up for the negatives. My father gave me a love of the sea and the skills to manage boats, ships and water craft in all conditions, my mother gave me an ability to paint and draw, my grandparents gave me a love of knowledge and the curiosity to explore all manner of things. And they all gave me discipline - the disciopline to know when to act, when to speak and when to remain silent.
At the end of the day it is not so much the baggage of childhood that holds us back, it can also be the spur to drive you forward, but it is the wallowing in self pity that so many of our nanny brigade want to encourage. Low self esteem is one thing, self pity and the inability to rise above the problems in one's life are. I do not know how the UNICEF crew have arrived at a figure stating that there are one million children in the UK suffering violence in their homes. Frankly, I do not believe it based on their definition of violence, nor do I believe that all of those children, assuming the figure is anywhere near accurate, will be forever trapped in poverty and violence. I am not unique and I am certainly not living in a cesspit of regrets and hatred for my parents. The older I have got the better I understand their problems and the greater the pity I feel that I did not understand better when they were still alive.
Children do not, in general, need more protection, they need to be shown that life is not fair, it is scarcely just and it is a school that sometimes gives very hard knocks. Those were the lessons I have carried forward and I have no regrets and certainly no intention of collapsing in a heap. I have achieved quite a bit and there is a lot more I want to achieve. The best advice I can give to anyone on the UNICEF "at risk" list is this - stick it out, then get a grip on your own life, take life head on and yes, you will get some bruises, but don't let the past hold you back. Know the past, recognise the injustices and determine never to repeat them - then stand on your past and climb to a better future. The world owes us nothing, we are who and what we are and no amount of nannying can change it.
Marx wrote that the worker must needs take his skills to the market for them - it was probably the only sensible thing he wrote - and life is exactly like that. We have certain skills, we develop those and we then have to sell them on the market of life. That is what many more people than I have done - I know because I have met a lot along the way who are shining examples for others - if only the nannies will get out of the way and let the youngsters see them!
Posted by The Gray Monk at August 16, 2006 02:26 PM
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Comments
I agree with you. I am not a perfect mother, but I hope that my boys can learn from the good and the bad. It is a part of life.
Posted by: vw bug at August 16, 2006 05:02 PM
It seems that the more we try to wrap them in cotton wool and "protect" them, the more we find them courting danger. If we do not teach the difference between right and wrong, between good and evil, between respect and contempt we will reap nothing but our own demise as a society.
Posted by: The Gray Monk at August 17, 2006 06:27 AM