Ah yes...Love is not enough.
You need to be around to offer it.
Maybe many of you have missed the point.
But never mind....the subject is closed?
I agree with Carol that this is going nowhere. I had comparable disdain for children when I did my 'rota' chairing a council. Typically for England, the family who lived at the 'big' house had chaired for a couple of decades and the family there before them. Then suddenly they were down to a generation where despite having been an army officer the 'head of family' had no real authority. He bred and trained polo ponies and hardly noticed his children. So they were the young people most of all off the tracks. But because they came from that household what came out was complaints about just about every other young person. The big laugh was about road safety and them on their bicycles and roller-blades. Big laugh because my neighbour and I went roller-blading every day until she had an accident, apart from which her husband, she and I used bikes locally. Noboby complained about us. After all, there I was a councillor and she managed the village hall in her spare time, plus the two of us administered the allotments. But we were over 40 and 'they' were under 18 - well except the ones from the big house whose father was still a councillor and son of the former almost permanent chair. A couple of us put the cards on the table and had it added to the agenda, which the parish clerk 'forgot'. He was the biggest child hater and actually lived in the next parish so had no opinion or influence. So we bulldozed it in and had it out. Several parishioners simply wanted a particularly large and poor family put in their place although none of their kids ever did anything other than hang around and be visible. The 'posh' kids left cider bottles inthe bus shelter, smoked in full view of everybody and swore at whosoever they wished. So we put the cards on the table, our ex-officer fellow councillor admitted he could not cope and other councillors thus sympathised and then asked what we did about the others? It went in circles, the clerk did not and would not make precise notes and so I gave one of his frequent public warnings about such things at the next meeting and was more or less shouted down for it. The family people wanted dealt with all got jobs or began to do things out of public view and suddenly emphasis changed to having some kind of a 'youth group' to support those with a need. My term as chair was ending and when somebody who was 'more consequent' was selected I laughed sardonically. As luck had it I resigned because my OH found a lectureship in Wales and off we went. I still talk to my old roller-blading friend and her husband and the class biassed picking on kids still goes on. The ones from the big house grew up, disappeared, parents divorced and now some really rich people live there. Difference - like many very well off people, just about as soon as they are upright their young are shipped off to private education, no problem there then. Inside all of this there I was working in Ethiopia, China, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Viet Nam and various other countries where I wished children could be spoiled and pampered occasionally because even where they had love it was just not enough...
Hear hear!
Well the subject is going nowhere.
I am generalising...but I have seen what I have seen.
Carol my experiences are not focused on Uk holiday makers who
are staying here with us in Gironde but as
seen in UK closely and from the wings too
Perhaps life is the same here......maybe....but I talk about what
I see.
Just my observations.
...time to come to a close.....yes, maybe
Enjoy the sunshine.
If you want to know what French kids can be like, try reading this
http://travellingamber.blogspot.fr/2012/03/apathy.html
about kids at a business school, and this
http://travellingamber.blogspot.fr/2012/04/moving-on.html
about this other side of French parenting. These are examples, can we now stop generalising? Kids can be spoilt, badly behaved etc wherever they come from.
I dont think this thread is going anywhere...we all have our own opinions and have not been convinced by other arguments. I dont disagree with the premise that some kids from the UK are spoilt and selfish...but I do draw the line at the comparison with French children..where you seem to think they dont have the same problems. I lived in a village in the UK for years..and the kids were a delight...knew most of them as my OH was the local GP....now living in a Dordogne village and I would say the same here...but....if you compare kids brought up in large deprived connerbations....both in UK and France...you will come across the same problems... others on this site have evidenced problems with French youth....which you seem to not take on board....so I guess you will continue with your attitude...maybe Barbara the families that choose holidays in the Dordogne are the aspirational parents who have little time for their children..? there could be lots of explanations...if you have experience of working in any of the social sciences you are aware there are a myriad of reasons why certain things occur...its not so simplistic as UK kids being spoilt and French kids not being spoilt....spend some time in the hinterlands of Marseilles or Paris...and some time in some of the home counties villages....then maybe re-access...
Over the last few weeks I have been back to Uk and I have seen UK kids visiting here
with their parents. It was very dissapointing, sad and on occassion shocking.
From total manipulation to slobbyness....Yes fine if the parents agree to this life style
but what does the future hold for a person who grows up thinking that the Nanny, the cleaner
and everyone else will sort out their mess and the fall out from their bad attitude.
Carol not all UK kids are spoilt and selfish.
But as the problems increase with increasing surge to create big incomes and
keeping up with the Smiths the kid's get pushed out of their spot....WHICH
should be No 1.
The balance seems to be much more in place here.
ok I am now convinced...all UK kids are spoilt and selfish.......
Good morning...I guesse it is time to illustrate my words with the images of parent/child
problems which I have witnessed.
Are last period in London was with our deli/cafe Fabouche.
Children would come into the shop and would touch/ lick, pick up food..and the parents
would not tell their children that this is not the thing to do.
If parents can not be bother to educate their children in the art of right and wrong how
will they learn? Have the parents got no time, are they exhausted or do some of them not
believe it is necessary?
I believe that this is the vital moment in a child's life....the point of learning the difference between
right and wrong, good and bad and the way to love.
The stability of family life and the relationship between mother and father is the mirror image.
I do believe someone mentioned mirror images yesterday?
A good parent needs to offer stability....none of this society which respects a mum for smoking
'pot' and for a dad who sneaks off to drink the extra bottles of wine privately.
If you want examples....not issolated detail but a procession of people in UK with kids who are
troubled or in trouble with their lives. I can give you many examples.
It begins at the begining...
With balance.
you need to get hold of the wives...I have found that when the secretary is the builder's wife or you get hold of their home phone number, and you keep phoning and hassling her about her errant husband, he tends to turn up sharpish and sheepish!
Need to get organised by a woman...
you could well be right Christina...but I always managed to shame our UK builders when living in England...cant say Ive managed that here...I tend to get the shrug and pfft...as if I am being totally unreasonable...would love to provide their nursing care.....and keep them waiting similar amounts of time and see if they eventually see the error of their ways...
Have to say I don't think it's cultural at all but part of the building trade in general - have experienced this in 4 different countries!!
sorry...just looked at that...and it sounds...patronising...but hope you both know I just meant...yep...i agree...good thinking....!
am still looking for the 'like' button on here...Celeste and Brian...a lot of sense from you both...
which is what my OH and I do for a very meagre living but at least we feel good about the vast majority of young people
dunno, when some people open their mouth then planet comes into question! my origins are the northeast highlands of scotland but I have no single culture, so place myself where I happen to be on planet earth and that's fine by me - it is what a few people with opinions about children we have seen here might try too.
not sure what anybody means by 'english' in this context. there are too many 'englands' although many people pretend home counties middle class is the defining version. if anybody can enlighten us all there I am quite sure it would be very helpful for the rest of the world
great celeste. now can people stop demonising them, comparing them with dogs and so on and accept that we are all born equally naked, the same blank canvas and life itself makes us what we are including each child.
Well said Celeste.
The main difference I have encountered between the UK and France when it comes to young people is the way they are treated by their local communities.
I encountered many a "community" meeting in the UK where people wanted to know "what the local authority youth service (something that no longer exists in the UK since the most recent batch of cuts) was going to do about the young people" as if they were aliens from another planet. My experience so far in rural France (I don't know about urban attitudes here) has been that young people appear to be far more integrated into community life. Just an observation.