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Blog Archive > 1-Dec-06
Friday 1-December-06 Hugging hoodies, political footballs and
practical parenting
Youth violence is perhaps more of a concern
today than it has ever been. Callous assaults with guns and knives are
increasing and much of the population goes in fear when they see groups of loud
young men who appear to consider themselves outside the law.
In these days of ever-present security cameras,
a popular piece of clothing is the hooded track-suit top, inside which the
malicious youth can hide much of their appearance, particularly from overhead
cameras. Those who wear such clothes have come to be known as 'hoodies'. It is
perhaps also worth noting that young people who wear hoods may also be hiding
from a world that scares them, although few would be likely to admit
this.
The prevalence of hoods and their association
with lawlessness has led to bans on such clothing in some bars and restaurants,
which recently resulted in the bizarre sight a 61-year-old woman wearing a pink
hooded top being accosted by an over-enthusiastic manager.
David Cameron, the fresh-faced new leader of the
UK Conservative party, is doing his best to put a modern face on the dowdy main
party of the political right, and has recently been embroiled in public ridicule
regarding comments in which he was showing sympathy for the plight of the
hoodies, many of whom come from broken homes and who grow up in gang-ridden
areas where survival is a significant challenge. The press have leapt on this
with 'hug a hoodie' and 'love a lout' jibes. TV news has also portrayed the
comments as unwise, reporting neutral facts over a background of CCTV footage of
violent hoodie action.
In some ways it could well be a cynical ploy by
Cameron, using youths as political footballs in the search for popular
differentiation. In other ways I think he has a point. Such children (and some
of them are scarily young) typically get limited love at home and are scarred
from deeply incompetent parenting. The current swathe of reality TV includes
such programmes as Supernanny, where nanny Jo Hughes calms tearaway youngsters,
mostly by teaching appalling parents about consistent, non-violent discipline
and unconditional love.
Hugging hoodies may seem ridiculous but the
principle behind it is very sound. Most people respond well to consistent and
genuine care, and our society would be a lot more civilized if we loved more and
hurt less.
Your comments
A tongue in check reflection on growing old...
I recently received the enclosed and thought I would share it with you:
Born before 1986?
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in
the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have survived, because our baby
cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which was promptly
chewed and licked.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets
and it was fine to play with pans. When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets,
just flip-flops and fluorescent 'spokey dokey's' on our wheels. As children, we
would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags - riding in the passenger seat
was a treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it tasted the
same. We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy juice with sugar in
it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing. We
shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no-one actually
died from this.
We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed
down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into
stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We would leave
home in the morning and could play all day, as long as we were back before it
got dark. No one was able to reach us and no one minded.
We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels
on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal
computers, no DVDs, no Internet chat rooms.
We had friends - we went outside and found them. We played elastics and rounders,
and sometimes that ball really hurt! We fell out of trees, got cut, and broke
bones but there were no law suits. We had full on fist fights but no prosecution
followed from other parents. We played chap-the-door-run-away and were actually
afraid of the owners catching us.
We walked to friends' homes. We also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we
didn't rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to school, which was just round the
corner. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls. We rode bikes in packs of
7 and wore our coats by only the hood.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of...They
actually sided with the law.
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers
and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and
new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned
how to deal with it all.
And you're one of them. Congratulations!
Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow as real kids, before
lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good. For those of you
who aren't old enough, thought you might like to read about us.
This, my friends, is surprisingly frightening......and it might put a smile on
your face: The majority of students in universities today were born in
1986........They are called youth.
They have never heard of We are the World, We are the children, and the Uptown
Girl they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel.
They have never heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena Cherry or Belinda
Carlisle. (possibly not a bad thing of course....)
For them, there has always been only one Germany and one Vietnam. AIDS has
existed since they were born. CD's have existed since they were born. Michael
Jackson has always been white. To them John Travolta has always been round in
shape and they can't imagine how this fat guy could be a God of dance. They
believe that Charlie's Angels and Mission Impossible are films from last year.
They can never imagine life before computers. They'll never have pretended to be
the A Team, Red Hand Gang or the Famous Five. They'll never have applied to be
on Jim'll Fix It or Why Don't You. They can't believe a black and white
television ever existed. And they will never understand how we could leave the
house without a mobile phone.
Now let's check if we're getting old...
1. You understand what was written above and you smiled.
2. You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after a night out.
3. Your friends are getting married/already married.
4. You are always surprised to see small children playing comfortably with
computers.
5. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.
6. You remember watching Dirty Den in EastEnders the first time around.
7. You meet your friends from time to time, talking about the good old days,
repeating again all the funny things you have experienced together.
8. Having read this e-mail, you are thinking of forwarding it to some other
friends because you think they will like it too...
Yes, you're getting OLD!
Do it disgracefully!
-- Wayne Phillips
Teenage angst is teenage angst. And no amount of
competent parenting will cure that. And what is incompetent parenting after all?
Perfectly normal middle class children in Britain, from regular families, which
are loving, give them all the emotional support that they want, and are from
good parents:
1) Often seem not to know that drugs are bad. Crystal Meth, cocaine, and heroin,
are often not even recognised to be dangerous, and addictive substances, instead
registering a "cool" in their tiny brains.
2) Seem to gain a sense of identity through a pathetic lashing out at their
parents, which some of them never grow out of. And then they never emotionally
move out of their parents homes, gaining their sense of self through a series of
adversarial and dangerous relationships in their lives.
The overindulgent nature of the modern Western parent is in my opinion largely
to blame for this.
Far better that some kid romps around in a "hoodie" for a year or two, proclaims
his status as being misunderstood, etc, than that he or she is completely caught
up in a maelstrom of sex, drugs and misdirection.
-- Iossef Vassarionovic
Dave replies:
Very good points, Iossef. The best that parents can often do is instil good
values when the child is young and help them become independent when they are
older (although today's house prices don't help!).
There's a certain truth in the maxim 'spare
the rod and spoil the child'. Although I don't advocate physical punishment,
children do need to understand the law of cause and effect and that their
actions can have far-reaching and highly undesirable consequences.
Both my children went through 'Goth' phases
and had all kinds of problems in growing up as they sought their individual
identity. My daughter is now 25 and becoming successful in business. My son is
17 and (I think) acquiring some maturity. Parenting is not easy, especially in
the modern world, and I do think that we need all the help we can get!
I like this website, and I had commented on this
blog some weeks ago. Today I came across this sermon on the blog of a pastor in
a distant church.
Whether on is religious or not, I thought it made a certain amount of sense, on
the subject of difficult parenting. Its short, and definitely worth a read, if
one has a few minutes.
I'll post the link below.
http://www.ilbcpasadena.org/Sermons/GodOurFather.htm
-- Iossef V
Dave replies:
The story of the prodigal son has a very useful message. I have been at my
wits end with my son on more than one occasion and have bitten my tongue many
times. Some years ago I asked a friend what I could do about teenagers. He said
"Wait."
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