Listen to thisThere was a particularly interesting article on CYC-Online last month. For those of you who didn’t read it, I’d suggest you do so. It was called “Damaging to our children” and was by a sociologist, Frank Ferudi. The link at the bottom is also worth following, especially for any sceptics out there who might believe that what we read, often under the guise of evidence, may not be as decent, honest and truthful as it may seem. For me the article helped a number of things fall into place.
One of the things that I found encouraging was the confirmation, if it were needed, that I’m not such a bad parent after all. Yet, if I paid too much attention to what children's charities told me, I might start to doubt myself. They set the agenda of what constitutes good parenting and what counts as abuse. They do so through ploughing the cash unsuspecting souls donate, thinking it’s going to make a difference to the real lives of real kids, into their latest advertising campaign. They generate a sense of guilt and inadequacy in those of us trying our best to bring up kids. And who are the beneficiaries of those campaigns? Is it kids? Or is it the charity bosses and the advertising moguls? I know where I’d put my money.
I had my own experience of a children's charity trying in vain to extract money from me recently. My daughter plays in the Edinburgh Schools Orchestra and they were doing their annual concert. The concert was sponsored by “Childline,” a telephone helpline for kids to report unhappiness. How you might ask, in this season of goodwill, could I take issue with such a cause? Well I tell you, it touched the scrooge in me. The concert was presented by an MC who managed to convey the impression that he never quite understood the issues and who assumed that we all shared his take on things. He regularly interspersed his contribution with reminders of the helpline number – 0800 double one, double one. I know it well. A few months ago my 9-year-old son and his pal came home singing
“ If your ma' gets angry and she kicks you up the bum
Dial 0800 double one, double one.”
There were a couple of other similar ditties on the same theme. I loved them. How to puncture the pomposity of those who want to hype up normal childhood experiences so that they can feel good. The humour of the lines almost assuaged my anger at the unsolicited peddling of the phone number to my kids. If my kids were unhappy, I'd expect them to come to me or my wife or their grandparents or a teacher or a pal's mum or a cub leader or a football coach ... not a phone line manned by goodness knows who.
It gets worse. The MC goes on to tell us that each call costs £3, but that only around two thirds of calls can be answered. He doesn't tell us how many of these calls are from kids like my son and his mates phoning up to say that their ma had kicked them up the bum. Or whether an unanswered phone call is the best way to spend £3, money that might be better spent on equipment for hard pressed youth clubs, where kids might get access to a real person who might actually be in a position to help them with any difficulties they encounter growing up. The trouble, though, with all the hype about unhappy kids and abusing adults (or indeed peers, because Childline is also big into bullying) is that the more we perpetuate this image of the helpless child, the more we put off adults who might want to work with kids in a direct, relational way. Unfortunately, many children's charities fail to make this connection and politicians are either unaware or afraid to challenge the emotivism of their messages.
