Saturday, Apr 10, 2010
Cheer up, boomers!
The Telegraph: Joanna Lumley calls for ‘adoptive grannies’ to provide after-school care for children
“We all say it to each other: 'When I get to that stage, for pity’s sake, collect up the pills, mash them up with some jam and I’ll go off on cloud nine.' Everyone says that, because nobody wants to be stuck in a home, drooling, unvisited and unwanted and unloved. So maybe if old people’s homes were better, fewer people would think, 'God what a bloody old age I’ve got come ahead: lonely, frightened, ill, hating it all.'"
Posted by devo @ 02:39 AM (900 views) Add Comment
25 Comments
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1. devo said...
this is not a personal attack at you mr g
2. devo said...
return of the extended family, anyone?
for some cultures it never went away
3. happy mondays said...
Yes, We have lost our sense of belonging...It takes a community to raise a child! as the saying goes..
4. paul said...
It takes a community to raise a child!
No it doesn't. I don't want you to share the burden of bringing up your monkeybrats thank you very much.
5. bystander said...
So Paul. You don't want to live in a world where it is acceptable to advise your fellow members of the community on morals and behaviour. Would you take massive offence if I asked you not to swear in front of my kids, my parents, my fellow human beings, or to ask you to stop urinating against the wall or in the high street. I am not saying you do any of these things, but your attitude smacks of the NIMBYism that has blighted our society, just as much as the nanny state has. Back to topic however, the extended family needs to be encouraged and when happy mondays talks of the community I imagine he is just reinforcing the necessity of the wider 'family's' contribution to education and guiding the next generation, or 'monkeybrats' as Paul so charitably describes the future.
6. Striebs said...
In the future pensioners won't have the money to spend on Saga holidays so this looks like a practical suggestion .
As Devo says , the extended family works for other countries .
7. alan_540 said...
f it were not for our "monkeybrats" there would be no population left to pay for your state pension in the future...
8. paul said...
Would you take massive offence if I asked you not to swear in front of my kids
Would you take massive offence if I asked you to remove your screaming child from a restaurant where I was enjoying a meal?
9. happy mondays said...
That's very narrow minded of you Paul, unfortunately that's the same sort of mind set we have today, hence as you say monkebrats, who are angry & naffed off with today's society because no one is there to guide them in the right direction, with a factory education system that's suits a few, role modals which are very few & far between, unless overpaid gobby footballers, celebs or bent Mp's & corrupt business Directors float your boat, our youth have not much respect for the society we have helped create!
This is Cyclic! What goes around comes around, Karma... We all share the burden! as you call it!
Now get out there paul & Hug a hoodie...
10. paul said...
That's very narrow minded of you Paul,
Well I think that imposing your morals and the morals you want for your kids on other people is kinda narrow minded too. Don't we chastize Islamic groups for trying to do just the same thing?
I'll gladly hug a hoodie. In fact, I'm wearing a hooded top right now!
11. happy mondays said...
Don't we chastize Islamic groups? No! some do i don't, i have experienced too many cultures to impose my values..Anyhow we already have the Uk forces imposing our ways.
We do need to show our youth's by example , otherwise it's not looking good for the future & that may not concern yourself, but i have a family & would like them to have a life worth living.
Enjoy the sunshine ..
12. bystander said...
Paul that is a selfish argument. I ask if you would mind behaving in a socially responsible manner in front of a highly intelligent sponge, who will believe that because an 'adult' behaves in such a manner that he/she ought to and you chuck back the oldest chestnut in the anti-child lobby's barrel and say that children ruin your life and that you can't enjoy a nice meal without a child ruining it for you. Well you were that child once, unless ofcourse you were created fully bigoted as an 'adult'. As happy mondays says 'we all share the burden', whether you like it or not, you have a responsibility to society, and that includes children, so unless you intend to spend the rest of your life going to Sandals resorts and then Saga cruises where kids are banned then remove the blinkered view of children and childhood and realise and embrace the challenges of 'community'.
13. paul said...
Bystander, I pay for your kid's health and education very generously through my taxes. And you call me selfish because you think I should share the burden of raising your kids too? You decided to have kids, not me. And yet I pay for it.
And I'm the selfish one ... ?
14. letthemfall said...
I agree with bystander. Perhaps the overwhelming reason for the problems in society are to do with the erosion of communities. Now we have an incoherent society in which some people do what the hell they like to the overall detriment, which of course in includes unruly kids and yobs in general. The community should keep them in check, not just the parents, even if their role is the most important.
paul, your argument is naive if I may say so. Your taxes do not support bystander's children specifically, but the whole structure of society, just as mine do. Presumably if you are healthy, you don't object to your tax funding, say, cancer units. Without health and education our civilisation would crumble; and who knows, bystander's kids might just look after you in old age, or create enormous wealth through some glittering entrepreneurial thing.
As for deciding whether or not to have children - well, life tends to decide those things for you.
15. paul said...
... Now we have an incoherent society in which some people do what the hell they like to the overall detriment ...
Sorry are we talking about baby boomers again?
16. enuii said...
Yawn, Paul is behaving like a 'monkeybrat' himself today!
17. bystander said...
Paul you don't pay for my kids education. I do however, through my taxes, pay for all 'our' health services, fire services, police, teachers etc. as do you. Your point is ill made, and as happy mondays says, enjoy the sunshine.
18. Crunchy said...
12. paul said...And I'm the selfish one ... ?
Yes, given the choice. lol. Better to be a the top or bottom paul. The piggy in the middle is not the place to be.
19. alan_540 said...
Paul, you're a prat.
20. Selfbuild said...
I think the age parameters for boomers (if we're defining them as profiteers, accidental or otherwise, of a certain few decades of ecominc trending) might need re-jigging after reading about builder Dave Sharp on price he bought his first house for. (this was Ian McEwan's bricklayer brother you may remember) - and when.
21. mr g said...
Devo@1
Thanks for the kind thought!
22. paul said...
Ohhh dear. I'm using my will to live. Maybe Doug Stanhope has an answer to this ...
23. Selfbuild said...
Boomer age group might need (slight) adjustment if Dave Sharp's experience is anything to go by (ie what this brickie bought his first house for ('Complete Surrender') (He is long lost bro' of novelist McEwan HPCers may recall) It makes for interesting reading.
'Homesteader'
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