MM wrote:
> The point is, there are tens of thousands of adults, men and women,
> who in a different decade would have loved to volunteer their time to
> give children new experiences, whether for townies in the countryside,
> or for country folk in a factory, and so on. No longer possible.
Have you tried? Of course it is not only possible - it is dead easy. Got
a big yacht/FGP and are willing to take a school party out for the day?
Great. NO CRB check. Promise. But plenty of risk assessment. The
teachers will *not* be worried that you will sail off to the Casbah with
the kids - all they want is to protect *themselves* if you drown one of
them. What you will get is teachers coming too - but that has always
been the case.
Believe me, I RESENT the look I get from chav mums when their
> kids jump on the bus and rush to the back where I like to sit. Their
> mums take one look down the bus, see an old codger, and the look that
> comes over their faces is set in pre-vigilante mode as they yell to
> their kids to come back down the front. This used not to be the case
> in Britain. How many milliseconds would a mum let a stranger merely
> talk to her child before dragging the child away? Could an adult even
> dare to speak to a kid who is apparently lost in the street or in a
> large store?
Everyone is now much more risk-aware than they ever were. I was brought
up with the motto. "Better drowned than duffers - if not duffers, won't
drown". I remember going to a couple of funerals of school friends - one
tipped over a tractor and another fell off her horse. Their deaths
wouldn't be acceptable now - they were then. How many kids went in a car
was determined by how many could be squeezed in, no belts, or child
seats or crumple zones. Kids were to be seen (rarely) and heard (never).
Their parents were supposed to give them a good belting if they got out
of line. Their teachers were supposed to give them a good belting if
they got out of line. Now, not even kids are allowed to give other kids
a good belting if they get out of line..
A man on his own was a rarity. Men worked until they died. A child would
only see them at work, or with their family at church. Oh, you might see
them on holiday, but always with their wife in tow.
I'm afraid that society hasn't adjusted to what is now normal, men in
public on their own and not at work and without their "safety belt" - a
wife in tow.
One way of proving this is very simple. Take a briefcase containing a
big folder labelled "Financial Report 2007-2008". Take that out and
appear to be working on it, at the back of the bus. Scowl, don't smile.
Demand of the mother that she keeps the kids quiet. You will then fit
the "man at work" pidgeon hole and be totally ignored, with kids yelling
at each other from the seat beside yours.
ITYWF that the same works in a park..
--
Sue |