The UNICEF report

OK. One of my friends asked why I hadn't blogged about the report. After all I'm not a total stranger to The Netherlands and Sweden .. or, obviously, to the UK.

My reaction was the usual bleuurrghh. I am toooooo ill. I also said I thought it was slightly out of my scope as I don't have kids. I have friends of all ages but I haven't brought children up so I didn't think I could give much of an indepth viewpoint. Nor am I involved in education or social work though I know people who are.

I said in some ways I didn't really think it was my business as I'm not a parent or involved with kids on anything but a social level, more as someone to have a chat to or to take out or babysit.

Guess there have been times when I've been more than useful!!!! When people want a night oot!! I once said to someone about the Native American tribe who used to consider gay/bi people the spiritual leaders, the walkers between the worlds, because they considered them to represent both male and female .. a sort of unity, that I thought they were just trying to butter 'em up because they wanted babysitters. Well, perhaps this didn't always work as far as bi people went but you know wat I mean!!!

Prepares self for return to London. Still, it can be a lot of fun.

Yeah, my reaction was that it wasn't really any of my business and anyway I was too ill.

And, anyway, when I first started blogging, I blogged about this to a certain extent when I mentioned that this had all been gone through before and that around fifteen years ago an American professor had written an article advising the UK to start sorting itself out or it was going to end up having problems like the US. I think I was reacting to some thing Mr Blair had done which I found kind of unbelievable. Can't remember what it was now, but I reacted by asking what on earth did he think he was doing when there were kids in this country taking weapons into school because they were scared. It was like he was living in a totally different reality from what was actually happening. What he'd said just came across as some kind of cosmetic effect.

Off the blog I'd said to people the next thing is that they'll become fashion accessories.

On blog I'd said that I thought schools should become more user friendly. I thought they were rather soulless places on the whole and I thought it should be remembered that quite a few children had very little support at home and for some home was a very unhappy place to be.

I was lucky because I went to some good schools. The kids in my classes were great so we didn't get any bullying and in my secondary school there wasn't any sexism, racism, homophobia or anything like that in the classes I was in. Guess it was rather surprising. This was 1950s/1960s .. years and years ago. No sizism or anything like that. I remember we had one girl who I expect had some kind of health problem and was very large and she was our form captain at one point, a very popular girl.

If you did something in class, like when we had to talk or debate, no one cared if you were a boy or a girl, people would just say how interesting things were and stuff like that. I was very lucky and it was a good antidote to home. My father was misogynistic. Woke my brother up to a few things and he used to call him a misogynist. He was but he was also a bully who didn't like anyone very much.

Anyway, I'd blogged a little about the UK side when I first started blogging.

But a report like the UNICEF one is surely more down to the parents, school, government and social workers and, ofcourse, to the kids themselves. They have more involvement than I do.

Ofcourse, the American professor was right, I think he recommended all night basketball courts and things like that to occupy people and give them something to interest them and something along the lines of self esteem directed in the right direction.

I don't know why the UK does so badly in so many reports. What I do know is that reports come out and on the whole the culture fostering them doesn't seem to change. So, you do have to ask just how many people are really interested.

There's no climate of debate here.

I've talked about the differences in Dutch and Swedish lifestyles a little, basically saying that while Dutch society is very home orientated in that someone often stays home with the children for the first few years, Sweden is different because the kids often go to outside care very early so that people can go to work. The care is very well organised though.

I also said that both countries, regardless of the problems they have and all cultures have problems, would like to be considered progressive. The UK would probably be considered permissive within certain boundaries but not classed as particularly progressive.

Also there is more of a culture of debate in the two countries and minus the far right and affiliated by interest groups and your misogynists both countries like to consider themselves feminist orientated. Though there is still maybe room for a little more flexibility. Sweden has kept an active feminist voice and The Netherlands while having a child orientated stay at home society has a certain amount of gender neutrality in some ways.

Politics and all kinds of social issues are an interest.

There are still many, many of problems ofcourse but discussing them is an interest.

I also said off line when I'd said that I thought the next stage would be that weapons became a fashion accessory was that I thought the longer things were left as they are the stricter the measures used to clamp down to reverse the trend would have to be, that society might lose some of it's freedoms. A bit like the tipping point in regards to global warming.

The Beeb had an article up about a trend in British society where children are given what they want and continually agreed with to the point that they think they are authorities on virtually everything and spoilt materially.

I read an article too where it said that a lot of higher education relied on presentations and media type effects seemingly pushing debate and discussion out of the picture. It was infact an article about cheating in exams but it highlighted the way studies were often presented.

The UK has a lot going for it because of the universal nature of its language along with the language connection to the US and this gives it a great start especially as far as the Arts go but there is a chance now with expanding industrialisation that this mightn't always be the case in the future and the UK mightn't have that advantage on the world stage.

Innovation would be needed.

And, I left it mulling over things like that.

I think if I'd been a parent I would've had a lot more to say but I've really just been juggling a few facts around about the differences in cultures.

And I am also very, very, very tired.