Vis a Viz!

Have you noticed how life is beginning to take the shape of a reality Viz magazine these days?

Only yesterday in the paper is a report on a school in Selby with a threatened noise abatement order hanging over their heads. Why? I hear you cry.
Because three local residents are continually complaining about the noise created by the 300+ children at playtime! WTF? Smatterings of Victorian Dad?


Mrs Brady, Old Lady, was caught, on CCTV, dumping a cat into a refuse bin!

The Fat Slags (yeah, that report is a few years old, but there are plenty more if you search!) are repeatedly in the columns of the tabloids for their binge drinking and loose behaviour once they have done their homework after school on a Friday night.

Mr Beehive lent me a book by Lucy Mangan, a Guardian columnist. She's a cross between Cressida, mother of Tarquin and  Guinevere and another Mrs B. I am struggling to "get into her" and hope her sense of humour really develops by 2010 because in 2007, she's in need of a pick me up!

Oh and don't start me on Fe-wail, a popular tabloid's weekly "chuck-up" who also produces a steady supply of Cressida's venting their wrath on the dumb population and scores of terrible mothers who feed their children the occasional fish finger, rather than spear hunting for sustainable Icelandic Pollock and battering it oneself in gluten free spelt flour.
Mille Tant is also there, sharing the same column space on a frequent basis and screeching her worth over those who dare to leave the house in anything less than full make up and heels whilst holding down a full time job and being a single stay at home parent.

Personally, I think it's sad that our lives revolve so much around what's in the media. We're all guilty of being pulled into their snare I think. The fact that we don't allow our children to walk to the 20m to the bus stop or school may be down to this story and the fear we'll be deemed bad parents, or the fear that something might happen to them.

We've lost the autonomy to raise our children and make decisions. We've lost the connection and safehood of community because we're (generically and hypothetically) scared  that the quiet man at number 37 might be a paedophile or drug pusher.

I know that for some people these are serious and genuine issues, and I'm not belittling it for them, but for most people they are unsubstantiated and irrational fears that are greedily fed by media stories etc.

I have no idea what's brought me to this rant today, other than to say that maybe it's time to throw off the blanket and get to know our community and the people around us. Maybe it's time to be show a united front for parents actually knowing best for their children and knowing the capabilities of their offspring better than anyone else? Maybe it's time to look out for each other and each other's kids, letting them play out on playground without us hovering knowing that they'll be safe because there are other mothers out there who will make sure of it.

I suppose I'm just tired of the stupidity and PC'ness of life in general in the UK and thus The Beehive speaks.

As you were ;-)