Some random linkage
Michele Hanson has one of her moments of sense, re some judge who has been moaning and whingeing on about dysfunctional families:
[H]ave families really got any worse? And is it even their fault if they are breaking down?
We all do our best under the circumstances, honestly, m'lud, but the circumstances are often ghastly. They always have been, so why is family meltdown only happening now? There must have been a few million dead fathers and single mothers after the first and second world wars, but no one went around banging on about dysfunctional children. Meltdown wasn't allowed in those days. If you were alone you shut up and battled on, and if you were married you usually had to stick at it.
I had a couple of aunties who would have loved to get out of family life in the 40s and 50s, but couldn't. They were too early for the permissive 60s and easy divorce, and had to suffer in silence. And although I usually like to wallow in nostalgia, this is one area in which I feel we may have progressed. No more unmarried pregnant girls incarcerated and called feeble-minded, no Magdalene laundries, not nearly so many dangerous secret abortions or aunties stuck in miserable marriages, not so many damaging secrets, and secret adoptions. So things are looking up. Anyway, what is dysfunction and who decides?
So true (though goodness, she gets some real barkers in the Comments section, doesn't she? including the person who wants to Bring Back the 1832 Poor Law).
An unlikely trend is emerging in the US: a growing number of companies are allowing parents - usually mothers - to bring their babies into work. . Uh - can it really be that it's just about bringing in the baby and stashing it somewhere not too much in anyone's way while getting on with work? Does the concept 'creche' not mean anything to anyone promoting this kind of policy? And having half glimpsed while shutting down my computer at work this evening something about policies on bringing in family members and health and safety issues, wot abaht health and safety issues?
And awwwwwww!!! seahorses in the Thames!!!