I have a problem. My daughter, who is just 3, is obsessed with make-up. If we leave the house, the “make-up” (which is really an empty old tube of lip balm) comes with us, clutched in her fist. When she has her lunch, it sits in pride of place next to her plate; at bathtime I practically have to prise it out of her hand. If it gets lost, which it does, frequently — well, think
Britain’ s Next Top Model, add a splash of
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? and you’re halfway there.
It’s all my fault. I let her watch Fifi and the Flowertots on Nick Junior. In the breaks between this sweet and charming tale of a forget-me-not and her floral friends, horror lurks. Tacky, sparkly, lurid adverts for nasty pink tat. Jewellery, dolls, plastic dogs that do poos (I mean it. It’s a Barbie dog, needless to say). And, of course, make-up.
So my three-year-old thinks she needs lipstick to look pretty. Luckily, she is too small to know the difference between the real thing and my cast-offs. But if you think that this is a child whose television consumption is strictly rationed, it is no wonder that children are, as Susan Greenfield and 100 eminent public figures said yesterday, “being pushed by market forces to act and dress like mini-adults and exposed via the electronic media to material that would have been considered unsuitable for children even in the very recent past”.
That’s not all Baroness Greenfield and her colleagues are concerned about. They talk about the unreasonable pressure being put on today’s children by a hyperacademic curriculum; and they blame overexposure to artificiality — both processed food and processed entertainment (video-games, TV, computers) — for what they see as arrested, or at the very least seriously curtailed, emotional and physical development. Something must be done. The question is, what?
As reported in times2 yesterday, the issue of ambitious parents pushing their children too hard is already on the agenda in America. The psychologist Madeline Levine has found that children from affluent homes (ie, those with an income of more than £63,000 a year) are three times more likely to suffer from depression than the average teenager. These are children whose parents have high hopes for them, who are prepared to pay to get those results and who, frankly, wish to see a return on their investment. Put cruelly, the child becomes an extension of their own ego, a source of pride and affirmation — much like a new car or a large house. In the case of highly qualified women who have given up careers to become “full-time mothers” (such a meaningless phrase: what woman with children isn’t a mother 24/7?), an achieving child can act as a replacement ego. Dangerous territory indeed.
Parents don’t do any of this on purpose, but like children, adults too are susceptible to “market forces”. It’s not easy, when all around you other people’s kids are winning scholarships or, as happened to a friend of mine, training for the London Olympics, to look at your own child and think: whatever makes them happy makes me happy. What if that turns out to be Scientology; or a commune in the outer Hebrides; or a career as an estate agent? As an alumna of Godolphin and Latymer School, Baroness Greenfield may well have experienced such pressure first-hand. I, however, grew up in a distinctly non-competitive environment. My parents were always pleasantly surprised if I did well, but they never made too big a fuss if I failed. They weren’t perfect, but they did understand that children are not robots and that eventually, with a bit of luck and a relatively steady hand, everyone finds their level.
Crucially, they saw that a child is a person in its own right and not a second chance, an opportunity to make good the mistakes of the previous generation. It’s vital that all parents realise this and understand that, as well as feeding, clothing and supervising our children’s academic development, we have a duty to teach them about life. And by life I mean real life.
Which is where I part company with Baroness Greenfield and her comrades. Because nowadays real life does include a computer in every home, games consoles in teenagers’ bedrooms, wall-to-wall TV, tempting junk food and an oversexualised media. It just does, and there is no getting away from it. Instead of rejecting those aspects of modern life that we don’t find comfortable (or comprehensible), we should adapt to the reality and teach teenagers to handle themselves sensibly — in much the same way that I hope, fervently, to one day wean my daughter off “make-up”.
One of the most interesting insights into the Natascha Kampusch case was made (also in these pages) by the clinical psychologist Dorothy Rowe. She said that the reason Natascha had coped so apparently well with her confinement was that her fraught relationship with her mother had already taught her “that people could be nasty; it wasn’t a shock to her”. It’s a crude example I know, and an extreme case. But it illustrates the importance of not cocooning youngsters, and the duty every parent has to make sure their child is prepared, emotionally as well as academically, for what’s really out there.
Blair can be bold with the baldies
“Blair facing last TUC meet as PM” went the headlines yesterday. Oh, please. Even I’m not old enough to remember a time when the trade unions were anything other than an excuse for balding men with smelly breath to jab and point at slightly fatter, slightly better-dressed balding men with smelly breath. The thought of Tony Blair being anything other than faintly amused by the head of Amicus calling for an “immediate handover to Gordon Brown” is ludicrous. The trade unions are the last bastion of all new Labour refuseniks. But they still have a vote in the Labour leadership — which is why certain elite members of the party are being careful to keep them on-side. The TUC might as well enjoy the lunches while they can — that leadership election will be over all too soon.
Mime axeman gets the chop
Duncan Meadows, a mime artist who “entertains” passing tourists as a living statue of a warrior in the West End of London, has been banned by the police. They claim the ban came about because he was frightening young women with his axe. It is of course commendable that they should move to protect the honour of West End revellers thus, although I suspect that the young ladies in question were more than capable of defending themselves from a prat in a plastic skirt. But I think it shows the police in a whole new, wholly favourable light. After all, mime is quite the most pointless and irritating activity known to mankind. Let’s hope they extend the ban nationwide soon.
