Mary Kenny“a Government Minister surely makes a major political error if she seems to have little feeling or respect for mothers who raise their children at home”, writes Mary Kenny
My youngest grandchild started nursery school this month, and at the age of three, he is now confidently ready for social interaction and constructive play with other young children. Until now, James has had the inestimable blessing of being at home with his mother, with support from his father and, luckily, extended family.
You watch young parents boxing and coxing their schedules to care for their children and, really, they’re admirable.
Grandparenthood is a second chance at child-rearing: you observe the child’s development more closely – perhaps having more reflective time to do so. And as a grandmother I have come to agree, absolutely, with the child care expert Penelope Leach, who said that “the less (professional) childcare before the age of three, the better”.
I do wonder if Minister Katherine Zappone has any fundamental understanding of Dr Leach’s maxim. It seems to me that Ms Zappone has made a fundamental error in allocating funds to parents who use paid-for care for their children, while virtually discriminating against mothers who wish to stay at home and raise their children themselves.
Motivated
Ms Zappone appears to be motivated by the experience of her own mother – who felt herself to be a “frustrated housewife” – without the wider experience of talking to a cohort of women who have different stories to tell.
If she were a grandmother herself, she would be in touch with that experience more sensitively, I believe: she would meet many women of her own age who would tell her that, in contrast to her own mother’s life, they regretted placing their young children in professional care, and wished they had that time back to do it all differently.
You don’t have to be a parent or a grandparent to have an innate understanding of family life: I have often observed that some of the best teachers I’ve known were childless. But if you are not a parent or a grandparent, you should exercise more imagination, respect and sensitivity in considering family issues. And if you are not a mother yourself, you should go out of your way to show esteem for mothers – because you will be open to the charge that you don’t identify with the situation, not having been in it.
There are many demands on family life today, and parents are often under much pressure to do the best they can for their kids – and most parents indeed do the best they can. But a Government Minister surely makes a major political error if she seems to have little feeling or respect for mothers who raise their children at home – for that is the impression that Minister Zappone has given. It must prompt the question as to whether she is the right person to hold this ministerial brief.
A Conclave worth sticking with
When a Pope dies, the words “Sede vacante” – “the throne of the Holy See is vacant” – are pronounced. This I learn from Robert Harris’s new thriller Conclave, which is rich in detail about activities behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel as the cardinals assemble to elect a new Pope.
The author has certainly done his homework and the book is an accessible introduction to the formalities (and the conspiracies!) behind Vatican procedure. The characters portrayed are fallible human beings, but the author is on the whole in tune with their spiritual sincerity.
Harris may even have done too much research. Sometimes an overload of research information can hold up a narrative, and I feel that Conclave falls into this category. But it’s worth a read, nevertheless.
Evans case can serve as a warning to all
Following the case of the Ched Evans rape trial – the Welsh footballer served 30 months in jail for a rape conviction, but won an appeal against the conviction – women’s groups said that the outcome would “deter victims of rape from coming forward”.
In the course of the Evans appeal, the accuser’s sexual history was disclosed – a legal practice which had been dropped as irrelevant to the evidence.
I hope victims of rape will not be deterred from coming forward when a crime has occurred. But I also hope that the example of this depressing public story will deter both men and women from getting stonking drunk before embarking on an evening’s ‘partying’.
I know: I can remember all too well catastrophic consequences that can follow from nights of heavy drinking. Hopefully, the Ched Evans case may act as a warning to the young against the calamitous excesses of alcohol.
Nobody came well out of the trial. The accuser, even though she remains anonymous, feels her life has been ruined. Evans has been cleared of a crime – though he admits he behaved badly – but it’s unlikely that his reputation will fully recover, and the episode will follow him all his life. So regrettable.