"We should stop....." Yes we should. And is there also a case for considering that - whenever and wherever possible - 'we should stop' sending children to state schools? In my own last post, I wrote about the rapid growth of homeschooling in America: "America has seen a sharp growth of parent anger and activist pushback against instances of classroom indoctrination - sometimes even at kindergarten age. The trigger was how covid pandemic lockdowns heightened parental awareness of the school curriculum. Opeds like this one are not uncommon: “When schools went remote, parents found out what was actually going on inside the classrooms. Teachers were coaching students to hate themselves, their country and their religious traditions and sexualizing young children.” https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/teach-your-children-well
They were also terrifying them about the future - about their "non-future" due to 'catastrophic' climate change. A fear not indoctrinated into the children of China. One of the widely known consequences in the West is the desire to remain childless. How might such a state of mind impact a sense of looking forward to tomorrow?
I think it's easy to get too excited about homeschooling. One of my best friends homeschooled his daughter with great results but lots of homeschooled kids end up learning how the early Christians cavorted with dinosaurs and that evolution is a myth.
And the schools in California are not so bad. My kids were not indoctrinated in anything and we lived in one of the leftiest bits of Silicon Valley and my daughter just earned her Master's degree at Bristol University. The schools were not as good as my grammar school in Sidcup but they were OK.
Yes home schooling can only be as good as the home where it takes place - same as classroom schooling. My impression of schools in California comes almost entirely from the (California-based) Tell Me How this Ends Substack. Chris Bray has posted a lot of stuff on political meddling that has been going on recently with the school system....and if it is a fair picture, it is a scary one.
Yes, children’s lives are so very different now. My own childhood (London’s docklands, council house, poor-ish) was one, by comparison, of immense freedom. There was no technology to distract us; we were ‘streetrakes’ as my Mum used to call us; we spent our time playing outdoors, making and racing carts with planks and old pram wheels, riding miles on our bikes, making rope swings, sodding about on the local patches of wasteland. It would all be regarded as quite dangerous now (I guess it was, actually). My own young grandsons have much greater material wealth but no such freedom and yes, they are worryingly addicted to their smartphones, sometimes to the point of utter absorption and to the exclusion of normal social interaction. I find it hard to believe that it’s not damaging in some way but I sincerely hope that’s not the case. I do my bit to distract and occupy them.
Hi Richard. You’re bringing it all back!I remember a friend chasing us around a field in an old van while we dived out of the way and threw apples at the windscreen. I think we were about 14.
I found this online. It’s America. 1976. But it’s still relevant. And really fun. Imagine how the BBC would report this today. There would be about six helmets on the kids and an ambulance standing by. Of course not. Not kid would be allowed to do this. If the link doesn’t work the title is The 13 year old Indianapolis ‘Evel Knievel’. Enjoy!
I spent most of my summer Tuesdays sailing and rowing in Greenland Dock with the Sea Cadets during my teenage years. We were mostly unsupervised. I think kids now miss out on much this kind of self-directed learning.
I can't find anything to disagree with today, Mr Opinions (bummer!), so, instead, I will take three of your excellent points and harmonise them into a conjecture of my own.
Keeping kids inside to play online games with their buddies is the ultimate cause of their snowflakiness. Mine went inside at around age 7 and didn't come out again until they reached their 20s.
But I didn't keep my kids inside. It wasn't my fault.
We moved deliberately to a posh little cul-de-sac in California with tons of young families where my 10-year-old son and his ruffian acquaintances could climb over the fence at the end of the garden, climb the mountain and play with the tarantulas and the rattlesnakes and the mountain lions. But did he go play with them? He did not. I had to go play with them on my own. I never saw another child for the whole time we lived there except the children in the back of cars while their parents drove them to the school that was about three quarters of a mile away.
As a kid, my space away from my parents was at a park about a mile away with about 20 other kids from my council estate. It's a cliche, but the 70s were the best time ever to be a child. Our Mums were out working and our Dads were doing the usual Dad stuff. (What did dads do back then, exactly? Mine watched the telly and drank cans of Gold Label.)
I beseeched my kids to go play outside. "Go play with your next-door neighbour who is the exact same age as you!" I beseeched. But no. Neither teenager ever left the house and never spoke to the other in the whole 12 years.
This was pre-Iphone but it was during the early days where you could connect your Wii to the internet and play with your friends without leaving the comfort of your bedroom. So I agree with you that all these mental illnesses stem from the fact that this generation was the first generation in 300,000 years of humanity to grow up indoors. But it was the living indoors business that gave them all their weird mental illnesses. Not their iPhones.
I had ADHD as a kid but I put mine to good use clambering over the ruins of Lesnes Abbey after an hour long bus ride with my ten-year-old mates. The only time I stayed indoors was to watch The Sweeney with my Mum. It was the absence of clambering (and throwing fireworks at each other and jumping into the River Cray) that messed modern kids up. Not the iPhones.
The iPhones are just one more reason to keep them indoors. We are now on to the second generation in doors and the previous lot have no concept of letting their kids out to play. There will no doubt soon be a government warning that Fresh Air is considered hazardous to children and all will be lost for ever.
Ha ha great. We have, as you say Ragged, finally harmonised.
I’m happy to say my kids are always out and about. Teenagers now they are yes, on their phones all the time, but they also have real world friends and are always up to stuff. I think it can go either way in the big city, either kids stay in because it’s big and scary, or embrace it and become (hopefully) a bit more street wise. Both my daughters have independently expressed to me their total love of London. They should do, it’s as much their city as anyone else’s.
Air is considered by the government. At least that’s what COVID rules and Sadiq tells us……
That's a good point. I grew up on the edge of London and was always getting on a bus to go places. My kids grew up on the edge of San Jose which was practically countryside. Nothing worth doing for dozens of miles if you didn't enjoy forests, mountains and rattlesnakes.
During the California Gold Rush, about 1000 tin miners from Cornwall built a village - called English Camp - at the top of the Mountain behind my house and mined mercury (”quicksilver”) which was used in gold mining. The miners left about a hundred years ago but their village is still there including cabins, a school and a church.
If I had been 13, I would have spent all my school holidays in that village.
Fascinating! I would have been right there with you except for the bit about tarantulas. Happy to handle snakes, can pick up all sorts of creepy crawlies, but spiders just make mt blood run cold.
The tarantulas would mostly stay hidden but for some reason they would come out every October to moult so you would see loads of moulting tarantulas on the pathway. Plus loads of empty tarantula skins that look just like tarantulas.
Good article as usual. I have mentioned Mencken's quote before, about practical politics needing the invention of imaginary hobgoblins. In my day, it was the cold war, and the threat of nuclear Armageddon. But did we spend our lives in fear? Of course not. Nor did our parents. But today parents seem frightened of everything, including:
1. Hard work.
2. Socialising properly.
3. Disciplining children (although it is increasingly hard to do this thanks to the nanny state).
4. Climate change.
5. COVID, despite it only being fatal for people over 80, in most cases.
Climate change is a particular problem. Like any religion, it is used to manipulate children, and adults for that matter, into believing what the elites want them to believe. Climate change is responsible for childhood depression and small families. We really haven't moved on from the ancient priest who demanded the sacrifice of your best goat when it didn't rain. If it still didn't rain, it was your fault because the goat wasn't good enough. If it did rain, it proved there was a god. The one certainty was that the priest ate better than anyone else.
Brought to mind 'Long Covid' and Simon Evans' brilliant observation: "I'm not saying it's not a thing. But you kind of know who's going to get it, don't you?"
Great piece again, LSO, as you say, if we want to reduce the stress our children are experiencing, we should stop catastrophizing about the world ourselves, give them space to grow and a sense there is a future (and actually build more, desirable, homes they can live in).
Of course schools should ban mobile phones during school hours, as they are undoubtedly a distraction to learning; of course responsible parents should control their children’s access to phones, TV etc. as they see fit in order to bring their children up so as to become socialised well adjusted adults. This is what being an adult in charge of the development of children at home and in school is all about.
But of course the state should NOT ban mobile phones for under 16s (which would be an enforcement joke if it tries), just as it shouldn’t try to ban vapes or, in large measure, ban things which people want to do which don’t in the process cause direct harm to others. Governments should stop banning things and as far as possible stop doing things to try to regulate or moderate how we live our lives. Let’s unban fox hunting now to show our commitment to freedom!
An excellent article! But please don’t fall into the trap of casually dismissing “gluten free”; yes, there are plenty of those for whom it is a fad and an annoying one for others to accommodate. But for those who have coeliac disease, which is as objectively diagnosable as any other serious medical condition, and can only be managed by a religiously 100% gluten free diet, it is no laughing matter. I speak as a father who a decade ago observed his 14 year old daughter fading away for months until the doctors finally performed the correct blood test to reveal the cause of her problems - coeliac - and the solution to them.
I agree wholeheartedly Paul. Banning things should be the very last resort, not the first. And should not extent to things which are legal for adults, but anlready illegal for minors, like vaping, alcohol etc.
I don’t think I do dismiss gluten free. My point is that these real conditions can be over diagnosed, often because they are somehow ‘fashionable’ with a certain class, not that they don’t exist, or aren't in some cases, a serious problem for people and families. If that didn’t come across then that’s my fault. All the very best to your daughter, I hope she’s doing well.
Thank you; she is doing fine. As a family we have become rather, perhaps over, sensitive to the gluten issue especially as we have discovered that most people haven’t a clue about coeliac (why should they? We didn’t either until it affected us) and can therefore be rather dismissive of the need for religious gluten avoidance.
I'm with you on your aversion to banning stuff. My kids grew up in California where Absolutely No Children smoke cigarettes. We were shocked to come home to England to see kids smoking. We hadn't seen that in 25 years. It wasn't banning that did it in California. It was just unfashionable.
Kids in California do smoke marijuana though. All the time. Even though it is (was) banned.
Unfortunately, California bans most things (crossing roads, eating Fois Gras and putting those shiny little silver balls on your cakes) but they've finally made it OK to smoke marijuana. Hoorah! (I can't stand the stuff but I am glad they unbanned it — maybe it will get kids off their phones).
I have very mixed feeling about legalising drugs. The libertarian in me says ‘legalise everything’. But that has clearly not worked. It really is a pandemic, and I worry about it spreading over here. Already there are tents, and more than just one or two, springing up in central London. Someone did a popular tweet yesterday on a little encampment 200 yards from where I am right now on Tottenham Court Road. Homelessness, at least this version of it, is entirely driven by drugs. I could watch them running for their fix all day if I wanted. And the numbers are only growing.
Maybe. They say its much stronger now that when I used to dabble. Haven’t imbibed anything stronger than a bubble tea for over fifteen years. Weep for me.
> The idea of ‘snowflakes’ might be a cliché at this point. But in many cases it is perhaps a better description of the timorous parents, rather than their, straining at the leash, children.
> One reason might be that we are no longer teaching our kids resilience and self reliance.
> It seems like all the middle class mums are climbing over each other, like shoppers at the Boxing Day Sales, to have their special child diagnosed with some disorder or other.
Yup. But it's not one thing. I agree that smartphones are a lesser problem than the snowflake culture of the modern mom -- and thanks for pointing out that it's more the parents than the kids -- but smartphones are part of the problem too.
> And now use the term [ autism ] to include everyone, from kids with severe life impeding difficulties, to children we would have once simply described as ‘shy’.
Yup. My sister is so sure I'm autistic that she wrote a book about it.
My diagnosis mostly comes down to the fact that I don't like lying, I'm not very good at chit-chat, and I don't care about people's shoes.
> I wonder how kids from those communities do in relation to the average white British kid.
21.0 for the Gypsies! That's scary.
> We should stop teaching them that capitalism, humanity’s undisputed, number one method of lifting people from poverty to prosperity, is the reason they will grow up poorer than their parents.
It's another topic, but most of what passes for capitalism today is better labeled banksterism and rent-seeking. Capitalists are greedy but they do create wealth. Banksters are even greedier and they create economic instability. Rentiers are better than banksters -- they are simply parasites but don't create actual economic destruction like the banksters. Uncle Karl did warn us that this would happen.
Let me know what you think of it. Too bad we don't know each other, I'd be interested in your summary of the thesis -- am I autistic or is it just that I'm not interested in shoes? What does 'neurotypical' even mean? BTW she makes me sound much more interesting than I really am.
I don't mind shoes, just get impatient when a woman tries on a pair then visits 5 other shoe shops only to return to the first pair and purchase them. Now, I don't like sport. Never have. My Dad was captain of football and cricket. He didn't make it an issue but I imagine I was a disappointment. Am I autistic? Have ADHD? Maybe. Sometimes I wonder if I might change my mind. How to catch up? I have no lived experience of the emotion of this game or that, other than 1966 of course. Two of my best friends are Rugby fanatics. At some stage they must have noticed my heavy eyelids. They never tried to trick me into going to a game. Just changed the subject.
Oh, and while you're on the table, would you care for a gender re-assignment? Just think, then *you* could be the one trying on six different pairs of shoes and driving someone *else* crazy.
Apropos neuritic Mums. My daughter's kids, 7, 9, can be over excitable and out of control. Their Mum just says they're just a pain in the ass. It's us grandparents who look on and worry. I'd extend your definition to snowflake grandparents.
Thank Ray. For a culture which supposedly values diversity, we seem very keen on categorising, quantifying and medicalising difference. We have definitly made progress in some areas, but I think I preferred the more laissez faire ‘it takes all sorts’ attitude of the past tbh. Maybe some troubled kids slipped through the net. But hey, it was a net.
I completely agree with your point about capitalism. My friend Dominic Frisby talks about this all the time. Crony Capitalism is the absolute worst, because it corrupts government, undermines the benefits of capitalism while at the same time makes a case for wealth sapping socialism.
Did the book sell? I read the blurb. Sounds like your sister wrote your biography. Not many of us get one of those…
> we seem very keen on categorising, quantifying and medicalising difference
Freedom is slavery. Fascinating how right Orwell was. Diversity is everyone thinking exactly the same way. But as you say real diversity is very useful, some of the great minds of history have been rather weird.
> Crony Capitalism is the absolute worst, because it corrupts government, undermines the benefits of capitalism while at the same time makes a case for wealth sapping socialism.
Yup. Disney, Apple, Google ... how woke they are! Such champions of the Oppressed ... as they rake in billions, going on trillions of dollars in profits and enjoy a very cozy relationship with big government.
The book sold in the thousands. Naturally she was hoping for a blockbuster, but it was her first book so she had zero name recognition and given how few authors get published at all, she's not displeased. And it continues to sell a few copies every month. Funny thing, although I disagree with the central premise of the book, I still think it's very well written.
Insightful, as ever. It is worth reflecting that Katherine Birbalsingh has made Michaela a success through hard, centrally-imposed discipline. This is a microcosm of a multicultural society and shows the only way it can be made to work is by authoritarian imposition from above. For example, the children are closely supervised at break time and are forced to mix, the antithesis of self-directed play and learning. Without a shared set of values and a way to conceptualise the world, that is a shared culture which provides structure bottom-up, there is no social cohesion and trust. The only way to hold society together is top-down. Authoritarian, rule-bound and rigid is not Britain but that is where mass immigration and the multiculturalism it implies, is taking us.
That’s a fascinating point Dan. The problem comes I suppose when you raise up some of those cultures as special, or morally superior to others. Authoritarian, rule bound and rigid is where we are headed, but in the service of division, rather than harmony, it seems..
I couldn’t agree more, although your comment on Dyslexia smarted a little. I have a daughter who is profoundly dyslexic, It has been pretty heartbreaking as a father to watch the most confident of my three children slowly become more and more introverted and shy. This has coincided with her starting school and falling further and further behind as she ages. You’re right about parents ‘shopping’ for ia’s and ism’s as they compete for status with one another. And it is pretty fucking annoying. But I must point out that some of these were actual conditions before they became accessories.
Agreed Tom. Thats the point I tried to make. But maybe it didn’t come across as robustly as I’d hoped. They’re all real conditions. But not ‘everyone’ has got them. The reason I mentioned dyslexia in the piece, is that it seems the one most often adopted as an accessory, as you say. When I was a kid I knew maybe one kid with it. Now I’m a grown up man anyone with poor spelling who can’t be bothered to read seems to claim to have it. 🧐 All the very best to your daughter. I hope you can find the help she needs.
I’ve loved reading the comments. Just to throw in my opinions….
1. I actually think children spend too much time with their parents (or at least in the same house) when they should be with other kids learning how to be kids. You are correct about the ‘Starbucks Mum’ - the time spent with your Children should be at least time spent talking to them.
2. If I had had the guts, and with a massive amount of hindsight, I would have at least tried to home-school my children. The current education system in this country has added little value and given that I had one doing A Levels and another doing GCSE’s in 2020, you can imagine how that turned out.
3. Smart phones are a wonderful thing and I’m absolutely fine with children being able to use ‘what 3 words’ or phone instantly if they are in trouble or use Substack…. However,they absolutely must never, ever, ever be used to listen to Coldplay.
Thanks as ever Matthew. 1.) I agree. My kids are pretty independent I’m happy to say. But a lot of them do seem to be a bit coddled. Or at least they are not really allowed to have their own agency. I think the whole lockdown nonsense was a disaster in this regard obvs.
2. I absolutely see why people do this. Especially I would say in America. And obviously it has its attractions. But I don’t want anyone to indoctrinate my kids, even me. So not sure all that time at home would be good for them. I also think that in order to achieve the independence you talk about in 1. They need to be with their own kind, and encountering the more mad aspects of modern life helps inoculate them maybe. It’s a tricky one but I’m glad my kids go to school with a massive-yes diverse- range of other kids. 3. Again tricky. We’ve had our issues. But ultimately as I try and say in the piece, they are the modern scapegoat. And I also think adults don’t really ‘get’ it. Especially parents who were adults pre internet.
4. Was that first album any good? Full disclosure. I remember I really liked Yellow when it came out. But now, no, I’m happier if they are listening to songs on TikTok. All the best Matthew.
Thanks once again for a fabulous read. A gem indeed. I do wonder why children are no longer allowed to just be. Be a human being instead of the constant human doing. The just being part is so important. It’s great to be bored once in a while- you can then begin to imagine all sorts of mischief that can be made… without a crash helmet! We once had a new child join our school on, of all days, a class forest day. Typical stuff here. Kids and teacher off into the forest with wood,sausages and Swiss Army knives. Yes knives. Real sharp ones. Once dry wood was gathered for the fire the teacher told the kids to go off and play. In the forest. On their own. Away from the adults. Knives were only to be used around the fire and the children knew where the boundaries were and the signal to run back once the fire was ready. Off the kids scampered. Blink and they were gone, eager to get away and climb a tree, build a den, take some prisoners and demand a ransom. Normal stuff.
All apart from the new kid. He didn’t know what to do. He’d never been to the forest before or apparently had to do anything without his phone. He asked “ What shall I play with?” To which the teacher picked up a stick, gave it to him and said “ With this!”
He soon got the hang of it with the help of his new friends. Give kids a break. Let ‘em breathe and just be.
Not sure you're readers are feeding kids poison or worrying about shape of spoon. As father of 10 year old girl, wasn't close to bone for me. But probably is for the Facebookers and, probably,
Mumsnetters. Ensuring my daughter has 80s experience with proper appreciation for mud, worms, fighting and boredom.
Damn! Brings up all sorts of questions for me. My parents wouldn't see my arris for dust on non school days. Now I've got 3 grandchildren, a girl and a boy here, a boy there. My son's boy is rationed on screentime. They even got rid of the TV. If a screen flickers in his peripheral vision, he's 7, you lose his attention. I say surely he'll soon get bored, that he won't have shared viewing experience with his peer group. Their child. The other two get a bit mental and are given their tablets to calm them down. They speak American, their currency dollars. They are no way zombies. They do so much, stop and it's yee hah, back on the ceiling then go to sleep like angels. They are more clever than I was at that age.
We have a small business where we have stalls at fairs and events. Once, a polite, well spoken little girl (10 ish) turned up, dispelling all ideas of hooligan youth. She told us she was home schooled, her demeanour a delight. I couldn't help thinking, what if it all goes wrong and she ends up in an inner city comprehensive, all sharp elbows, belligerence and scorn for her diction?
Hi Zorro. Yes. I think the worry that your kids will be socially excluded if they don’t have a phone etc is real. And not to be dismissed as a ‘nothing’. As I say in the piece I’d be happy if none of them had phones, but if some do, then all bets are off.
Likewise home schooling. I’m not sure, the ‘education’ my kids get from interacting with other inner city children from very varied backgrounds, (I’ve said before, my kitchen is sometimes like an old Benetton advert with all the different kids) has an amazing value on its own. And I have to say, I’ve learned a lot from being around it too!
Yes Chris. I read it and posted a link back to mine in her comments. The Abigail Shrier book, Bad Therapy which the article loosely reviews sounds like another (depressing) must read from Shrier. Thanks for the link. Very much recommended.
"We should stop....." Yes we should. And is there also a case for considering that - whenever and wherever possible - 'we should stop' sending children to state schools? In my own last post, I wrote about the rapid growth of homeschooling in America: "America has seen a sharp growth of parent anger and activist pushback against instances of classroom indoctrination - sometimes even at kindergarten age. The trigger was how covid pandemic lockdowns heightened parental awareness of the school curriculum. Opeds like this one are not uncommon: “When schools went remote, parents found out what was actually going on inside the classrooms. Teachers were coaching students to hate themselves, their country and their religious traditions and sexualizing young children.” https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/teach-your-children-well
Hi Graham. That’s a great post.
Thank you....I thought your post was too.
They were also terrifying them about the future - about their "non-future" due to 'catastrophic' climate change. A fear not indoctrinated into the children of China. One of the widely known consequences in the West is the desire to remain childless. How might such a state of mind impact a sense of looking forward to tomorrow?
Good point Alexei. Chinese kids are told they are the future. Our kids are told they don’t have one.
Birthrate in China is pretty low. Their population is predicted to half by the end of the century.
I think it's easy to get too excited about homeschooling. One of my best friends homeschooled his daughter with great results but lots of homeschooled kids end up learning how the early Christians cavorted with dinosaurs and that evolution is a myth.
And the schools in California are not so bad. My kids were not indoctrinated in anything and we lived in one of the leftiest bits of Silicon Valley and my daughter just earned her Master's degree at Bristol University. The schools were not as good as my grammar school in Sidcup but they were OK.
Yes home schooling can only be as good as the home where it takes place - same as classroom schooling. My impression of schools in California comes almost entirely from the (California-based) Tell Me How this Ends Substack. Chris Bray has posted a lot of stuff on political meddling that has been going on recently with the school system....and if it is a fair picture, it is a scary one.
Yes, children’s lives are so very different now. My own childhood (London’s docklands, council house, poor-ish) was one, by comparison, of immense freedom. There was no technology to distract us; we were ‘streetrakes’ as my Mum used to call us; we spent our time playing outdoors, making and racing carts with planks and old pram wheels, riding miles on our bikes, making rope swings, sodding about on the local patches of wasteland. It would all be regarded as quite dangerous now (I guess it was, actually). My own young grandsons have much greater material wealth but no such freedom and yes, they are worryingly addicted to their smartphones, sometimes to the point of utter absorption and to the exclusion of normal social interaction. I find it hard to believe that it’s not damaging in some way but I sincerely hope that’s not the case. I do my bit to distract and occupy them.
Hi Richard. You’re bringing it all back!I remember a friend chasing us around a field in an old van while we dived out of the way and threw apples at the windscreen. I think we were about 14.
I found this online. It’s America. 1976. But it’s still relevant. And really fun. Imagine how the BBC would report this today. There would be about six helmets on the kids and an ambulance standing by. Of course not. Not kid would be allowed to do this. If the link doesn’t work the title is The 13 year old Indianapolis ‘Evel Knievel’. Enjoy!
https://youtu.be/lysStR5ZGzM?si=YRPt2il-o8DNz6Kb
I spent most of my summer Tuesdays sailing and rowing in Greenland Dock with the Sea Cadets during my teenage years. We were mostly unsupervised. I think kids now miss out on much this kind of self-directed learning.
I can't find anything to disagree with today, Mr Opinions (bummer!), so, instead, I will take three of your excellent points and harmonise them into a conjecture of my own.
Keeping kids inside to play online games with their buddies is the ultimate cause of their snowflakiness. Mine went inside at around age 7 and didn't come out again until they reached their 20s.
But I didn't keep my kids inside. It wasn't my fault.
We moved deliberately to a posh little cul-de-sac in California with tons of young families where my 10-year-old son and his ruffian acquaintances could climb over the fence at the end of the garden, climb the mountain and play with the tarantulas and the rattlesnakes and the mountain lions. But did he go play with them? He did not. I had to go play with them on my own. I never saw another child for the whole time we lived there except the children in the back of cars while their parents drove them to the school that was about three quarters of a mile away.
As a kid, my space away from my parents was at a park about a mile away with about 20 other kids from my council estate. It's a cliche, but the 70s were the best time ever to be a child. Our Mums were out working and our Dads were doing the usual Dad stuff. (What did dads do back then, exactly? Mine watched the telly and drank cans of Gold Label.)
I beseeched my kids to go play outside. "Go play with your next-door neighbour who is the exact same age as you!" I beseeched. But no. Neither teenager ever left the house and never spoke to the other in the whole 12 years.
This was pre-Iphone but it was during the early days where you could connect your Wii to the internet and play with your friends without leaving the comfort of your bedroom. So I agree with you that all these mental illnesses stem from the fact that this generation was the first generation in 300,000 years of humanity to grow up indoors. But it was the living indoors business that gave them all their weird mental illnesses. Not their iPhones.
I had ADHD as a kid but I put mine to good use clambering over the ruins of Lesnes Abbey after an hour long bus ride with my ten-year-old mates. The only time I stayed indoors was to watch The Sweeney with my Mum. It was the absence of clambering (and throwing fireworks at each other and jumping into the River Cray) that messed modern kids up. Not the iPhones.
The iPhones are just one more reason to keep them indoors. We are now on to the second generation in doors and the previous lot have no concept of letting their kids out to play. There will no doubt soon be a government warning that Fresh Air is considered hazardous to children and all will be lost for ever.
Ha ha great. We have, as you say Ragged, finally harmonised.
I’m happy to say my kids are always out and about. Teenagers now they are yes, on their phones all the time, but they also have real world friends and are always up to stuff. I think it can go either way in the big city, either kids stay in because it’s big and scary, or embrace it and become (hopefully) a bit more street wise. Both my daughters have independently expressed to me their total love of London. They should do, it’s as much their city as anyone else’s.
Air is considered by the government. At least that’s what COVID rules and Sadiq tells us……
That's a good point. I grew up on the edge of London and was always getting on a bus to go places. My kids grew up on the edge of San Jose which was practically countryside. Nothing worth doing for dozens of miles if you didn't enjoy forests, mountains and rattlesnakes.
Wow. Still sounds amazing to my parochial ears…
Great observations. (And the bit about you having to go and play with the tarantulas and mountain lions on your own made me laugh out loud. 🤣)
During the California Gold Rush, about 1000 tin miners from Cornwall built a village - called English Camp - at the top of the Mountain behind my house and mined mercury (”quicksilver”) which was used in gold mining. The miners left about a hundred years ago but their village is still there including cabins, a school and a church.
If I had been 13, I would have spent all my school holidays in that village.
https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=52775
Fascinating! I would have been right there with you except for the bit about tarantulas. Happy to handle snakes, can pick up all sorts of creepy crawlies, but spiders just make mt blood run cold.
The tarantulas would mostly stay hidden but for some reason they would come out every October to moult so you would see loads of moulting tarantulas on the pathway. Plus loads of empty tarantula skins that look just like tarantulas.
So creepy. Especially the idea that they’re moulting, because they are undergoing a process of biggafication.
Not selling it to me... 🤣🤣
If I had been thirteen, I would have never come home. I would have lived in the mountains!
Good article as usual. I have mentioned Mencken's quote before, about practical politics needing the invention of imaginary hobgoblins. In my day, it was the cold war, and the threat of nuclear Armageddon. But did we spend our lives in fear? Of course not. Nor did our parents. But today parents seem frightened of everything, including:
1. Hard work.
2. Socialising properly.
3. Disciplining children (although it is increasingly hard to do this thanks to the nanny state).
4. Climate change.
5. COVID, despite it only being fatal for people over 80, in most cases.
Climate change is a particular problem. Like any religion, it is used to manipulate children, and adults for that matter, into believing what the elites want them to believe. Climate change is responsible for childhood depression and small families. We really haven't moved on from the ancient priest who demanded the sacrifice of your best goat when it didn't rain. If it still didn't rain, it was your fault because the goat wasn't good enough. If it did rain, it proved there was a god. The one certainty was that the priest ate better than anyone else.
Brought to mind 'Long Covid' and Simon Evans' brilliant observation: "I'm not saying it's not a thing. But you kind of know who's going to get it, don't you?"
Ha ha. Perfect.
Great piece again, LSO, as you say, if we want to reduce the stress our children are experiencing, we should stop catastrophizing about the world ourselves, give them space to grow and a sense there is a future (and actually build more, desirable, homes they can live in).
Thanks P. Yes. That doesn’t sound too complicated does it? But apparently -insurmountable.
Of course schools should ban mobile phones during school hours, as they are undoubtedly a distraction to learning; of course responsible parents should control their children’s access to phones, TV etc. as they see fit in order to bring their children up so as to become socialised well adjusted adults. This is what being an adult in charge of the development of children at home and in school is all about.
But of course the state should NOT ban mobile phones for under 16s (which would be an enforcement joke if it tries), just as it shouldn’t try to ban vapes or, in large measure, ban things which people want to do which don’t in the process cause direct harm to others. Governments should stop banning things and as far as possible stop doing things to try to regulate or moderate how we live our lives. Let’s unban fox hunting now to show our commitment to freedom!
An excellent article! But please don’t fall into the trap of casually dismissing “gluten free”; yes, there are plenty of those for whom it is a fad and an annoying one for others to accommodate. But for those who have coeliac disease, which is as objectively diagnosable as any other serious medical condition, and can only be managed by a religiously 100% gluten free diet, it is no laughing matter. I speak as a father who a decade ago observed his 14 year old daughter fading away for months until the doctors finally performed the correct blood test to reveal the cause of her problems - coeliac - and the solution to them.
I agree wholeheartedly Paul. Banning things should be the very last resort, not the first. And should not extent to things which are legal for adults, but anlready illegal for minors, like vaping, alcohol etc.
I don’t think I do dismiss gluten free. My point is that these real conditions can be over diagnosed, often because they are somehow ‘fashionable’ with a certain class, not that they don’t exist, or aren't in some cases, a serious problem for people and families. If that didn’t come across then that’s my fault. All the very best to your daughter, I hope she’s doing well.
Thank you; she is doing fine. As a family we have become rather, perhaps over, sensitive to the gluten issue especially as we have discovered that most people haven’t a clue about coeliac (why should they? We didn’t either until it affected us) and can therefore be rather dismissive of the need for religious gluten avoidance.
I'm with you on your aversion to banning stuff. My kids grew up in California where Absolutely No Children smoke cigarettes. We were shocked to come home to England to see kids smoking. We hadn't seen that in 25 years. It wasn't banning that did it in California. It was just unfashionable.
Kids in California do smoke marijuana though. All the time. Even though it is (was) banned.
Unfortunately, California bans most things (crossing roads, eating Fois Gras and putting those shiny little silver balls on your cakes) but they've finally made it OK to smoke marijuana. Hoorah! (I can't stand the stuff but I am glad they unbanned it — maybe it will get kids off their phones).
I have very mixed feeling about legalising drugs. The libertarian in me says ‘legalise everything’. But that has clearly not worked. It really is a pandemic, and I worry about it spreading over here. Already there are tents, and more than just one or two, springing up in central London. Someone did a popular tweet yesterday on a little encampment 200 yards from where I am right now on Tottenham Court Road. Homelessness, at least this version of it, is entirely driven by drugs. I could watch them running for their fix all day if I wanted. And the numbers are only growing.
I can't stand marijuana but it seems pretty harmless from what I can tell. Less harmful than alcohol or tobacco for sure.
I'm probably with you on stronger drugs.
Maybe. They say its much stronger now that when I used to dabble. Haven’t imbibed anything stronger than a bubble tea for over fifteen years. Weep for me.
How about the effect of an altered state of consciousness on drivers? A number of accidents have been linked to the drivers being high here in the US.
Yes. Lots of drivers in London are smoking weed. And lots of delivery riders on scooters too. I agree. It’s an under appreciated problem.
> The idea of ‘snowflakes’ might be a cliché at this point. But in many cases it is perhaps a better description of the timorous parents, rather than their, straining at the leash, children.
> One reason might be that we are no longer teaching our kids resilience and self reliance.
> It seems like all the middle class mums are climbing over each other, like shoppers at the Boxing Day Sales, to have their special child diagnosed with some disorder or other.
Yup. But it's not one thing. I agree that smartphones are a lesser problem than the snowflake culture of the modern mom -- and thanks for pointing out that it's more the parents than the kids -- but smartphones are part of the problem too.
> And now use the term [ autism ] to include everyone, from kids with severe life impeding difficulties, to children we would have once simply described as ‘shy’.
Yup. My sister is so sure I'm autistic that she wrote a book about it.
https://www.amazon.ca/Dispatches-Rays-Planet-Journey-through/dp/1773860305
My diagnosis mostly comes down to the fact that I don't like lying, I'm not very good at chit-chat, and I don't care about people's shoes.
> I wonder how kids from those communities do in relation to the average white British kid.
21.0 for the Gypsies! That's scary.
> We should stop teaching them that capitalism, humanity’s undisputed, number one method of lifting people from poverty to prosperity, is the reason they will grow up poorer than their parents.
It's another topic, but most of what passes for capitalism today is better labeled banksterism and rent-seeking. Capitalists are greedy but they do create wealth. Banksters are even greedier and they create economic instability. Rentiers are better than banksters -- they are simply parasites but don't create actual economic destruction like the banksters. Uncle Karl did warn us that this would happen.
Hello Ray. I just ordered your sister's book from Amazon. It sounds fascinating and the reviews are excellent; I'm looking forward to reading it.
Let me know what you think of it. Too bad we don't know each other, I'd be interested in your summary of the thesis -- am I autistic or is it just that I'm not interested in shoes? What does 'neurotypical' even mean? BTW she makes me sound much more interesting than I really am.
I don't mind shoes, just get impatient when a woman tries on a pair then visits 5 other shoe shops only to return to the first pair and purchase them. Now, I don't like sport. Never have. My Dad was captain of football and cricket. He didn't make it an issue but I imagine I was a disappointment. Am I autistic? Have ADHD? Maybe. Sometimes I wonder if I might change my mind. How to catch up? I have no lived experience of the emotion of this game or that, other than 1966 of course. Two of my best friends are Rugby fanatics. At some stage they must have noticed my heavy eyelids. They never tried to trick me into going to a game. Just changed the subject.
You need treatment.
Oh, and while you're on the table, would you care for a gender re-assignment? Just think, then *you* could be the one trying on six different pairs of shoes and driving someone *else* crazy.
Sounds like Richard is about to get to know you very well Ray.
I’d be happy to! I will be in touch in due course.
Standing by.
Apropos neuritic Mums. My daughter's kids, 7, 9, can be over excitable and out of control. Their Mum just says they're just a pain in the ass. It's us grandparents who look on and worry. I'd extend your definition to snowflake grandparents.
Yabut that's what grandparents do.
Thank Ray. For a culture which supposedly values diversity, we seem very keen on categorising, quantifying and medicalising difference. We have definitly made progress in some areas, but I think I preferred the more laissez faire ‘it takes all sorts’ attitude of the past tbh. Maybe some troubled kids slipped through the net. But hey, it was a net.
I completely agree with your point about capitalism. My friend Dominic Frisby talks about this all the time. Crony Capitalism is the absolute worst, because it corrupts government, undermines the benefits of capitalism while at the same time makes a case for wealth sapping socialism.
Did the book sell? I read the blurb. Sounds like your sister wrote your biography. Not many of us get one of those…
> we seem very keen on categorising, quantifying and medicalising difference
Freedom is slavery. Fascinating how right Orwell was. Diversity is everyone thinking exactly the same way. But as you say real diversity is very useful, some of the great minds of history have been rather weird.
> Crony Capitalism is the absolute worst, because it corrupts government, undermines the benefits of capitalism while at the same time makes a case for wealth sapping socialism.
Yup. Disney, Apple, Google ... how woke they are! Such champions of the Oppressed ... as they rake in billions, going on trillions of dollars in profits and enjoy a very cozy relationship with big government.
The book sold in the thousands. Naturally she was hoping for a blockbuster, but it was her first book so she had zero name recognition and given how few authors get published at all, she's not displeased. And it continues to sell a few copies every month. Funny thing, although I disagree with the central premise of the book, I still think it's very well written.
Sounds like a successful book to me Ray. Maybe I’ll pick up a copy.
Brilliantly put once more LSO—particularly the last paragraphs. Hear, hear!
Thank you Bitkoda. That’s very kind.
Insightful, as ever. It is worth reflecting that Katherine Birbalsingh has made Michaela a success through hard, centrally-imposed discipline. This is a microcosm of a multicultural society and shows the only way it can be made to work is by authoritarian imposition from above. For example, the children are closely supervised at break time and are forced to mix, the antithesis of self-directed play and learning. Without a shared set of values and a way to conceptualise the world, that is a shared culture which provides structure bottom-up, there is no social cohesion and trust. The only way to hold society together is top-down. Authoritarian, rule-bound and rigid is not Britain but that is where mass immigration and the multiculturalism it implies, is taking us.
That’s a fascinating point Dan. The problem comes I suppose when you raise up some of those cultures as special, or morally superior to others. Authoritarian, rule bound and rigid is where we are headed, but in the service of division, rather than harmony, it seems..
I couldn’t agree more, although your comment on Dyslexia smarted a little. I have a daughter who is profoundly dyslexic, It has been pretty heartbreaking as a father to watch the most confident of my three children slowly become more and more introverted and shy. This has coincided with her starting school and falling further and further behind as she ages. You’re right about parents ‘shopping’ for ia’s and ism’s as they compete for status with one another. And it is pretty fucking annoying. But I must point out that some of these were actual conditions before they became accessories.
Agreed Tom. Thats the point I tried to make. But maybe it didn’t come across as robustly as I’d hoped. They’re all real conditions. But not ‘everyone’ has got them. The reason I mentioned dyslexia in the piece, is that it seems the one most often adopted as an accessory, as you say. When I was a kid I knew maybe one kid with it. Now I’m a grown up man anyone with poor spelling who can’t be bothered to read seems to claim to have it. 🧐 All the very best to your daughter. I hope you can find the help she needs.
Excellent post LSO.
I’ve loved reading the comments. Just to throw in my opinions….
1. I actually think children spend too much time with their parents (or at least in the same house) when they should be with other kids learning how to be kids. You are correct about the ‘Starbucks Mum’ - the time spent with your Children should be at least time spent talking to them.
2. If I had had the guts, and with a massive amount of hindsight, I would have at least tried to home-school my children. The current education system in this country has added little value and given that I had one doing A Levels and another doing GCSE’s in 2020, you can imagine how that turned out.
3. Smart phones are a wonderful thing and I’m absolutely fine with children being able to use ‘what 3 words’ or phone instantly if they are in trouble or use Substack…. However,they absolutely must never, ever, ever be used to listen to Coldplay.
Thanks as ever Matthew. 1.) I agree. My kids are pretty independent I’m happy to say. But a lot of them do seem to be a bit coddled. Or at least they are not really allowed to have their own agency. I think the whole lockdown nonsense was a disaster in this regard obvs.
2. I absolutely see why people do this. Especially I would say in America. And obviously it has its attractions. But I don’t want anyone to indoctrinate my kids, even me. So not sure all that time at home would be good for them. I also think that in order to achieve the independence you talk about in 1. They need to be with their own kind, and encountering the more mad aspects of modern life helps inoculate them maybe. It’s a tricky one but I’m glad my kids go to school with a massive-yes diverse- range of other kids. 3. Again tricky. We’ve had our issues. But ultimately as I try and say in the piece, they are the modern scapegoat. And I also think adults don’t really ‘get’ it. Especially parents who were adults pre internet.
4. Was that first album any good? Full disclosure. I remember I really liked Yellow when it came out. But now, no, I’m happier if they are listening to songs on TikTok. All the best Matthew.
Thanks once again for a fabulous read. A gem indeed. I do wonder why children are no longer allowed to just be. Be a human being instead of the constant human doing. The just being part is so important. It’s great to be bored once in a while- you can then begin to imagine all sorts of mischief that can be made… without a crash helmet! We once had a new child join our school on, of all days, a class forest day. Typical stuff here. Kids and teacher off into the forest with wood,sausages and Swiss Army knives. Yes knives. Real sharp ones. Once dry wood was gathered for the fire the teacher told the kids to go off and play. In the forest. On their own. Away from the adults. Knives were only to be used around the fire and the children knew where the boundaries were and the signal to run back once the fire was ready. Off the kids scampered. Blink and they were gone, eager to get away and climb a tree, build a den, take some prisoners and demand a ransom. Normal stuff.
All apart from the new kid. He didn’t know what to do. He’d never been to the forest before or apparently had to do anything without his phone. He asked “ What shall I play with?” To which the teacher picked up a stick, gave it to him and said “ With this!”
He soon got the hang of it with the help of his new friends. Give kids a break. Let ‘em breathe and just be.
Thanks so much Maria. Yours sounds like a great school. Those kids are lucky to have you.
Not sure you're readers are feeding kids poison or worrying about shape of spoon. As father of 10 year old girl, wasn't close to bone for me. But probably is for the Facebookers and, probably,
Mumsnetters. Ensuring my daughter has 80s experience with proper appreciation for mud, worms, fighting and boredom.
Damn! Brings up all sorts of questions for me. My parents wouldn't see my arris for dust on non school days. Now I've got 3 grandchildren, a girl and a boy here, a boy there. My son's boy is rationed on screentime. They even got rid of the TV. If a screen flickers in his peripheral vision, he's 7, you lose his attention. I say surely he'll soon get bored, that he won't have shared viewing experience with his peer group. Their child. The other two get a bit mental and are given their tablets to calm them down. They speak American, their currency dollars. They are no way zombies. They do so much, stop and it's yee hah, back on the ceiling then go to sleep like angels. They are more clever than I was at that age.
We have a small business where we have stalls at fairs and events. Once, a polite, well spoken little girl (10 ish) turned up, dispelling all ideas of hooligan youth. She told us she was home schooled, her demeanour a delight. I couldn't help thinking, what if it all goes wrong and she ends up in an inner city comprehensive, all sharp elbows, belligerence and scorn for her diction?
Hi Zorro. Yes. I think the worry that your kids will be socially excluded if they don’t have a phone etc is real. And not to be dismissed as a ‘nothing’. As I say in the piece I’d be happy if none of them had phones, but if some do, then all bets are off.
Likewise home schooling. I’m not sure, the ‘education’ my kids get from interacting with other inner city children from very varied backgrounds, (I’ve said before, my kitchen is sometimes like an old Benetton advert with all the different kids) has an amazing value on its own. And I have to say, I’ve learned a lot from being around it too!
Good to hear from you. Best to your family.
Excellent article on unherd today by Mary Harrington touches on this subject; well worth a read:
https://unherd.com/2024/02/bad-therapy-is-stunting-our-kids/
Yes Chris. I read it and posted a link back to mine in her comments. The Abigail Shrier book, Bad Therapy which the article loosely reviews sounds like another (depressing) must read from Shrier. Thanks for the link. Very much recommended.