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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/20/good-talk-relatives-guides-older-people
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| Version 2 | Version 3 |
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| It’s good to get our older relatives talking. Isn’t it? | It’s good to get our older relatives talking. Isn’t it? |
| (about 16 hours later) | |
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| Wed 20 Sep 2017 06.00 BST | |
| Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 16.44 GMT | |
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| I was home for the weekend. Late on the Sunday, Dad spoke. | I was home for the weekend. Late on the Sunday, Dad spoke. |
| “I’m going to Dignitas,” he said. | “I’m going to Dignitas,” he said. |
| “Oh yes?” I responded politely. This is what he says late most Sundays. | “Oh yes?” I responded politely. This is what he says late most Sundays. |
| “There’s some Girl Guides up in Manchester can earn a new badge by going and talking to old people.” | “There’s some Girl Guides up in Manchester can earn a new badge by going and talking to old people.” |
| “I see.” | “I see.” |
| “It’ll be down here before you can blink. So I’m off.” | “It’ll be down here before you can blink. So I’m off.” |
| My father and I, as the two quiet eyes in the endless storm whipped up by the restless rest of our family, have had many moments of understanding over the years, but perhaps none so profound as this. I too fear the creeping revolution in senior care, and have done ever since I first read about the UK starting to take an interest in the US fashion for appending kindergartens to old people’s housing complexes. “Am I to get no peace?” I raged, as I read. “No peace at all?” | My father and I, as the two quiet eyes in the endless storm whipped up by the restless rest of our family, have had many moments of understanding over the years, but perhaps none so profound as this. I too fear the creeping revolution in senior care, and have done ever since I first read about the UK starting to take an interest in the US fashion for appending kindergartens to old people’s housing complexes. “Am I to get no peace?” I raged, as I read. “No peace at all?” |
| “Imagine,” says Dad. “Me in the middle of a book. Or replaying Tom Finney’s greatest moments in my mind’s eye. And then a child comes up. Or a teenager. Wanting to … to … talk. What about? What for?” | “Imagine,” says Dad. “Me in the middle of a book. Or replaying Tom Finney’s greatest moments in my mind’s eye. And then a child comes up. Or a teenager. Wanting to … to … talk. What about? What for?” |
| We relapse into silence. But unease has entered his soul and, unprecedentedly, a mere three hours later, he speaks again. | We relapse into silence. But unease has entered his soul and, unprecedentedly, a mere three hours later, he speaks again. |
| “It’d be all right if they just visited them as wants to talk,” he says. “But you can bet they won’t. They’ll think we all want to chat. Even though there’s some of us who’ve never wanted to chat in our lives.” He sighs. “It’s the way of the world.” | “It’d be all right if they just visited them as wants to talk,” he says. “But you can bet they won’t. They’ll think we all want to chat. Even though there’s some of us who’ve never wanted to chat in our lives.” He sighs. “It’s the way of the world.” |
| I nod. What else is there to say? | I nod. What else is there to say? |
| Daddy who? | Daddy who? |
| In 2015 the government introduced the shared parental leave scheme – 52 weeks of leave and 39 of statutory pay, to be divvied up between breeding pairs as best suits them – to incentivise men to stay home during that first, fraught year and help boost gender equality in the workplace. But men, it turns out, have stayed determinedly unincentivised. Just 1% of eligible families have taken up the offer. | In 2015 the government introduced the shared parental leave scheme – 52 weeks of leave and 39 of statutory pay, to be divvied up between breeding pairs as best suits them – to incentivise men to stay home during that first, fraught year and help boost gender equality in the workplace. But men, it turns out, have stayed determinedly unincentivised. Just 1% of eligible families have taken up the offer. |
| The favoured theory in the official reports is that men fear the impact on their careers if they take more than the traditional 10 minutes of paternity leave. It’s possible, I suppose, except that men fear no such thing because it would require conceptualising both a hypothetical and worst-case scenario, the two greatest weakness of the male imagination. Anyway. Here are a few more likely causes: | The favoured theory in the official reports is that men fear the impact on their careers if they take more than the traditional 10 minutes of paternity leave. It’s possible, I suppose, except that men fear no such thing because it would require conceptualising both a hypothetical and worst-case scenario, the two greatest weakness of the male imagination. Anyway. Here are a few more likely causes: |
| 1. One man did it and, just as the first woman should have done millennia ago, sent word out to all the rest that newborn-wrangling is hard, thankless, relentless labour. “Stay where you are, lads!” beat the jungle drums along the nation’s commuter lines. | 1. One man did it and, just as the first woman should have done millennia ago, sent word out to all the rest that newborn-wrangling is hard, thankless, relentless labour. “Stay where you are, lads!” beat the jungle drums along the nation’s commuter lines. |
| 2. Looking after someone who is looking after a baby is even harder and more thankless. New mothers do not smile beatifically at those who seek to help them. We snarl and weep. Anyone who is having to change her own nappy as often as the baby’s is not her best self. | 2. Looking after someone who is looking after a baby is even harder and more thankless. New mothers do not smile beatifically at those who seek to help them. We snarl and weep. Anyone who is having to change her own nappy as often as the baby’s is not her best self. |
| 3. New mothers need their mothers, and their mothers rarely get along with their sons-in-law. Better by far that he goes safely back to work. Take leave when the child is seven and someone’s got to dick around with chess, model kits and papier-mache with them. That’s when you’ll earn your beatific smiles. | 3. New mothers need their mothers, and their mothers rarely get along with their sons-in-law. Better by far that he goes safely back to work. Take leave when the child is seven and someone’s got to dick around with chess, model kits and papier-mache with them. That’s when you’ll earn your beatific smiles. |
| You reap what you sow, Dave | You reap what you sow, Dave |
| Imagine the very coldest of comforts. Naked-in-the-Arctic-level cold comfort. Here it is: Kirstie Allsopp in a recent interview said the Camerons are “utterly, utterly, utterly broken by Brexit”. Really? Could you be more specific? Utterly, utterly, utterly broken by the unbearable burden of guilt that comes from knowing that you broke the country? Or utterly, utterly, utterly broken by the fact that a gamble that was supposed to pay off utterly, utterly, utterly self-servingly did not? At least 48% of us would be very grateful indeed for some further details to clutch round ourselves as the winds of change swirl ever more chillingly round us. | Imagine the very coldest of comforts. Naked-in-the-Arctic-level cold comfort. Here it is: Kirstie Allsopp in a recent interview said the Camerons are “utterly, utterly, utterly broken by Brexit”. Really? Could you be more specific? Utterly, utterly, utterly broken by the unbearable burden of guilt that comes from knowing that you broke the country? Or utterly, utterly, utterly broken by the fact that a gamble that was supposed to pay off utterly, utterly, utterly self-servingly did not? At least 48% of us would be very grateful indeed for some further details to clutch round ourselves as the winds of change swirl ever more chillingly round us. |
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