Sorry, Carla, but nobody cares if you’re a ‘bastard’
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Version 0 of 1. Musician, model, and wife of the former French president, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has been talking about how being illegitimate led to her craving attention. Bruni-Sarkozy, whose legal father was not her biological father, says that there was a part of her that always felt “rotten, alone or infantile”. She continued: “It’s as if there is an inconsistency in who I am, an uncertainty of being alive, that pushed me to exhibit myself.” And while she didn’t know where “the devouring need for recognition” came from, she felt that it was probably because she was a “bastard”. A diehard show-off trying to explain away her enduring narcissism? Perhaps. A more generous view could be that, at 47, Bruni-Sarkozy was born into an era when illegitimate children could be left feeling inferior, constantly needing to prove themselves. On another tack, maybe, like me, you involuntarily flinched at the use of the word “bastard”? Used in the traditional context, it seems so Catherine Cookson somehow – cruel, damning, antiquated. Fractured images flash across the brain of desperation, workhouses, pinch-faced foundlings in wooden cribs. Which is irrational because, long after such times have passed, illegitimate babies continue to be a fact of life. Still, “bastard”? Hasn’t society completely moved on from this ugly, pejorative term, and aren’t we all so much the better for it? Some say that unmarried parents remain bad for children. When the National Office of Statistics reported that the majority of babies born in 2016 would have parents who weren’t married, it was viewed in some quarters as a disaster. The Marriage Foundation thinktank said that unmarried parents were four times more likely to split than those who were married. And that, while low income and poor education were often cited as the main reasons behind family breakdown, it had doubled since the 1980s. This breakdown resulted, so ran the argument, in lower quality, less committed parenting, higher stress levels and more economic hardship, with children going on to achieve less at school, and in their own relationships, with far more likelihood of substance abuse and mental health problems. While such issues can’t be discounted, real life is more complex. No one is telling me that money and resources, and the stability they bring to family life, aren’t a major factor. There can be shaky marriages with miserable children, rock-solid cohabiting couples raising rock-solid families, and everything in between. Couples who start off married but split; people who marry later on. There can also be cohabiting couples who decide to share the same surname, married couples where the child is given the wife’s name only, and the now-prevalent hyphenation of both names. All of which seems to have happened in a strangely seamless unofficial way, as if, without thinking about it, different kinds of parents have colluded in a New Flexibility regarding family infrastructure. And it comes with the attitude: “This parenting gig is hard enough. Whatever the different ‘packaging’, let’s all just get on with it.” Certainly it seems interesting that while people may be aware (verging on hyper-aware) of their attitudes towards, say, gay parenting, it’s likely that they haven’t even noticed this sea change in their own hetero-parenting universe. If you’re married, when was the last time you cared whether or not the parents of your child’s playmates were also hitched? Similarly, if you’re unmarried, when did it last enter your mind that anyone had any right to look down on you or your children? Indeed, for all the statistical doom surrounding unmarried parents, doesn’t this count as a major positive? The low-key deletion of the concept of “bastards” (that grotesque, institutionalised stigmatising of children from birth) from the family lexicon is as a big a social revolution as any other – all the more powerful because it’s been achieved without the blunt instrument of political correctness. The stigma of illegitimacy has faded to the point where someone such as Bruni-Sarkozy can refer to herself as a “bastard” and the term seems ugly, jarring, just plain wrong. As it always should have been. This generation isn’t getting everything right, but shouldn’t it at least be proud that the concept of the “bastard” has been forced out into the wilderness? I’m so very sick. (Of you being ill!) A recent survey discovered that men are more sympathetic than women when their partner has a cold. Male sympathy lasts longer and they are also less likely to become weary of their partner “overreacting” about their illness. However, 40% of men admit to exaggerating their symptoms, while 77% of women say they just get on with it when they have a cold. Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. It seems to me that those last two pieces of information explain the first bits about men having more patience and sympathy. I admit to being a hard-faced cow about male illness. It’s true that someone would have to be dying at my feet to qualify for a measly Lemsip. I’m not a pleasant nurturing person to be around when you’re ill – Nurse Ratched would be more likely to plump your pillows and stroke your hair. However, is this “female” attitude to male illness any real surprise when there’s just so much of it? Clichéd though it is, there truly are a lot of men who spend an inordinate amount of time declaring themselves to be unwell with some bug or other, to the point where it comes across as a form of self-willed hypochondria. There is only so much wailing and “dying” a woman can take. Especially as often these men have the exact same cold as you do, only with a vague unsubstantiated self-diagnosis of “but it’s so much worse”. So, fine, I’m a callous meanie. However, could it be that generally women aren’t less sympathetic, rather that male-female ratios of illness, and complaining about illness, are completely out of synch? Oh, Charles… I always saw you as a bit mushy How charming that gardening presenter Alan Titchmarsh found a variety of magic mushroom growing in the grounds of Buckingham Place, while filming a show called The Queen’s Garden. Titchmarsh gave the hallucinogenic fungi a miss, but could he have been too hasty? In my misguided youth, I – and others with a keen interest in nature – spent many hours searching for “mushies”. Once located, perhaps we had a cheeky nibble, stewed them in tea, mashed them up inside toasted sandwiches. I can report that the results were varied. Either nothing happened, or you spent half an hour getting out of a chair because you couldn’t stop laughing, or you became incredibly excited because (wow – dazed stare) clouds are just so beautiful. Certainly it’s amusing to think of members of the royal family wandering around the grounds, stroking leaves, talking to ladybirds, not knowing where their noses are, and the rest. Suddenly there’s a rational explanation for Prince Charles feeling the urge to talk to plants. Pure rubbish and conjecture of course, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt more fondly about the royal family. |