This Is Just Insider Language…

For me, becoming a mother was an experience as disorienting and confusing as moving to a new country. I had to learn new behaviours and customs as well as which brands of nappy and baby food to buy. And little did I know that moving to the Netherlands after the birth of my first child would entail having to learn a whole new tongue besides Dutch.

Which one? 

I’m not talking about motherese, the high-pitched singsong ways parents speak to their children, but about the highly specific language mothers and fathers around the world now use to talk about being parents.

Eh? 

Unsure of myself, I started reading parenting books and spent a lot of time on online forums, where I tried to find answers to my questions – or, when there weren’t any, then at least some support or understanding.

Not the place I'd choose to go to for that, but you do you, eh? 

It was on BabyCenter that I first discovered this new parenting language. I often found myself resorting to Google to understand what people were saying. I had to familiarise myself with acronyms such as DS and DD (dear son and dear daughter), CS (caesarean section), EB (extended breastfeeding) and CIO (cry it out).

All groups evolve their own language, didn't you learn that on the internet?  

It didn’t take me long to notice that even the things I read in Polish were translations of books by English-speaking authors such as Tracy Hogg’s Secrets of the Baby Whisperer, which I suffered through just to try to understand why my daughter would not stop crying. Spoiler alert: it did not help.

Well, since you're supposedly multilingual, what does it matter? 

My copy of American parenting expert Heidi Murkoff’s What to Expect When You’re Expecting was in English – despite being translated into 50 languages, including Polish – and after a while so was everything else I was reading.

And why is that an issue? I cannot wrap my head around what this column is really about...

And, of course, books and articles about the way parents in Europe and other places raise their children are extremely popular in the US and the UK. However, from my experience, US and UK parenting ideas have a bigger sway in Europe than the other way around. What does it mean if the English language has such power to influence the way mothers and fathers raise their children around the world?

I don't know, and you don't advance a theory, so why is it concerning you?  

Australia Day has a real edge to it this year, apparently …

 

The conundrum of women and power

As has been demonstrated o’er and o’er and as many go-getting men will attest … behind every successful man or even one just with a mission, the quality of the woman is everything.

If she’s ambitious for him and for her own place in the sun, e.g. the WEFer wife of DeSantis, she in fact holds him back by her raw, scathing ambition … she would say it’s in his mind, he feels has his own masculinity to fulfil, constantly reminded by her.

To my mind, any man all for himself, any woman all for herself, is useless because there is no deep bond, just ongoing war at home, on the pillow, personal ambition. If a team though, with that deep understanding, then the “badder” one of them can lead the other astray, e.g. Bonny and Clyde.

The purpose of Melania beside the Donald in public, the purpose of Susie Wiles in the WH … is that the man is the blaster-through, the muscle, the woman observes, notes, never forgets, is the real gatekeeper … and if her aim is noble … then good things result. She is a stone wall though … implacable … good thing too. She wants him as a rock, he needs her steadiness and constancy … see Pam Bondi.

In a full on battle between other males and her, guess who wins?

“The ‘ice maiden’ at the heart of the Trump administration has won her first big battle this week — denying Elon Musk a permanent base in the West Wing of the White House.” The Times: https://thetimes.com/article/1a9c06

I’ve said since the dawn of time that women need to play to their strengths, not this other rubbish of this LA mayor or Merseyside feminazi or Hochul, Fani or whoever … women are not good when given ultimate power … ask any observer of the henpecked hubby and the dragon … it’s quite offputting and bad for her character too … that’s a monster, not a woman.

It’s a fine balance which needs maintaining … hellishly difficult, unless she wants it to work.

Don’t We Have A Word For When Some-one Tries To ‘Explain What Others Are Angry About’..?

I'm sure we do, something to do with 'gas', I think...

This may have been an unwanted problem for Keir Starmer and the home secretary, who took the brunt of the unedifying shitshow, but for every other minister it came as something of a relief. They could all ease themselves back into the new year, secure in the knowledge that for once no one was paying them any attention. Their screw-ups and local difficulties could slide under the radar. In government, that is known as living the dream.

Maybe that attitude is why governments everywhere are failing? 

Steve Reed is almost certainly wishing that Muskmania could have gone on for just one more day. Why hadn’t the world’s weirdest SpaceX cadet gone one further than threatening to invade the UK and launch one of his rockets against us?

Musk man bad! appears to have overtaken Orange man bad! as a rallying cry amongst the progressives, doesn't it?

Which meant that Steve was in the spotlight as he faced one of his toughest gigs of the year: a keynote speech at the Oxford Farming Conference. What a difference a year makes. This time last year, Reed had gone down a storm at the conference. They couldn’t get enough of him. They didn’t even mind that he so clearly wasn’t one of them. Not even when he put on wellies. Steve is a city boy through and through. The closest he comes to the great outdoors is a half-hour walk in Crystal Palace Park – stick to the paths, the grass is rather muddy – before nipping in to Gail’s for a croissant and cortado. No, the farmers forgave all that because they were as fed up with the Tories as he was. So when he had spent the entire speech trashing the Conservatives, they lapped it up.

And now reality has entered the chat, and they aren't so enamoured. They've realised something their livestock probably already knew, that sometimes the grass isn't always greener. 

Now … not so much. In just six months as environment secretary, Steve has sped through the first four stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression: he’s been there and got the T-shirt. Tried explaining that none of this has been his fault with the farmers. He only got to find out about the changes to inheritance tax the night before the budget. No one had consulted him. He was just the sucker who had to deal with the fallout.

And yet somehow, you think their ire should be directed at the guy who's pointing out his boss's deficiencies?  

Happy birthday to the Grand Dame of Orphans

 Grandpa and I, plus I’m sure thousands of readers, wish Julia:

Remember … you won’t see her coming!

The lady’s in Edinburgh right now, terrorising the locals, back soon.

You turn your head to Emphasise a Point

Two bills coming up to devastate Britain

With Julia’s birthday wishes tomorrow, this is Thursday’s post from me today.

a. The first is today to get into your bank account legally

… to just take as they deem is their due, no middleman … you:

Interesting from a Labour govt, particularly one as feckless and incompetent as this one.

The former case, above, looks on the surface to be a just way to stop benefit fraud and thus many readers will shrug and say so what? As always with this gummint though, there are other factors … sheer incompetence, greed, and error … which will see people on the street who lost businesses, jobs due to DEI, all sorts of things … will see them wrecked when they were never crooked or feckless in the first place. What could possibly go wrong, eh?

The one below is simply wrong, based on a wrong premise to start with, pushed by criminal loonies, all about money grabbing, plus devastating a nation, particularly after the USA is now doing the diametric opposite.

b. The one on Friday with ramifications for all in the UK:

Maybe The Judge Should House Her, Then?

A judge has granted the supervised release of Slender Man stabber Morgan Geyser in a dramatic decision that goes against the wishes of the victim's family. Geyser and Anissa Weier were 12 when they attacked Payton Leutner, also 12, in a sickening attack that shocked America in 2014. The teen defendant, now 22, has been held in a psychiatric facility for years, but today a judge granted her release with conditions.

I guess she's all cured now? 

A psychiatrist also told the court Geyser is now transgender and identifies as male.

Guess not... 

Leutner's family were hopeful the judge would keep Geyser incarcerated.

The triumph of hope over experience again... 

Lundbohm said that her treatment team found no evidence that Geyser had psychosis or any other mental condition that inspired the change in gender identity.

But isn't believing you're not who you really are a mental condition in itself? It always used to be. 

Dr. Kenneth Robbins recommended then that she be moved to a supervised group home, saying that she has 'improved quite dramatically.' Dr. Kayla Pope, medical director at the Winnebago hospital, also argued for her release. 'She has actively participated in therapy, medication management and all the treatments that are available,' Pope said. 'At this point she is safe to return to the community. I don't know that much more could be done to make her safer.'

I can think of something.  

Much of Lundbohm's testimony revolved around how Geyser blames family members and how she has negative feelings toward them.

And that didn't ring warning bells in anyone? 

'Frankly a lot of people in the community don't have great relationships with their family and in and of it itself that doesn't necessarily suggest that [Geyser] would be at a higher risk for violence,' Lundbohm said.

Apart from the fact that she's where she is because of violence? God, these shrinks aren't the sharpest tools in the box, are they? 

Maybe if they were the ones taking the risk, by having to clasp this viper to their own bosom, we'd all be safer. 

The last thing we need is civil war

… but it’s pretty clear that this has gone beyond tree hugging soft left versus gruffer types such as us … this has become a situation where three groups occupy the land … us, the loony Woke far left (plus a mix of globopsycho and gummint) … plus the foreign imports … millions of very dangerous men awaiting the order to pounce.

Easier for the latter if the first two have a civil war and wipe each other out … not unlike Russia and the Ukraine just now, while Biden US/NATO supply the money and weapins to enable and encourage it.

So with us … we are sooooo diametrically opposed, cannot stand the other … yet are occupying the same landmass.  Something has to give.  One side plays by rules … the other doesn’t and grins at its lawlessness.

Quite sure it’s the same sorts of ruffled feelings over here.  We can’t exterminate nor deport our Woke loony left over here … so, what to do with them?

Coz they’re not going anywhere near policymaking over us once we’re rid of em.  What a way to live in a once proud country.

Stop Telling Them They Are Victims For A Start

Jane Graham has been a school nurse for nearly 20 years – and during this time the nature of her work has completely changed.

I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case, frankly.... 

"When I started, the majority of the support we provided was for physical health, like asthma, allergic reactions and injuries," she says. "Now it's mental health." She has seen a surge in schoolchildren struggling.

"It really impacts pupils at secondary school, but some are as young as seven," she explains. "We're seeing children with depression, anxiety and stress – and that's leading to panic attacks, self-harm and eating disorders. They're not making it to school or are so anxious they cannot attend classes."

Why is this being tolerated? Is it bad parenting? 

What's less clear is why this is happening now.

Well, actually, there are some people for whom it's not such a mystery. 

Plenty of explanations have been offered by experts: the pandemic, the cost of living and the advent of social media have all placed additional pressures on the generation now starting out. But some experts in the field of mental health have raised another question: that is, is there really a mental health crisis or are young people simply not resilient enough?

This question is a polarising one. The word resilience could be interpreted by some as disparaging, or even toxic, in a similar vein as the term "snowflake generation". But one of the country's leading experts in child and adolescent psychiatry, Prof Andrea Danese, from King’s College London, believes that resilience needs to be taken seriously. While greater awareness of mental health "has generally been a positive thing", according to Prof Danese, who is general secretary for the European Society of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, he says that he is concerned that it may also have "inadvertently contributed to over-pathologising distress in young people".

I suspect this is spot on, as it's always been a truism that what you tolerate, you will get more of.  

Ms Graham, the school nurse, is also of the opinion that many children who she has seen struggling - particularly those with more low level mental health problems - would benefit from becoming more resilient. She believes that if they were equipped with better coping skills, young people would likely be better placed to deal with the challenges they may be facing before they develop into a full-blown crisis – and this in turn would help ease the pressure on services to focus on those who are at high risk of harm. "We need to do much better at teaching resilience in schools and how to stay mentally healthy," she says. "But the way we treat children, such as primary school sports days where everyone is declared a winner, doesn't help."

Who has been saying this for decades? Oh, right. Us!