Sugar and Spice and Puppy Dog Tales…
What is our role as parents? Is it to protect our children from the harsh reality of the cruel world out there, to preserve a Disney varnished version of My Little Pony, La La Po and Tinky Winky until the law says they are old enough to get bladdered in the gutter – or are we supposed to gradually teach them that the world contains dangerous people, dangerous items, and show them how to ski off piste in our chaotic environment? It is a debate as old as human history, but never perhaps as polarised as it is today.
Walk the half mile to school with an older sibling, or chauffeur driven in the 4 x 4? Pretty pink fizzy pop or half a glass of watered down Rosé? Knee deep in muddy water collecting Frog Spawn or dressed in Gucci and taken to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? Your marriage preserved ‘for the sake of the children’ or taken to live with Dad’s new partner, the nicely camp interior designer that Mum introduced him to? British society divides like the Red Sea along these lines.
The French have no doubt that children are trainee adults. They might slip up occasionally; a howl when they fall over, the odd conversation interrupted, but in general they know full well the difference between ‘kid’s space’ and ‘adult space’ and are cheerfully included in every activity. Lunch in any restaurant will include tables full of all age groups, from Grand–mère down to newest baby, all talking to each other, discussing the food choice, savouring every offering.
Schools too, also training grounds for adult life. Walk past any school at play time and there will be raucous cries of joy and exuberance – walk past at lunch time and you will see numerous tables of well behaved children, discussing the food, talking quietly amongst themselves, no bun fights, no shrieking. Even meal times are part of learning how to conduct yourself in the world you are hurtling towards.
I have written before of the shock felt by British parents when ‘dear little Gabriel’ encounters a French school – in that case the parents sold up and moved back to England when they discovered that ‘dear little Gabriel’ was expected to sit behind a desk and pay attention to what the teacher was telling him…they eventually found a school in Cornwall where the head master was happy to let Gabriel play ‘holistically’ with his play dough all day!
Disaster! The perils of travelling ‘abroad’ with young children hit home. What had Emily, far from the reassuring Fabian society of Britain, inflicted on her vulnerable young? Can you believe that the school only ‘taught’ and everything else was down to the parents? What kind of society is that? Parents expected to provide educational entertainment for their children, no music, no clubs, no more face painting and after lunch naps?
At 6 years old young Gabriel was expected to sit at a desk all on his own, pay attention, and learn something! If anyone misbehaved they were publicly identified and their name written on the backboard. Inhumane!
His teacher used a cane – panic not, not on the children, but to point at words on the blackboard in a way that young Gabriel found positively threatening – and this in a European country!
Now I hear that French children’s books are, I quote ‘Terrifying‘. To sensitised British ears, that is.
Jenny Colgan writes ‘chick-lit’ books for grown up girls who still want to believe that handsome princes will emerge from the primordial swamp and sweep them off to a life of gracious homes, heavy breathing stallions, and lunch in West End restaurants. She is highly successful, one of the Sunday Times Top Ten best selling authors. She recently moved from the Netherlands to France – and, shock, horror, encountered French children’s books; full of wolves that live in the forest and prey on children who wander off alone; girl’s who come to an untimely end after pulling a plastic bag over their head, and toys that come to life after you go to sleep..
“I don’t know why so many French children’s books are so bafflingly, needlessly frightening. Before moving there, we lived in the Netherlands; they had the same rabbits with ethnically varied chums and dinosaur mummies tucking up dinosaur babies as we do in the UK. I also can’t envisage the publishing meeting in which someone says ‘Hey! I’ve got this great kids’ book where a girl puts her head in a plastic bag!’
Has Little Red Riding Hood been re-written then? Does the nice wolf take her home for current buns and Ginger beer? Did the kindly man from the ‘Save the Rabbits Charitable Foundation’ carefully move Hazel and Fiver to their new home lined with pure organic sheep’s wool? Did Eric and Martin import a cuddly Yummy Mummy into their masculine household to make everything all right for little Jenny? Have British children’s books all been rewritten with ethnically varied chums and happy endings?
I learnt French from the Bandes Dessinées, the superb French comics produced for all ages. Starting with the ‘recommended for age 3′ – I figured they were just learning to speak French as was I, so we should be at the same level. I progressed through the ages with the aid of the usual collection of retired farmers ever present in our local Café, who were happy to listen and correct me as I laboriously read out tales of mountains and wolves, steam ships and oceans, goat farmers and cheese making wives – I was amazed at how sophisticated reading material was for even three year olds. They were learning about the world, how it worked, given subjects to discuss with adults, not ‘ethnically varied rabbit chums…’
In short, are children’s books and children’s worlds the new ideological battleground? Protected from the world, or tipped into it at the deep end without warning?
Discuss.
An ‘it’s raining, what can I do with myself’? occasional post from Anna Raccoon.
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1
June 6, 2012 at 07:09 -
They’ve re-written all the Enid Blyton books to fit the modern era. I distinctly remember the Secret Seven buying their own fireworks, because there was a part in one of the books where they accidentally set fire to them all, including Jack’s Humdinger. There’s no mention of that episode in the modern books.
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2
June 6, 2012 at 07:41 -
Most of ‘B.B.’s oeuvre would be grounds for an attack of utter hysteria, then!
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3
June 6, 2012 at 09:08 -
Given this…
…and the fact that ‘Puck of Pook’s Hill’ and ‘Rewards and Fairies’ are held to be guilty by association, it’s highly likely.
By odd coincidence, I’m currently sorting out my father’s books (mother moving house) and have been enjoying a nostalgic read between packing boxes – ‘Manka the Sky Gipsy’, a long-time favourite, though ‘Mr Bumstead’ runs it close.
I wonder how many right-minded bloggers out there were reared on BB, T H White and other authors whose implicit pride in Britain’s heritage and environment have effectively made them pariahs in the 21st century.
(PS Talking of favourites, do you also know ‘Jock of the Bushveld’ by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick?)
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4
June 6, 2012 at 10:46 -
Yup! I’ve got all those books!
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5
June 6, 2012 at 11:10 -
Of no interest to anyone else, but, since bizarre coincidences seem to be the order of the day…
I have just packed up my parents’ copy of a 1980s matriculation photo (those curly hairstyles!), taken in front of the Library cloisters, in which I am standing a few letters away from a certain Julia L who lived on the top floor of my building.
A long shot, but any connection?
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6
June 6, 2012 at 11:47 -
Nope, I’ve never been ‘Julia L’..
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7
June 6, 2012 at 20:19 -
Ah, memories of a mispent youth _ and adulthood.
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8
June 6, 2012 at 07:38 -
I learn French from BDs too, much easier than jumping into top-level grown-up text. (But I do like the Kindle facility to look up definitions of words at the press of a finger. This feature makes normal French literature much more accessible)
I’m with the “prepare kids for the big bad world” troupe.
I can’t believe the modern school system where for many kids, the idea of not being good enough only hits when they fail a job interview. Thank goodness for sport, where it’s still understood that if you don’t make the team, you sit on the bench.
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9
June 6, 2012 at 07:39 -
Don’t forget it’s not just books – Stephen Spielberg digitally replacing the cop’s guns with walkie-talkies in the re-released ‘ET’, anyone?
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12
June 6, 2012 at 08:25 -
When we first arrived in our village my wife and I were walking home from the restaurant when we saw a group of teenagers on the square doing what teenagers do. Playing car radios too loud, mock wrestling to impress the girls, smoking and generally being noisy. Our immediate reaction was to walk by as far away from them as possible. They stopped their activities, turned towards us and called out ‘Bonsoir Messieur, Madame’ and then returned to their previous behaviour. French child rearing works.
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June 6, 2012 at 10:48 -
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June 6, 2012 at 12:20 -
We have had a similar experience – walking home from the loud and noisy circus temporarily at the end of our road with two friends, we spied a group of youths sitting atop our gate ‘sharing’ a cigarette.
‘Oh Gawd’ said our menfolk, ‘Trouble ahead’ as they braced themselves. We snuck in behind them – noisy pot smoking youths no time for women’s lib.
Soon as they saw us, it was all Bonsoir Messr/dames, leaping off the gate, opening it for us and apologising for their presence……our English friends dined out on the tale for years afterwards….
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15
June 6, 2012 at 08:59 -
I wasn’t allowed to look after my grandchildren in case I let them do the things I allowed their fathers to do, but that is by the by.
In my day Fairy Stories were a way in which to warn children of dangers without actually going into the gory details of Paedophiles and other such modern day horrors. And what was wrong with that?
As it happens, my great grandmother ran off with a gypsy, Romany, actually, from whom I probably inherited my laid back attitude, but my great grandmother couldn’t say that she wasn’t warned. Although I have a suspicion that this is what motivated her. -
16
June 6, 2012 at 10:09 -
Nice story, Elena
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17
June 6, 2012 at 10:24 -
So now it’s casting a snide glance at child-rearing in other countries, is it? I’ve already heard the prodnoses queueing up on radio today to talk about how other parents should be bringing up “our children”, then I read that nonsense at the Graun.
It seems there are increasingly few people who seem willing to let others live their own lives (or even bring up their own kids) unmolested or nagged. How did this creep up so perniciously?
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18
June 6, 2012 at 10:51 -
I can’t let this thread pass by without mentioning this (not quite off topic) story:
“Barnes & Noble has apologised to a 73-year-old man who was kicked out of one of its stores for browsing the children’s section on his own.
Dr. Omar Amin, from Scottsdale, Arizona, said he was asked to leave after a female shopper told a worker she felt uneasy about his presence.”
*appalled*
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19
June 7, 2012 at 20:50 -
My sister asked me to pick up my nieces one from school as she was running late.
I have never felt so uncomfortable in my life. The mothers who were all waiting for their kids to come out looked at me as if I was Satan, turning their backs, looking over occasionally with narrowed eyes and frowns.
When the kids came out, with their teacher to the pick up zone (fenced area not out of the school, but not in it), they ran over, I got hugged, and Jade held my hand and starting telling me about her day.
I was no more than a few steps away and the teacher was their asking who I was, trying to inject herself between me and my nieces. Parents looked over, some bracing themselves as if they may have to fight me off or something. I swear even after explaining who I was, if the kids had not stood up for me (saying who I was and acting so calmly) I think they would have been pulled back into the school and the Police called. I can Guarantee, if my sister had asked my mum or other sister the teacher and other parents would not have battered an eyelid.
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20
June 6, 2012 at 11:53 -
So, as a long-time collector of illustrated versions of children’s classics, I could, while browsing, expect to be summarily frogmarched out for sake of the paedo-hysteria? Nice to be forewarned. No wonder Amazon is doing so well.
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June 6, 2012 at 13:37 -
‘Have British children’s books all been rewritten with ethnically varied chums and happy endings?’
At the age of eight my parents let me read a book which featured black ops, ethnic cleansing, animal abuse and devil worship. It ended with a pitched battle between the goodies and lots of dark-skinned folk with turbans and scimitars.
Can’t see that being allowed now.
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June 6, 2012 at 13:40 -
‘Barnes & Noble has apologised to a 73-year-old man who was kicked out of one of its stores for browsing the children’s section on his own.
Dr. Omar Amin, from Scottsdale, Arizona, said he was asked to leave after a female shopper told a worker she felt uneasy about his presence’.
Yeah, well done geniuses. I mean it’s not as if any adult would have a valid reason for being in the kid’s section. None of us need to buy birthday or Christmas presents for sons, daughters, nephews, nieces or anything like that.
Twats.
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25
June 6, 2012 at 14:07 -
On the subject of how kids are treated at school, I went to work in the USA in the mid 80′s and managed to obtain a place for young Miss WF in the local “Academy of the Sacred Heart”, a school run by nuns. Before term started we were “required” to attend an induction evening where the Mother Superior advised that strict rules would be enforced (not by corporal punishment) and the children would be expected to be polite, diligent and obedient at all times. Should an parent object to the discipline they were welcome to leave at any time. As the school was the best for miles around there were no objections. When we returned to UK some 2 years later, our daughter was so far ahead of her contemporaries that she was bored for almost 2 years until the rest caught up. How did we get it so wrong over here?
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June 6, 2012 at 14:37 -
“When we returned to UK some 2 years later, our daughter was so far ahead of her contemporaries that she was bored for almost 2 years until the rest caught up. How did we get it so wrong over here?”
My Iranian (sic) educated wife tells a similar tale. This wasn’t education under the progressive Shah, but under the beardy-weirdy government of the Ayatollahs. She tells me that when she arrived aged 16, GCSE maths, chemistry, physics and English Language (yes, really) in particular were a joke and that she did the curriculum three years previously in Iran (sic).
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June 6, 2012 at 14:44
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June 8, 2012 at 13:35 -
There are a lot of childrens books written these days that feature modern dilemmas in them as well as the truly gory ‘fable’ stories like the orginal fairy stories and the ever reliable Roald Dahl. God knows there have been enough stories of middle-class parents objecting to exactly that fiction! Kids like gore and aren’t afraid of it but if their parents are the ‘icky wicky wibble woo, we love evewyone’ variety then there are plenty of those books too.
I also know that not every French child is the paragon of virtue they are frequently held up as – I’ve been skiing often enough in France to see some pretty brattish behaviour. I’ve walked past UK teens with their hoodies up and had them leap out of my way with apologies and manners on full display. There are places I wouldn’t walk in Paris and in London and where I wouldn’t challenge bad behaviour of teenagers – that’s just common sense. But in a small village, sure I would. I would probably know their parents!
I’m in the camp of ‘give them the wit and confidence to deal with the world’. My job is to make myself redundant – except for high days and holidays when I expect a visit and old family stories to get dusted off and given an airing.
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