A difficult balance in a world to protect your child - without making it feel helpless. (I was always a supporter of the maxim "Do not support someone by giving him everyday a fish - better give him an angling rod.")
Nowadays they pamper us, average adults, with suffocating eagerness. Whining they see problems everywhere - today I read that PETA, animal rights activists, in earnest call for forbidding wooden animals on roundabouts - carousel animals would give children wrong impressions how to treat animals.
Politicians "care" about what you SHOULD eat. Don't get me wrong: I think it is great to eat healthy vegetables - but you should have heard the rage of German citizenry when our Green politicians wanted to establish a "vegetable day" once a week for all of us. (Sugar or unhealthy fast food has a big lobby - you don't hear much to protect children on that front, though timid attempts are made to implement a sugar tax - so: I am not against protecting children).
And now I found that dressing instructions for tights.
Honestly: the triplets, now 4 and a half year old, can put on their tights without those instructions, thank you very much.
What will they try to "teach us" next???
Dear Britta - I have just purchased a new steam cleaner with page after page of instructions which filled me despair. It has green, red, and blue flashing lights, and a bag full of different brushes and nozzles.
ReplyDeleteI have just steam cleaned the shower unit and it has turned out a treat, but no instructions were read.
I am happy that all of my grandchildren appear to be level headed and capable of making their own decisions and standing on their own two feet in this strange world that we all now inhabit.
Dear Rosemary, I agree with all my heart that the world we now inhabit becomes strange (for me at least).
DeleteAs you, when I get a huge manual, I think - then I try - and I am always able to do those things I want to do - though I have to confess that I don't find every finesse or sublety that is possible. For instance I can draw with my i-pad with a certain program (procreate) - but am convinced that I use only a third (or less) of the possibilities of that tool.
If there is need I will find out - but often I do not see the necessity and that might be because I am to lazy to read 100 pages of a manual. And I fume when they "update" a Window-program or other things the umpteen time - and without asking me if I think it necessary for me. No choice!
Next, the hat with instructions!
ReplyDeleteHahaha, Boyd - yes!
DeleteYou give me an idea, I should write a How-To-book: "How to wear a hat in Hamburg" (a city with much wind)
My mother didn't like to kill animals for red meat, so I grew up getting my protein from fish, eggs and milk products. Now I cook the same things, but because I married the son of a chicken shop owner, we have added chicken to the protein meals. It is an interesting balance.
ReplyDeleteTelling adult children what to do, however, is a totally different proposition. What they eat in their own homes is their own business. Ditto my adult grandchildren.
Your diet sounds very good to me, Helen. I love vegetables and eat a lot - and meat mostly as you describe, but seldom a steak too. But of course: if I had to kill an animal myself I would be a vegetarian - as a child I always stared with horror at big carps in a glas tank that you could buy in a shop - living carps!
DeleteAnd yes, I see the hypocrisy: I don't want to kill and let other people do that job...
And yes: adults should eat as they please - children I sometimes feel sorry for when I see how some parents, not knowing better, "feed" them - but that I discuss with schools, and write about how to enable children to learn the basics to cook.
Experts here are constantly telling us what to eat and how to exercise because politicians are trying to stop so many people spending the NHSs money. Even I don't need to be told how to wear tights.
ReplyDeleteSaving the NHS-money is one side of a coin, Tom - I see eating and exercising as (hopefully) a way to win more lifetime or better: life quality. Though I laughed very much when years ago a German comedian spoke of "immortality-muesli", that a lot of health fanatics mash together in the morning...
DeleteI do not always trust "the experts" - no interest in gurus, fads, hype. Moderation and balance and a bit of thinking are enough.
I just ignore it all. I don't see the point of it having got over it a long time ago; now it is water off a duck's back.
ReplyDeleteBest not to get het up - I agree. As long as they do not touch my private sphere (politicians are going very far nowadays).
DeleteI don't like to be told what to do. I am adult and can make my own decisions. If I need help I'll ask for it.
ReplyDeleteI neither like to be told what I should do, Emma - and that is the reason why I love to be an adult. Help when I need it: I am grateful - decisions over my head: I fight back.
DeleteSadly, many parents no longer parent. They over parent or under parent. Consequently they still must go on a job interview with the child, or let his problems be unaddressed to the point of raising a homicidal person. But for the rest of us, who have it right, the tight instruction and all it implies is amusing.
ReplyDeleteTrue, Joanne: I laughed when I found it. "How to breathe" would make a wonderful leaflet in a bag of cough sweets; and I am convinced that books on "How to chew to become 100" or "Save your eyes by looking right" already are nearing the top of the Times bestseller list. :-)
DeleteI agree with the quote that when someone arrives at your door and says I am from the government and we are here to help, best to close the door and back away. You are right, the sugar lobby is powerful and the instructions for how to put on tights are ludicrous.
ReplyDeleteDear Terra, I am able to close a door - but in time of Covid I was shocked what our government was able to do: I was thankful that they offered vaccination (and I took them, though I am not utterly happy with the results) - but to order that we had to stay at home, to paint all over 60 with the same brush, without regarding the individuals - that is something I still cannot come to terms with. (Blessed that I had no relatives or friends in retirement homes: for some time they were not allowed to be visited - and many had to die utterly alone - I still cannot come to terms with this inhuman treatment of old people).
DeleteSugar lobby (and other lobbies) are mighty - so it is very necessary to inform and think for ourselves.
How right you are Brita. Generally around the world we often look at the lice and miss the ox. Have a nice week!
ReplyDeleteDear Katarina, this week I am in Berlin and missed your comment. Thank you! I love that expression "look at the lice and miss the ox", will add it to my language!
ReplyDelete