The flight from personal responsibility, pt 356
Every once in a while I will encounter a comment of such boneheaded irresponsibility that even a lifetime of cynicism has not prepared me for.
This item on the BBC site, about parenting is just such an example. I imagine we are all used to horror stories about fecklessness, but this is from one Lynn Edwards, a woman who chairs the Professional Association of Teachers: "When I came out of the maternity hospital with a little boy on one arm and a little girl on the other, I had no idea how to put on a nappy," Ms Edwards said. "I found it unacceptable that no one had shown me." Just savour what this tells us about someone who has had at least nine months to prepare for the consequences of perhaps the most important decision of her life: to have children. What would someone with even the responsibility levels and reasoning capacity of an earthworm do? Maybe prepare for this by reading a book, asking some questions of another mother, attend pre-natal classes? Oh no, she clearly expected the instructions to be tattooed on the backsides of her progeny. Even small children learn that when they get a new toy it is a good idea to at least skim the instructions before playing with it, so I suppose this woman never learnt that particular lesson.
Her response to this is to argue for parenting classes at school level. On the face of it, a not wholly idiotic idea, but in the real world most children will either pay little or no attention to the lessons or forget the detail before the theory becomes practice.
I think I need to lie down in a darkened room if I’m going to have any chance of calming down. However, at the risk of doing terrible things to my blood pressure, can anyone top that example of irresponsibility, preferably from someone who really should have known better?
Labels: Common sense? What's that?
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on Friday, July 28, 2006 at 7:36 pm.
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No, I cannot think of anything to top this.
As you say, this moron presumably knew for at least eight months that she was pregnant,and she finds it "unacceptable" that the NHS didn't come and ask if they could show her how to put a nappy on a baby? Or the local council? Hey, wait a minute! Maybe that'w what those Grauniad ads for Real Nappie Coordinators are all about!
In any case, I am opposed to children being burdened with parenting classes. Why? - unless the socialists devoutly hope they will be having families of their own by age 12? They certainly do everything they can to steal childhood from children.
How about sticking with the traditional way - which I know is anathema to Labour because it involves self-help and adult attitudes - of learning from other mothers, friends and, most importantly, their own mothers?
But it would be fun to read more examples of such crass, towering stupidity.
verity beat me to it...bollocks!
How about say, you are the PM, and think one day: 'lets make a case for war dossier full of crap from an out of date student thesis' and then claim you were misgiuded because unbelievably, your 'evidence' wasnt entirely accurate. But no-one would do that, would they?
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