Glenn Maffia

KIDS will be kids. Though exactly where does one draw the line? Especially when all and sundry can clearly observe the infantile antics of so called parents guzzling their beer and “Sex on the Beach” cocktails to leave their sprogs to run amok.

How often have we all seen mere toddlers lost in slumber in their pushchairs, at way past the witching hour, while Mum and Dad continue to consume the beverages that produce arguments and fights?

While, of course, if anything untoward were to happen to their ‘precious’ fruit of their loins then it would be anybody else’s fault, though never, but never, their own selfish selves.

I am sitting here in early October fully knowing the schools have resumed, though continue to see and hear not only early school children but those in their teens who really should be studying hard to make a path within this ever increasingly difficult life.

I appreciate the financial constraints of bringing a family on vacation during the peak period where travel agents and flight companies hoist the prices to pathetically obscene levels.

As to why our inept British Government does nothing to curtail this practice merely speaks volumes for their distant alienation, lack of concern and an inbred disregard for those they purely see as the ‘minimum wage labour force’ of the future.

Good for capitalists, naturally, but certainly not for the intellectual wealth of the British Isles. Inherent discontent leads always to a social turmoil, if no longer rebellion within pacified Britain.

I would not particularly blame this generation of parenthood, for they were probably dragged up in the very same way. Their parents were in turn slaves to the dictates of Milton Freedman’s monetary philosophy which was so prevalent in the early eighties, and which he himself acknowledged, eventually, that such a philosophy was deeply flawed.

Precisely why the world is in such awe of American economic strategy is beyond my humanist comprehension. Especially as there are so many more viable and less voracious options available.

All this mess is compounding itself in the dumbing down of society as a whole. Education is now orientated towards a business agenda and not the freedom to think independently as I pleasantly experienced when I was at University. Pertinent questions are no longer tolerated, one must tow the line.

When I was young I too had the wonderful experiences of a beach holiday and all the distracting delights which all children would cherish. Though always my mother and father ensured that there was some education involved within such an escape; be it Stonehenge, HMS Victory, even the Tower of London or the Natural History Museum upon our return to London, there was this element which broadened my, my brother’s and my sister’s minds. And I adored it, each and every moment.

Tell me, how many British tourists bother taking their kids on the short Dolmus ride to see the Temple of Apollo? Buying the guide book, reading it, and then making history come alive to the fertile imagination that all children possess?

I suppose that it is best epitomised when I see a father with the same haircut as his young son, and mums dressed like their teenage daughters. I believe it is called “Middle Youth”. And it makes me cringe.