I even was one once (a considerable time ago) and they are fantastically non-judgemental, and accepting of stuff adults find odd.
We are born without prejudice, or pre-conceptions about the actions of others. As a toddler, it’s a fantastical world of getting fed, having a snooze, exploring all sorts of interesting bits of yourself with your fingers, and getting someone else to clean up after you.
After a while, the little ‘uns start taking on board the actions of those immediately on-hand. It’s only at this point that they start viewing others as perhaps doing something wrong or naughty, and begin the process of approving/disapproving of others.
These attitudes are based on the grown-ups they’re in contact with. Fine and dandy, until you realise that those with a few more years on the biological clock sometimes have opinions and views that aren’t necessarily good, or kind, ones.
A 5-year old boy called Romeo Clarke was recently barred from after-school club, because he likes wearing princess dresses. With 4 older sisters, he is immersed in a world more usually associated with girls.
But was he banned because his nice pink dress was dangerous? Was the after-school club (affiliated with a Church) bold enough to come out and say that God disapproves of that sort of thing on gender-specificity grounds? Maybe he was causing headaches with the bright pink fabric? (Romeo, not God – he/she can wear what the hell they like.)
No. Romeo can’t go to after-school club because he is, apparently, ‘confusing’ the other children.
I suspect that the real answer lies in the old-fashioned attitudes of those in charge, and has little to do with confused kids. Young people tend to be pretty smart and naturally inquisitive, as anyone who has tried to answer a “why is the sky blue?” kind of question will attest; Supply a logical answer, even if it’s wrong, and it will be accepted.
Even if they were ‘confused’, why would that be? Because they have been educated by adults who tell them that only girls can wear dresses? Times have changed a lot. If I’d worn one of my pink, floral, shirts and had a ‘man bag’ at school, I’d probably have spent even more time having my head flushed down the nearest toilet.
Happily, the world is getting more enlightened. What you wear doesn’t really make a blind bit of difference to who you are as a person, so why should it matter? The unfortunate flip side to that argument is that our young people are sponges to the moist, and sometimes cruel and unpleasant, flood of attitudes that seep out of us older, and allegedly wiser, influencers.
So if this after-school club’s small people are ‘confused’, it’s only because they’ve been made that way by the bigger ones. Without those influences, they’d probably all be having a fine time jumping off cushions, or painting stick people, right this second.
Maybe it’s the grown-ups that are confusing...
Hopefully, this post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column , in the North West Evening Mail, on the 16th of May 2014. Following last week's straight-to-the-archive appearance on their website, this one hasn't appeared at all, meaning the most recent one of mine on their main blog page is the Atari excavation story from three weeks ago.
I'm not entirely happy with this column. I was trying not to come out (Ha!) and say that church after-school clubs are run by over-zealous religious types, who see "that sort of thing" as being against God's wishes. In doing so, I suspect I never really nailed my ire at the stupidity of all this. Gah. I'm off to put my Wonder Woman outfit on...
(Great, recently acquired, 3CD set of lesser-heard 80's 12" mixes on the go at the moment, in the form of 'Blank & Jones Present So80s 8'. A song by Cretu, before he turned into Enigma? Splendid! A version of Ultravox's 'Dancing With Tears...' I've never heard before? Fab!! Men Without Hats' 'Pop Goes The World' Dance Mix? Awesome!!! Tiffany? Um...)
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