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Here’s an observation which I think deserves wider currency, which I got – very appropriately considering the nature of the observation – from my mother.
Prams. Which way do they face?
In the olden days, prams faced inwards. Babies, when being walked by their mothers, or nannies or au-pairs or whoever, faced backwards, back to whoever was doing the walking. Prams were also quite bulky, and babies were shielded (cut off?) from the dramas of the outside world. Now, most prams are far smaller and skimpier, and they mostly face outwards, away from whoever is doing the walking.
Given what has been learned about the truly astonishing rate at which the growing brains of babies suck in information from all around them, is this not a quite important change of social custom? Does it somehow portend a world of looser and less intimate family relationships, and greater (and maybe also earlier) engagement between growing children and the outside world, beyond their little family households?
My mother disapproves of this change, because she considers the relationship between children and their mothers to be of crucial importance. (She was one of the Founding Mothers of the National Childbirth Trust.)
Me, I don’t know. I think there’s much to be said for getting to know about the world early on and feeling at ease with its excitements, opportunities and complexities, and not just getting acquainted with your mum. But I think my mum is definitely on to something. I completely agree with her that this is a fascinating little fact about the modern world.
Thoughts anyone? Does Natalie Solent have anything to say about this, what with her being a mum herself?
Incidentally, when checking out the link to the NCT, I noticed that they still use the same logo, based on an Eskimo wood carving that my mother brought back from a trip to Canada. It’s of a mother and child. It may even be Mary and Jesus, I can’t remember. And the child? It’s facing mother.
Patrick Crozier, writer of the excellent blog UK Transport finds the issue of how parents treat their children a complex one for libertarians
On television (Powerhouse, Channel 4) just now were calls for banning parents smacking their own children.
I have to say I find myself divided on this issue. I used to just accept it as one of those things that parents needed “just in case”. But there has recently been a debate in libertarian circles – largely ignited by a talk Sarah Lawrence gave at one of ‘Brian’s Fridays’ (a monthly libertarian meeting in London hosted by regular Samizdata contributor Brian Micklethwait).
Sarah says that children are people too and are entitled to exactly the same rights as adults.
“Ah” I say “But what if a child is determined to cross the road and get run over? Got you there.” Apparently not. After all, if an adult stepped in front of a bus most of us would make some attempt to stop them. The more I heard about this line of thinking the more I liked it. It would no longer be possible to “send” children to schools – so no more juvenile prison camps. Would we end up with a generation of illiterates? Probably not. Those children who are home schooled tend to do very well. And anyway, the present system needs little help in raising children who can’t read.
But back to smacking. If it is illegal to hit an adult it should be illegal to hit a child. Unless, of course, it is consensual. Boxers knock seven bells out of one another but no one gets arrested. Likewise sado-masochists. OK, so some of them do get arrested but they shouldn’t.
So, do I think children will consent to boxing matches with their fathers or engage in sado-masochism? Probably not.
But there is an issue here. If children have rights so do adults. One of these is to throw their children out on the street. In fact this is about the only fallback that parents have if children have rights. This is pretty unpalatable – especially for parents. This is where smacking in a consensual form may come in. Rather than throw the child out the parent could offer a compromise in the form of a consensual punishment. Of course, it doesn’t have to be smacking or even physical but the point is that in a libertarian world smacking could exit.
This is not, by the way, what the anti-smacking brigade want. They do not want parents to have the power of eviction. They are quite happy to force parents to house, clothe and feed little hooligans. Indeed, it may well be the intention.
Patrick Crozier (London)
A real life Tellytubbie at work.
Update: Oops. It seems we sent so many visitors to the site that their server blew up. Amy has acquired more bandwidth and the cute little Tellytubby chap is available for viewing once more
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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