Monster & Teeny

Here is what I owe my children:

• Unconditional love. Always and forever. The knowlegde that nothing they can ever do will ever change the way I feel about them. I will always take their side, support their cause, fight their corner. Noone else owes them this but it is most certainly their right from me.
• To provide for their most basic needs; to feed them, clothe them, shelter them, to protect them from harm.

• To listen to them, always. From their first cries as moments old infants when all they could do was articulate hunger, discomfort or pain, to knowing when to hold their tiny hand in mine so they could toddle, to knowing when the time was right to let go so they could walk alone. To recognising an interest and a passsion and introducing new ideas, facilitating their learning, answering their questions, to one day toasting their independance as they move out of my care, meet their life partner, become parents themselves, climb a mountain, sail a sea, hell flip a burger if that’s what they’ve chosen to do! I will hear them.
• To teach them, not necessarily right from wrong but how to make that differentiation for themselves. To give them choices and help them see how to use them. To show them they have wings, tell them they can fly and to stand back while they spread them, then cheer them on from below.

Here is what you owe my children:

• To allow me to do all of the above. Use the funds that come from MY taxes to provide the services to pick up the slack where I cannot. Give me doctors, nurses, hospitals, schools and teachers, law and justice, refuse collection, library services, social services, pensions, healthcare, defence, safe roads, decent public transport, street lights, clean parks and beaches, free museums. Where I need them I will use them, where I don’t I will not. Allow me to make those choices.

The children who are vulnerable worry us all. I cry to think of children not being properly cared for, being abused, being neglected, being failed by both their parents and by you. I feel sick at the thought of just one child suffering and knowing the fate of all those high profile cases of children failed by Social Services. Known to them, visited by them, reported on by them but not saved by them.

The children who are not getting an education make me so very sad. For them, for their parents who trusted you to deliver when they delegated to your schools to educate their children. The children coming out the other end of years of state education lacking not just formal qualifications but basic literacy and numeracy skills. The children tested by your exams,  sat in classrooms run by your teachers but not educated by them.

Your models do not work for all who need them. You are failing. This is where time, funds, energy, resources, reviews and revolutions are required. You are not achieving all you set out to do.

I on the other hand am. I am meeting all my targets despite having my bar set really very high. My model is working. Here is my evidence, now move along, there is nothing to see here and I believe you have plenty to keep you busy elsewhere.