The Latest Phase

So here we are in May already and Twitter this morning has a thread about 'what would you tell your 1997 self' in honour of the twentieth anniversary of the Labour win in 1997.

I have been pondering this as I dealt with kids, dog, general household stuff.  The treadmill of modern family life does get me down and May 1997 would be a nice time to tell me not to bother.  I wasn't engaged until later that year.  But I really could not think of any major thing I would tell myself to do differently.  Life has had many ups and downs in the last twenty years but I firmly believe they all make you what you are in the present.  I am quite sure many people do not like me in the present but at the moment, I think I quite like myself and my place in the world.  Which is really all that matters.  

On the smaller life decisions, there are plenty of things I wondered if I would change. Avoid certain alcoholic beverages; avoid various people; refuse certain jobs or take others; not wear certain outfits; check my daughter's hamster cage door every night (!); not get on that horse a fortnight ago (my ribs are still agony.)  

Surely, though, these things all add up to what you are right now?  My parenting mantra has generally been 'it is a phase, it will pass'.  This can be applied as equally to endless re-runs of Thomas the Tank Engine causing you to lose to your mind as to stroppy teenagers who think they know everything about the world because they watch YouTube and you don't. 

After my blog last week, a friend commented that the blurb on this blog is now a bit misleading as I seem to have got more political.  The family history element has been edging out.  And I do agree, looking at my 2017 posts.  I no longer tag it on Twitter for #familyhistory because I wasn't sure how relevant it is.  I have been wondering how to 'rebrand'.  But have got no further forward than wondering.  Family history is still a major part of my life and my writing.

So maybe this is a writing phase.  It is a time when I feel more political.  My family history is half-based around emigration and immigration.  I have a grandfather who was a conscientious objector in the Second World War.  My children have a half-Irish heritage.  I would be letting this history down and letting our descendants down if I do not campaign again against nuclear weapons, say what I think about Brexit, encourage people to use their votes.

I can rebrand the blog - and probably will change the blurb if I can get my head around what it should be trying to say - but according to the system (and I am not the best at doing the stats on Blogger!) more of you are reading my stuff than before so I am hoping my tone is reaching someone.  I would really welcome your comments though.  It might help me come to some conclusion!

David for PM

Late posting today.  Partly doing school holiday stuff and partly because everything I thought of writing seemed to pale compared to the increasingly mad UK political news.

As if leaving the EU wasn't enough, our 'politicians' seem to have lost the will to live.  And apparently in two days time, the one who started it all - David Cameron - will retire to his estates having graciously handed over to (gratefully chucked it to) the second ever female prime minister, Theresa May (apologies if by the time you read this, the news has changed again and Kermit the Frog or someone equally well qualified is taking over).

This weekend, the debacle over Andrea 'Loathsome' Leadsom did at least spark some interesting teen 'show and tell' events in our family.  We were staying with friends and the adults were busy exclaiming over the hideous parenting-related claims which had burst forth from the woman.  And our nearly teen was earwigging.  The journey home therefore severely tested my powers as a politics graduate.  Rather large questions such as 'what is a feminist', 'what do Left and Right mean in politics' and 'why there has only ever been one female prime minister before now', fired from the backseat for most of the way.

I noted on Facebook this week that I was horrified to find myself wishing for a Theresa May victory and even more disturbed by the failure of the Left to produce any female leaders.  I spent my own teen years protesting against Thatcher - for the miners, against the Poll Tax, in favour of CND, etc.  I can only hope Theresa May manages to conduct herself and the government in a less adversarial way.  Mind you, at least Thatcher had a well-honed plan - whether you agreed with it or not.  No-one at the moment seems to have a clue.  (Must have Brexit-itis - I have just expressed a positive sentiment about the Milk Snatcher.)

Previously I have posted about where our political beliefs come from.  I had one Left and one Right parent growing up.  It never occurred to me to vote Tory though.  My innate tendencies were firmly Left wing.  I am now very curious to see where my children end up on the political scale.  They too have one Left and one Right parent but their father is more economically Right than in terms of equal rights etc.  But how will their views be affected by what we are living through right now?  By the time they are - hopefully - coming out of university, we will have Brexited.  What will they be concerned about?  Britain's place in the world?  Or basics necessities like finding a job in a shrivelled economy?  Or all the rights which they know their ancestors enjoyed and which no longer exist?

Will May be the saviour of the country or the bogeywoman of their teen years?  Who will grasp Brexit and make the best of it?  Theresa May is the best of a very sorry bunch - and I sadly include Labour in that.

Mind you, Youngest might have an idea.  She asked me this afternoon whether David Beckham would now have to move out of Downing Street...  Maybe we should be moving him in... his management would never have let things come to this.  A worldwide PR and financial disaster.