I heard recently about two young persons, both expensively educated at the finest commercial establishments, who had been knocking seven bells out of each other. They are in their teens yet biting was involved. I was gobsmacked - as I have probably commented elsewhere, the point of private education - apart from endowing you with useful contacts for top jobs, giving you greater social confidence and readier access to our finest universities, is of course, to ensure that you are bullied by a better class of oaf altogether.
I fear this may have happened to these young persons, and that their relatively mild-mannered and almost (but not quite) herbivorous parents, could not have set them such a foul example. However, it occurs to me that from their earliest youth these children (a girl and a boy) would have been exposed socially to a great many children whose parents were far more carnivorous, go-getting and aspirational than their own parents. This "Come on Crispin, make sure you get the tambourine" sort of pushiness is observable at any toddler group is the beginning of children seeing that lunging and grabbing for what you want is acceptable, and even encouraged by parents. Obviously in such a family, the behaviour continues, intensifies until the children have started working for a hedge fund and can pass on these valuable life lessons to their own children.
If on the other hand you encourage your children to share and take turns you are clearly setting them on the path of a life of failure... do they not know that sitting back, carefully concealing their light beneath any handy bushel will be a disaster? Still, if there were not polite, genteel, traditional bourgeois people like me, who were busy disadvantaging their children with modesty and humility, there would be no social mobility at all. We must sink so that others may rise.
So perhaps I should rejoice that this pair have overcome their relatively polite parents, and absorbed the glorious examples of the children they have grown up amongst - it is a long time since they had pirate parties, now they may be going to develop into pirates - with the necessary ruthlessness they have had to acquire while they mixed with the children of wealthier, less circumspect adults. "Blessed are the assertive, for they shall acquire the goods of the world!" I despair that there seems to be an eternal disconnect between the amassing of wealth and good behaviour. "The wicked man flourishes like a green bay tree" "The race is to the swift" etc.
Some one said the other day on the radio "Life's all about winning." Oh, it is not, it is so much more. Where did she get that idea? She was a professional athlete - she must have imbibed it with her mother's milk and had it endlessly reinforced by family and trainers. I don't think I am obsessed with winning because I fear losing - and there is reason for this fear. If only, as in Alice in Wonderland everyone must win and all shall have prizes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_bird_verdict explains how encouraging children to believe they can win helps... but there is a line to be drawn between encouraging and insisting!
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| The outcome of the Caucus-race....how different from our system! |
I fear this may have happened to these young persons, and that their relatively mild-mannered and almost (but not quite) herbivorous parents, could not have set them such a foul example. However, it occurs to me that from their earliest youth these children (a girl and a boy) would have been exposed socially to a great many children whose parents were far more carnivorous, go-getting and aspirational than their own parents. This "Come on Crispin, make sure you get the tambourine" sort of pushiness is observable at any toddler group is the beginning of children seeing that lunging and grabbing for what you want is acceptable, and even encouraged by parents. Obviously in such a family, the behaviour continues, intensifies until the children have started working for a hedge fund and can pass on these valuable life lessons to their own children.
If on the other hand you encourage your children to share and take turns you are clearly setting them on the path of a life of failure... do they not know that sitting back, carefully concealing their light beneath any handy bushel will be a disaster? Still, if there were not polite, genteel, traditional bourgeois people like me, who were busy disadvantaging their children with modesty and humility, there would be no social mobility at all. We must sink so that others may rise.
So perhaps I should rejoice that this pair have overcome their relatively polite parents, and absorbed the glorious examples of the children they have grown up amongst - it is a long time since they had pirate parties, now they may be going to develop into pirates - with the necessary ruthlessness they have had to acquire while they mixed with the children of wealthier, less circumspect adults. "Blessed are the assertive, for they shall acquire the goods of the world!" I despair that there seems to be an eternal disconnect between the amassing of wealth and good behaviour. "The wicked man flourishes like a green bay tree" "The race is to the swift" etc.
Some one said the other day on the radio "Life's all about winning." Oh, it is not, it is so much more. Where did she get that idea? She was a professional athlete - she must have imbibed it with her mother's milk and had it endlessly reinforced by family and trainers. I don't think I am obsessed with winning because I fear losing - and there is reason for this fear. If only, as in Alice in Wonderland everyone must win and all shall have prizes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_bird_verdict explains how encouraging children to believe they can win helps... but there is a line to be drawn between encouraging and insisting!
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