We live in Nappy Valley Central. The local streets are crammed with strollers, papoose-bearing dads and toddlers on scooters.
Their parents look on them with delight, scooping them up when they fall or comforting them when another child grabs their ball in the park.
These children are similarly enchanted by their parents, their worlds made all right by the stroke of a hand and a cuddle.
For now these parents’ chief concerns are over childcare and sleepless nights. But as I watch these families, I often think they don’t know what’s coming down the pike.
A generation of young people are now immersed in an epidemic of anxiety and other mental health conditions, with a third claiming to have experience of one disorder or another.
ALEXANDRA SHULMAN: Their parents look on them with delight, scooping them up when they fall or comforting them when another child grabs their ball in the park. (File photo)
The children of many of my contemporaries have had troubles of this kind – and very often the parents are the most devoted (File photo)
For those parents who could once soothe with a kiss, there is not much worse than seeing your child suffering in this way, sometimes unable to get out of bed, often failing to hold down a job, seemingly incapable of dealing with life.
They’ve been captioned Generation Sicknote in response to newly released figures of the number of 18 to 24-year-olds unable to work because of their mental health.
But is much of this problem the fault of parents? Did our attitudes to parenting not make them robust enough to deal with the real world?
The children of many of my contemporaries have had troubles of this kind – and very often the parents are the most devoted, wishing only to take the very best care of their cherished offspring and solve their problems.
I’m not immune. Even now with my 28-year-old son, if I hear of some dilemma he has, my immediate response is to think that I should be able to resolve it. To be clear, he’s not asking me to: it’s my knee-jerk reaction.
That has been the general attitude of many of us to our children. At school, if they were only rubbing along academically, extra tutoring would be commandeered.
18-24 year-olds have been captioned ‘Generation Sicknote’ due to the figures released showing how many are unable to work due to mental health issues
At school, if they were only rubbing along academically, extra tutoring would be commandeered
School holidays were filled with travel and activities so that they were never just hanging around. Their faddy eating was catered for. And once they left school the Bank of Mum and Dad was open for business. In short, we’ve been doing everything we can to make their lives as easy as possible.
But by insulating them early on from the fact that life is difficult, and that ultimately everyone has to take responsibility for themselves, it’s possible that we have deprived them during their formative years of some important survival skills.
Given the world is an insecure place, with no guarantees of security, I would caution some of those parents in the park not to think it’s helpful to make their children’s own small world perfect whenever they can. They might be much happier in the long run.
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A duo to tame the hardest of hearts
The resonance of Netflix’s One Day has been quite extraordinary.
The series, led by the charismatic Leo Woodall and Ambika Mod, has struck a chord that neither the original book, nor a later film, achieved. It has made so many watchers look at our own lives through the filter of Em and Dex’s narrative.
The duo’s path – littered with excruciating missed opportunities, bad relationships and unspoken thoughts – has made even those of us who are many decades older than the pair on screen identify with them.
Netflix’s One Day Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall
Yes, there’s the nostalgic recognition of landlines, the soundtrack (who doesn’t recall the bedsit blues of Joan Armatrading or the Britpop sound of Blur) and the 1990s clothes, but it’s something different to that.
It’s the thing that has made 50-year-old men leave the room because they can’t bear to see the upcoming tragedy, and couples – who rarely agree on anything to watch – binge all 14 episodes in a weekend.
What that thing is, I can’t identify. But I do know that it has shown that even the most cynical and brusque viewers have had a part of themselves touched by this romance in ways they would not have expected.
Brave Yulia joins the super troupers
The wives have it.
Not only is our splendid Queen Camilla having to turn up all over the place in her husband’s absence in order to reassure us that we still have a working monarchy, but last week Volodymyr Zelensky’s glamorous wife, Olena Zelenska, arrived in Britain to commemorate the second anniversary of the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
Both women are troupers who probably never dreamed that they would be in the demanding positions they now occupy.
Volodymyr Zelensky’s glamorous wife, Olena Zelenska, arrived in Britain to commemorate the second anniversary of the outbreak of war in Ukraine
They’ve been joined by a third whose stoicism in the face of tragedy is utterly remarkable.
Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has immediately picked up her husband’s baton after his recent, suspicious death in a Siberian prison following years of brutality.
She would have been forgiven for simply wanting to disappear from the spotlight herself but Yulia has continued to fight her husband’s corner, never less than immaculate in front of the cameras and demonstrating that, no matter what Putin may do, the Navalny name will live on.
All rise… for the stately home soufflé
Talter magazine is right on the money with the current issue’s Country House Awards.
The film Saltburn has revealed a new fascination with stately piles, and in a world dominated by grim headlines, it’s perfect escapism to dwell over some of the categories: Best Elevenses at Drayton House in Northamptonshire, Best Temple at Castle Howard.
Best Cheese Soufflé, apparently served at Broadspear in Hampshire by Harry and Clodagh Herbert
My favourite entry, though, is Best Cheese Soufflé, apparently served at Broadspear in Hampshire by Harry and Clodagh Herbert. Who knew?
Final call – now seating the gate lice!
Air travel is stressful enough without those passengers who insist on queuing up at the departure gate, ages before boarding is called, jostling with their carry-ons for position. Now I’ve discovered that airline crews have a name for them – gate lice. Heaven. There’s nothing like a pejorative term to make one feel better about things.
