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We live in Nappy Valley Central. Local streets are packed with strollers, dads with papoose and toddlers on scooters.
Their parents watch them with delight, picking them up when they fall or comforting them when another child catches their ball at the park.
These children are equally delighted with their parents, their worlds put right with just a hand caress and a hug.
For now, these parents’ main concerns are childcare and sleepless nights. But when I look at these families, I often think they don’t know what’s coming.
A generation of young people is now immersed in an epidemic of anxiety and other mental health conditions, with a third claiming to have experienced one disorder or another.
ALEXANDRA SHULMAN: Their parents watch them with delight, picking them up when they fall or comforting them when another child catches their ball at the park. (File photo)
The children of many of my contemporaries have had problems of this type and very often the parents are the most devoted (File photo)
For those parents who were once able to soothe them with a kiss, there is nothing worse than watching their child suffer this way, sometimes unable to get out of bed, often unable to hold down a job, seemingly unable to cope with life.
They have been subtitled Generation Sicknote in response to recently published figures on the number of 18-24 year olds unable to work due to their mental health.
But is much of this problem the parents’ fault? Didn’t our attitudes toward parenting make them strong enough to face the real world?
The children of many of my contemporaries have had problems of this kind and very often the parents are the most devoted and only want to take the best possible care of their beloved children and solve their problems.
I’m not immune. Even now with my 28-year-old son, if I learn of some dilemma he has, my immediate response is to think that I should be able to solve it. To be clear, he’s not asking me to: it’s my gut reaction.
That has been the general attitude of many of us toward our children. At school, if they only got along academically, additional tutoring would be required.
Young people aged 18 to 24 have been captioned ‘Generation Sicknote’ due to published figures showing how many are unable to work due to mental health problems.
At school, if they only got along academically, additional tutoring would be required.
School holidays were filled with trips and activities so they were never just lazing around. His whimsical meal was catered for. And once they left school, the Bank of Mom and Dad was open to the public. In short, we have been doing everything we can to make your lives as easy as possible.
But by isolating them early on from the fact that life is hard and that everyone ultimately has to take responsibility for themselves, we may have deprived them during their formative years of some important survival skills.
Since the world is an unsafe place, with no guarantees of safety, I would warn some of those parents in the park not to think that it is useful to make their children’s little world perfect whenever they can. Maybe they will be much happier in the long run.
A duo to tame the hardest hearts
The resonance of Netflix’s One Day has been quite extraordinary.
The series, directed by the charismatic Leo Woodall and Ambika Mod, has struck a chord that neither the original book nor a subsequent film managed. It has caused many viewers to look at our own lives through the filter of Em and Dex’s narrative.
The duo’s path, littered with painful missed opportunities, bad relationships, and unspoken thoughts, has made even those of us many decades older than the on-screen couple empathize with them.
One Day Ambika Mod by Netflix and Leo Woodall
Yes, there is the nostalgic recognition of landlines, the soundtrack (who doesn’t remember the blues of Joan Armatrading or the Britpop sound of Blur) and the clothes of the nineties, but it is something different to that.
It’s what has 50-year-old men walking out of the theater because they can’t bear to watch the coming tragedy, and couples, who rarely agree on what to watch, binge-watching all 14 episodes in one go. weekend.
What that thing is, I can’t identify. But I do know that it has shown that even the most cynical and gruff viewers have seen a part of themselves moved by this romance in ways they wouldn’t have expected.
The brave Yulia joins the super troupes
The wives have it.
Not only does our splendid Queen Camilla have to appear everywhere in her husband’s absence to ensure we still have a functioning monarchy, but last week Volodymyr Zelensky’s glamorous wife, Olena Zelenska, arrived in Britain to mark the second Anniversary of the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
Both women are troupes who probably never dreamed they would be in the demanding positions they now occupy.
Volodymyr Zelensky’s glamorous wife Olena Zelenska has arrived in Britain to mark the second anniversary of the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
They have been joined by a third whose stoicism in the face of tragedy is absolutely remarkable.
Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, immediately took 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, but Yulia has continued to defend her husband, never less than immaculate in front of the cameras and proving that no matter what Putin does, Navalny’s name will live on. .
Everyone rise… for the stately home soufflé
Talter magazine gets it right with the Country House Awards for its current edition.
The film Saltburn has revealed a new fascination with majestic piles, and in a world dominated by gloomy headlines, it’s perfect escapism to linger on some of the categories: Best Elevenses at Drayton House in Northamptonshire, Best Temple at Castle Howard.
The best cheese soufflé, apparently served at Broadspear in Hampshire by Harry and Clodagh Herbert
However, my favorite dish is Best Cheese Soufflé, apparently served at Broadspear in Hampshire by Harry and Clodagh Herbert. Who knows?
Final call: now we’re done with the lice!
Air travel is stressful enough without passengers who insist on lining up at the gate, long before they are called to board, jostling with their carry-on luggage for position. I have now discovered that airline crews have a name for them: door lice. Darling. There’s nothing like a pejorative term to make us feel better about things.