WTF?????

I happened upon an article in 'Mother & Baby' today and followed the link.    In a nutshell, it was a blog about a letter that had been pushed under a hotel door complaining about the occupants' crying baby.  The neighbours to aforementioned crying baby decided to wait 2 days before taking action.  

What action did they take?

They could have knocked on the door of their neighbour on the pretence of checking everything was okay, thus alerting the parents to the thinness of the hotel walls.

They could have called reception to ask them to do something - taking the pressure and awkwardness away from them.

They could have had a quiet word with the parents the following morning.

Or, if all else failed, they could have spoken with the hotel to see how long the baby was staying and then to request a change of room. 

They did none of those things.  They waited til they were leaving and pushed an anonymous note under the door telling the parents how irresponsible they were, how inconsiderate they were and how disgraceful they were.  They said that a baby had no place in a hotel at a ski resort - a resort that was also hosting a conference that baby's father was part of, and a hotel that offered baby facilities/kids clubs etc, so not an adult-only one.  

By this point the parents had no chance to speak to their neighbours to apologise or try to explain.    It appears, the baby in question was teething.  Ahhhhh, teething.  That amazing phenomenon that comes and goes without warning and strikes fear into the hearts and minds of parents everywhere.  You see, one day your little cherub could be a gummy, laughing bundle of joy and the next she will take the form of the secret love child of Damian from the Omen and Linda Blair from the Exorcist.  Within hours this beast could have vanished once more only to reappear an random times over the course of anything up to three years. 

I feel for both parties in this situation.  I've been on the other side of wall to noisy neighbours and I've also been the frazzled, powerless parent to an inconsolable child in the middle of the night.  It's nerve-shattering on both counts. 

My biggest objection to this kind of note is that if the Sleep Thief had been a 6'4" drunken Footballer or a mass of Spring Break youngsters or even a very amorous couple, I imagine the writers would have been on the phone to the hotel reception immediately.  They would never have left a note for those people and they certainly would not have waited 2 days/nights to make a complaint.   But because the perpetrator was a small baby being looked after by some desperate, tired, possibly tearful parents then BAM! Hit them where it hurts.  Something they can look at whenever they need to just to remind themselves what crap parents they really are.  

Don't misunderstand me. There are places that you simply should not take your baby - in my opinion.  Places like bars and pubs that do not welcome children particularly in the evening, cinemas (unless it's a baby friendly showing), theatres and adult-only hotels.  If you take a child to one of those places and it screams it's head off then please don't be offended when you are asked to leave .   However, as far as I am concerned, if somewhere is a public place and does not specify 'no children' then it's fair game.  Particularly in a family-friendly hotel. 

The notion that, as parents, you should not take your child ANYWHERE if there is the remotest chance it could cry or make some other noise (laugh, maybe?) is ludicrous.  I refer back to my previous posting about it becoming acceptable to berate parents for noisy children but nobody will ask the annoying cretin on the train to stop yelling down his phone or to turn down his music or refrain from picking his nose etc.  

Clearly parents and children should only be together in the privacy of their own homes and never leave that place unless the child is sedated, bound or gagged. 

But to be honest, the thing that actually floored me was the response to this guy's blog posting.   I haven't read all the comments but generally there seems to be a huge rally of people suggesting this guy is an arsehole for thinking the note was wrong and that the people who wrote the note had a point.  And that's possibly the least offensive way I could describe it.  I am stunned, genuinely stunned. 

1.  If you are an adult, then you were once a child. 

2.  If you were a child then you were [at least] once very annoying to someone other than a family member.

3. If you have children and your children didn't upset or annoy anyone other than yourself, ever, then you are either a) lying b) deluded c) someone who boarded their children in their rooms until they were 18. 

4.  If you don't have children then can you be sure that you have never made a nuisance of yourself to anyone else in public?  ie: never been drunk in a public place, shouted at a friend or lover in public, used bad language language loudly on a train or in a restaurant, walked home late at night in a built-up area and not been as quiet as you could have been, never had a party even though your neighbours were sleeping, revved your car very early in the morning... the list is endless.  If you've never done any of those things then you are either a) lying b) deluded 3) were one of the kids who was boarded in their room until they were 18 and are now too scared to breathe. 

5.  If you never want to be bothered by children or anyone else for that matter in public, might I suggest that you never leave the safety and sanctity of your own house.  Just a thought. 

Most parents (and yes, I use the term 'most') are more than aware that their little darlings can be irritating as hell and will go out of their way to avoid upsetting people but having a child does not mean you don't go out or go on holiday or shop or take public transport or eat out.   And we  will continue to go about our daily lives in much the same way as your parents did when you were annoying, irritating and noisy little ankle biters.  

If you promise you won't argue with someone outside my house late at night, or get drunk in the daytime and fall into the path of my pushchair, or have sex loudly in the hotel room next door to mine (yes I'm talking about you, you weird, noisy couple in San Francisco in May 2011) then I will promise not to take my child into an inappropriate place and bother you. 

We're all in it together

I've had some real conscience wrestling these last few days assisted by a lot of tongue biting.

Wednesday brought a massive Public Sector workers strike and I have real mixed feelings about this (including a lot of anger) particularly as i have a lot of friends who are teachers and civil servants.  For those of you have been living in your shed without a TV for the last year, the country (and most of the world) is in pretty deep doo-doo financially and some pretty drastic cuts have got to be made to stop us from turning into a crap version of Greece * .  Consequently the government have introduced some pretty unpopular cuts to services and changes in policy to try to reduce the deficit.
* At least Greece has good weather and beaches for when you're really depressed.

The most recent one has been a change in pensions for all Public Sector workers. Now the big point that everyone seems to be missing is that Public Sector Pensions (and the State Pension come to that) should have been reformed years ago to take into account the fact that people simply live longer than they used to.   In 1926 when State Pensions were introduced the average life expectancy was 76 for men and 78 for women, in 2008 those figures were closer to 86 and 89 respectively.  So there is an extra 10 years of pension cash to be found per person in the UK and yet until recently there had been almost no real move to increase the age at which these pensioners could start receiving their cash.

Anyone who can do simple adding and subtraction knows that this kind of commitment cannot be sustained indefinitely.  Unfortunately the world financial crisis has elevated the pension timebomb profile and the government have no option but to address it and try to sort something out.  They have already brought in plans to raise retirement age for the State Pension and now they are making changes to the Public Sector and it's not going down well.

I agree that the measures seem unfair and it would be a pretty poor argument if all I did was bleat on about the private sector being stamped on for years with dismal payrises, long hours and diminishing pensions to show for it, so I won't.  Instead, let's think about a few other points.

1)  No public sector worker will lose any money they have already invested in their pensions.
2)  Public sector pensions will be 'defined benefit' ie: linked to pay and not on the amount saved or invested.  So why is that bad?
3)  Private sector workers must be responsible for the investment into their pensions, so why should they also be predominantly responsible for the investment into public sector workers pensions too?

Forgive me for being cynical but, generally, Governments tend to focus on keeping themselves in power for as long as possible and traditionally they like to make themselves pretty popular.   So why are the Tories seemingly making themselves as unpopular as rabid dog at a teddy bears picnic?  Could it be because they've explored all the popular options and realised they don't work?  Could it be that there really are very few alternatives left (if any) and so drastic times call for drastic measures?

Even Husb who would sooner cut off his hands than be accused of being a Tory is shouting at the telly when some of the half-wits that the media choose to interview at times like this bang on about everything being 'not fair' and 'I'm entitled!' etc etc ad boredinium....[yes I did just make that word up]. 

The simple facts remain that we are not in a good place and we're all in it together so whilst you teachers are worried about your diminishing pension, so are we; you guys are worrying about future redundancies and job security and so are we.  Times are rubbish but if we all start taking some responsibility then maybe we can get through it.  Our parents and grandparents didn't exactly have it easy but they managed.  They survived wars, rationing, general strikes and some positively dreadful fashion statements.  They had to work out how to stretch a ridiculously small amount of food just that bit further and mend clothes rather than buy news ones yet most of us mainly have to make sure we don't overstretch our finances just in case something hits us – so, no new flat screen TVs, no amazing foreign holidays, making sure the kids have new shoes rather than £100 fashion trainers.  You get the idea. I know I could easily knock a good £10 off my weekly food shop without trying too hard.   And yes, I am aware that I am one of the relatively lucky ones and there are a lot of others who have to cut it down a lot more than that and have a lot less income to start with.

Incidentally, if anyone has any ideas that the Tories haven't thought of yet then please do share them.  The only ones I can think of would probably be even more unpopular...
 - Income tax rises
- VAT rises
- Council tax rises
- Fuel duty rises?

And before someone tries to bang on about Bankers and the mega rich and so on, yes ladies and gents, there will also be the 'haves' and the 'have-nots'.  It's the way of the world and always has been.  Some will have inherited, some will have got lucky on the lottery, some will have got theirs from their golden boots or golden tonsils and some will just be thieving greedy bastards.  It's not always necessarily fair , but in a lot of  cases the 'haves' have built up their fortunes through hard work and sacrifice.  Do you begrudge them their money too?   You know as well as I do that if it were you (or me) who had the millions stashed away then you would enjoy it as much as those guys do.

We can't base all our decisions on what someone else does or someone else has.  At some point in all our lives we have to just take some responsibility for ourselves and look out for those who can't look out for themselves.   I don't have all the answers and if I did, would I want the Prime Minister's job?  Would I heck.