Tag Archives: childcare

Fat is definitely still a feminist issue

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As the bloggers have it, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Christina Hendricks has apparently got so fed up with being called curvy, she’s going to slim down from her (UK) size 14 to fit the Hollywood norm. This is her at her current size.
Christina is of course already gorgeous, someone to aspire to look like and sparking a fashion revival of 1960s style c/o her role in the show Mad Men.
But she’s far from the first to feel the pressure to lose weight to seek public approval or worse, to feel happy with herself in public.

Sophie Dahl was voluptuous, the first plus size super model, but shed loads of weight after becoming famous. This is one of the “before” pictures.

Even Margaret Thatcher, whose voice famously changed as part of her makeover to become a credible party leader, lost a stone.  It was never mentioned.

What’s going on?  Leaving aside the issue that the fashion industry has nothing to do with making the average woman look beautiful and everything to do with selling us something to idealise (and to keep buying their products to cover our flaws), we have to ask ourselves why do women do this?

The idea that this might be being done to appeal to men is nonsense – men tend to prefer curves (according to an article in Current Anthropology, a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7 is thought to be the best in terms of demonstrating good health and fertility).
So is the pressure coming from other women?  The front of the weekly gossip mags always seem to be about celebrities who have lost or gained weight, and in the case of the latter, sometimes there are pregnancy rumours. That seems a particularly cruel way of noticing that someone’s gained a few pounds.  Look at the female columnists: they seem to gain their prestige by criticising other women.  Which man gets the criticism for his looks that women in the public eye are subjected to?  It’s ludicrous.

The classic TV pairing of older-man-younger-woman is still the norm on regional news programmes around the country.  Moira Stewart has disappeared from our screens.  Jenny Murray and Libby Purves seem confined to radio.
But Kirsty Wark and Martha Kearney do still seem to be allowed out, and the BBC at least has been trying some positive action to encourage women over 35 to appear on our screens.  Last year, in an effort to overcome the apparent ageism, the BBC advertised for older women to read the news and added Zeinab Badawi (world news on BBC Four), and Julia Somerville and Fiona Armstrong to their portfolio of news anchors.
And I try to feel grateful for the existence of Loose Women on ITV1, even if it’s not really my sort of programme…
Notice though that these older women presenters are still relatively thin and certainly glamorous.
The average sized woman in this country is a size 16. For older women, the average is higher.  Can it really be the case that average sized women are only represented on screen by Mary Bryne on the X Factor and Anne Widdecombe  on Strictly Come Dancing?
Mary Byrne on the X Factor

Before you wonder if I’m going too far, think about Adrian Chiles, Michael Macintyre, Eamonn Holmes, Mark Addy in the Tesco ad… With the exception of Michael Macintyre (who appears solo and whom we can forgive almost anything if he can indeed get the country skipping again…) most appear on screen with a younger/ slimmer/ more glamorous female partner.

Having an all-male panel on comedy programmes is still acceptable.  More usually these days there’s one woman – for example Jo Caulfield, Andi Osho, Lucy Porter, Shappi Korsandi on Mock the Week,  Sandi Toksvig, Maureen Lipman, Jo Brand or Emma Thompson on QI.  But as Sandi Toksvig said recently, when are we going to get the three woman, one man panel without it being considered a “special edition”?  Well part of the problem could be that women aren’t funny (rubbish + more of this rubbish from Christopher Hitchens),the rumour that it’s women that don’t find women funny, and men don’t fancy funny women…
(If you’re interested in all this, try http://www.funnywomen.com/index.php)

Age is a problem, but fat seems to be the last taboo.
It seems that being fat is the fat person’s own fault, and therefore they’re a reasonable target for worse treatment or rudeness.
A while ago Ryan Air floated the idea of BMI-priced seating, and a fellow euroblogger stirred the controversy.  But my point – that pregnancy (and miscarriage) cause weight to increase, as does the menopause, show that policies like this could potentially discriminate against women…
I should probably at this point mention the fat/ poverty link.  But this is not an infallible rule. Some people who are fat are comparatively rich – not everyone subscribes the the Wallis Simpson maxim “you can never be too rich nor too thin”. And I’ve not even started on the race/body fat issue.
All I’m saying is that the issue of fat is a bit more complicated than the media might have it…

It’s worth noting that while one third of UK women are overweight, one third are underweight.  Being overweight can lead to all sorts of health problems, but so can being underweight.
So we should really be asking why, if fat people are kept off our screens in case they’re “normalised” or seen as anything other than a problem, why is it acceptable to show underweight people with such frequency?
I have friends with young daughters who are really concerned already by their daughters calling themselves fat, worrying about how they look – and the scary thing is that this seems now to apply to toddlers.  And don’t get me started on pink and princesses…

But if fat is a feminist issue, what should we do about it?
1) every time there’s a gym without childcare facilities, that’s a problem for mothers who want to exercise.  Any woman going to a gym should challenge this ongoing problem, on behalf of all.
2) Every designer who makes their clothes so that they look good on skeletons, and doesn’t provide samples/loan dresses even in a size that fits pre-diet Hendricks and Dahl, they put off someone like me from even bothering to slim to look good in their designs as I’m never going to both be happy and fit those clothes. We should make clear – perhaps via social media – that this is unacceptable, and by the way do they not realise how much of a potential market they are alienating.
3) Every time a female journalist criticises another woman for her weight or her looks, particularly if the woman criticised is a politician, scientist, writer, or is involved in a career which does not naturally lead to being a “brand ambassador” for a cosmetics company, we should comment on the website or email.

What do you think?

Some things I learned about “real” life, work and childcare…

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image from http://www.boloji.com/women/0103.htm, please do read the excellent article there

I’ve met so many lovely, intelligent women this week.  We’ve been talking about working and childcare.  (This is probably because the common theme to the various groups I’ve been meeting is children rather than because it’s a particular preoccupation…)

It’s been a real eye opener.

In my working life, I am surounded by highly educated, ambitious people.
Most of them live in London. Many don’t have kids.
They pretty much reflected my real life when I was newly married and lived 20 minutes from the office and everyone I knew was terribly high powered and some were (self?) important and the office would not be able to do without them.
The other people I met then were living in a tower block with 5 children with at least one called Kayden or Precious.  But I never really knew them, I just got chatting to them at the Health Visitors’ clinics as we waited to have our babies weighed.

That’s no longer real life.  I mean that in the sense of, if I woke up one morning and the office wasn’t there any more, I wouldn’t be walking past the site of it each day.
Real life for me is in my hometown.
And that means that real life people are the ones I now meet.
The musings below are widescale generalisations.  There’s no stats included because I’ve been chatting with new friends, not interviewing research interviewees.  Becuase of the way things have worked out socially, I’ve not really met single parents so that side of things doesn’t feature.  And I guess it is right to focus on those in most need.
But I wonder if it’s given me access to a group of women who don’t often get heard about and so their norms get overlooked?

The women I meet here that don’t work seem to have three or more children.
And there’s a lot with three children.  I’m beginning to wonder if the logistics of three are actually slightly simpler than two, because the stats show that once you pass three, one parent is then pretty much forced to take on the role of the stay at home car driving, child-oriented parent while the other brings in the money…

So most women here work.
But I’m not meeting high powered business women – presumably I need to do that by talking to them either at their workplace or on the train to London when I commute rather than behind a pushchair in the town centre?
No, most of us here seem to work part time for someone else.
Some are, say, working a few hours in the evening when their partners can do the childcare.  Or working the lunch shifts in town to fit in with the school run.  Or volunteering. Or supply teaching.  Another has a husband in the sort of job where she’s expected to take on the pastoral side.
I’ve met so many teachers too, often married to other teachers, fed up with the 9-3 jokes and wondering how to fit their own kids in.
So many have stepped down, either in terms of their actual jobs or their ambitions.  Local jobs count.
Most think I’m insane to have a roundtrip commute of over 100 miles.

Most of the women I meet work part-time. We know there are disadvantages to this in terms of lifelong earnings, pension, and career prospects.
So why not do more hours?
The response is who’d look after the kids?
The primary concern is not the long term but the day to day logisitics.

But surely the answer here is childcare?
Well, when we talk childcare, the response is that, even with the staff pretty much on minimum wage, the cost is too high.  We’re talking nurseries really.  Talk about nannies and you’ll hear what a guffaw sounds like.

I tested the idea that seems popular in feminist circles that actually even if the cost is the same as or slightly more than what one working parent can bring in, the parents should take the hit now, so to speak, for the sake of the future earnings potential and pension provisions.
This was greeted universally with horror.
The issue might make sense to economists, who apparently were touting the same approach to saving for pensions on the radio this morning, but the main question from the real people I know is what on earth do the people who suggest this think we live on that we can “take a hit” in the short term?
I’ve heard stories of taking in lodgers, the ruination that going a few pence overdrawn the day before being paid and losing your whole next day’s pay to the bankcharge. I’ve even heard about not being able to afford to pay into the state pension, let alone a private one.  And yes, that’s even with tax credits in play.  But what can you do if the available jobs don’t meet the cost of living – a living wage if you like?

There is also an issue of childcare availability.
It’s not really a question of provision for 3 and 4 year olds, although the thing that upsets parents is not getting the place they want for their child when parental choice is the most touted concept in education.
I know some mums taking their children to two different schools each day because they’ve not got places for both at the same one.  Not only is that disruptive for a family, but it has an impact on whether parents can work. Logisitics matter.  Not to mention the carbon footprint issues of this sort of thing!

Actually, work-wise, the availability of wrap-around care is the most difficult – a limited number of nurseries are available for children 6 months plus and fewer still offer the full wrap-around hours, and even fewer of them are conveniently located for commuters.
I’ve only had one actively recommended to me by the parents who send their kids there – and that’s the most expensive, naturally.
And the school-level wrap-around care provision appears not to be at every school but for some it is at a centrally-designated school a good drive away!

But finding a childminder to wrap around other nurseries or schools is also a nightmare – finding someone you are happy to leave your kids with, who has space for children of the right age, and who takes and collects from the right schools is not simple, even with the information available from Kent children and families information service…

Family matters
Because leaving your child with someone is not just a matter of that person having a paper qualification.
You have to be happy that your child is looked after as you would wish, and often even the best is a compromise at heart because it’s just not you doing it.  Is it any wonder so many of the parents I’m meeting seem to seek to avoid doing this?
And while mostly we all seem to be begging time from the grandparents, we shouldn’t be counting on it as who knows when it might suddenly not be available?
And there’s the big unspoken secret too – parents actually want to spend time with their children, see them grow up, see the firsts, help them learn and develop.  However much childcare is available, ultimately many parents are going to want to raise their own children directly if they can.

So what are people doing about all this?
The majority of people I’ve met are married or in marriage-like long term relationships.  That affects the approach that’s taken.
Basically, those that can, seem to think as a couple – whose job or career takes precedence, how to handle the logistics, even to the extent of working out how to live with each other’s pension provisions.
For the majority of people I’ve talked to about this, they recognise that this isn’t ideal for them as individuals but they see it as part of the reality of being a family and having children.
While with one eye on the divorce stats this may not seem wise for individuals. Just as pre-nups are not popular or common in the UK, I think there is still an innate social (small “c”) conservatism and a dash of romance in the country overall.  We don’t want to think about marriages failing.  And we don’t want to plan on the basis that ours would be one of them.
So families balance the childcare between them, prioritising local over high paid, working out sometimes complicated logistics, choosing between them who gets the career rather than both trying to in order that they get to see their children rather than have someone else raise them.

But that raises a small question for me.  If families are doing all this, then how will the need for better childcare provision that would allow them to do otherwise be identified?  And which companies are going to do that research with parents in order to see if there’s a viable business?

Unwrapping this one is going to be a bit more complicated than even I’d thought…

So are you going to have another one?

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I’m losing count of the number of times I’ve been asked this question.

At best, it’s when my adorable toddler is running around being cute.

At worst, it was during a job interview – something which I think it is actually illegal to ask me.

But every time I wonder what exactly I’m supposed to answer.
Generally it’s a well-meaning question.
But actually it risks being quite personal and intrusive.

Think about it in the context of work.
Now I’ve had some months to think it over, I think the correct answer would have been: “would you be asking that if it was my husband sitting here in this interview and not me?”
If it’s a question that an employer might want an answer to from a thirty-something woman, then there’s a whole load of assumptions that go behind that.
It correctly assumes that I would have to take time out of the office to have a baby and deal with the immediate issues with breastfeeding a newborn and postnatal maternal health – that’s one thing a father can’t do instead.
But I suspect it goes rather further than that, assuming that I would be taking the parental leave for any future child all by myself.  While for a couple, you may think of yourselves as a unit, at the moment your employer almost certainly doesn’t.
It’ll be interesting to see, if our law changes in 2011 to a system of shared parental leave, whether the assumption shifts from being that one parent will take all the leave to an assumption that each will take half.
And what did I actually say when I was asked?  Well, it was suffixed by, “I hope you don’t mind me asking…” and I think I said, “no it’s fine, and not at the moment“.
But it was sufficient for me to feel negative about the idea of working in that team.  What would’ve happened if I had joined and then got pregnant?  A sense that I’d gone against what I’d said before joining the team and therefore betrayal and untrustworthiness?

But it’s not just parental leave that figures in that sort of thinking.
What if my toddler or newborn was ill and I needed to take time off to be with them?  The rough truth is that childcare doesn’t do child illness.
You hear about “pink medicine babies” – the guilty reality that if the child is just a little under the weather most parents will shove a spoonful of calpol down their throats and deliver them to the childcare provider anyway.  They then spend the day dreading the call to say that their little bundle has a temperature and needs picking up NOW.  It’s not ideal from an employer’s perspective.  It’s not ideal from a parent’s perspective.  It’s certainly not ideal from the child’s perspective.
But – particularly in a recession, where it’s a financial imperative that people are in work- it happens.  All because people are afraid to take time off work to be there when their child is ill in case their work decides it can do without them, permanently.
Is it any wonder that the lesser-earning parent is often the one that takes the time out?   But again it is not always a matter of choice.  I keep hearing about employers who don’t exactly say to fathers that they can’t take time with their children but imply that they are letting themselves and the team down. But wouldn’t it be better if that didn’t automatically mean Mummy had to let hers down?

So are you going to have another one?
Is the question any better in your personal life?
It happened to me yesterday.
I was just getting my hair cut, and my toddler was pushing one of the chairs around the salon.  I’m sure she only meant it in a he’s-cute-wouldn’t-it-be-lovely-to-have-more way.
But it’s a risky question.

What happens if the answer is “Good God, no!  Awful little blighters, don’t know why we had the first one!”  Not the case for us, thank God, but how would the questioner feel if that was the answer they got?

Who knows what circumstances the family are experiencing?  May be they are sandwich generation, with adult caring responsibilities as well as a small child?  Not having a second one might be a matter of necessity rather than choice.

Who knows if the person they’re asking has tried and failed for months? Miscarriages are not exactly a bundle of laughs and not usually the thing to share in smalltalk situations.

The thing is, unless you are already pregnant with the next one, which I am not, it is impossible to answer that question without sounding defensive.

And you get all kinds of advice offered to you as if to compensate for the embarrassment caused.  Sometimes it just digs the hole deeper.
But ultimately the old platitude is the best: “it’ll happen when it happens“.
I don’t think you can really go wrong with that, as when it happens may be never…

The modern world is bad for children

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Ok that’s it.  What, exactly, are we meant to do, to be doing the right thing?

         

As you can tell by my ever so slightly fed up tone, today there’s yet another report that say that something that parents do all the time is Bad For The Children. Today it’s television that’s in the firing line.

The article I’ve hyperlinked is fairly self-explanatory.  Children getting fat, eating junk food, have worse IQs in the longer run, etc. etc.  All of these things are apparently the long term impacts of toddler-age television viewing.
The professor in charge of the research says:

“Common sense would suggest that television exposure replaces time that could be spent engaging in other developmentally enriching activities and tasks that foster cognitive, behavioural and motor development.”

Ok.  No normal parent wants their child to miss out on important cognitive, behavioural and motor development skills.  So toddler TV’s got to be eliminated, right?  There must be something wrong with it – it’s illegal in France after all.
 
But let’s just think this through for a minute.
I’ve never seen my child watch TV for longer than about 10 minutes at any one time. 
Much as he loves Cbeebies, the TV’s just not that entertaining for that long when there’s building to be done, beds to bounce on, toy cars to drive up walls making vroom noises rather than just the lovely plastic garage, wax crayons and paper and all the card from the recycling bin to build with… and of course mummy to cuddle, to jump on, to play with, to help sort washing, to help find all the red buttons, to chase the frog across the lawn…

As you can gather, it’s not that my toddler lacks interest in the world around him.  That’s just a small sample of what he gets up to when we spend time at home (as opposed to the time in town, time at playgroup etc. etc.)
Nor does he lack the ability to concentrate, in fact he loves reading and often wants to look through books uninterrupted by me,  telling himself stories about the pictures, for a long time.
But even on what are laughably called my non-working days (unpaid work days more like, unless you count the non-means tested child allowance as payment?), I cannot spend 100% of my time as his playmate.  Nor should I – he also needs to play with other children his own age (hence playgroup to make friends), and to learn to entertain himself.
And sometimes, when I really, really need it, TV can be an electronic babysitter (not for long – my toddler has a kitchen stall designed to help him reach the worksurface safely so he tends to try to join in). 
But mostly we watch it together.
Timmy Time and the Tweenies are great for showing hm that it’s not just him that goes to nursery while his parents work, and the Tweenies teaches stories, nursery rhymes and social interaction, while 3rd and Bird stresses the value of a strong community.  Alphablocks and Numberjacks are so good that primary school teachers often use them in their literacy and numeracy lessons. I’ve never been a fan of In the Night Garden, and Waybuloo is a bit hippy trippy for me, but I like the sign language and normalised treatment of children with special educational needs and physical disabilities in Something Special.  Given the reaction of some parents to Ceri‘s employment, this sort of show is very much needed. 
And we don’t just sit and watch TV -we talk about what’s happening, when something similar happened to us…
 
But this is yet another report that tells us that we’re doing long term damage to our kids.
And while frankly I’d vote for the party that can actually bring the recommendations of “Toxic Childhood” into policy (NB it would involve cost, social change, standing up to the Daily Mail and the older feminists for whom equality is about the workplace), the central theme of that book is implying that parents are not up to the job.

There’s a terrible irony that we are so child centred these days, but that it is in a sort of “quality time“, taxi driving to activities way.  Being with the children takes time - for example, when I ask other parents how they handle the change to available nursery hours when their child turns three, they say I don’t know, I had a second one so I’m at home and able to do the school run, or that they are lucky to have grandparents near by etc.  otherwise they couldn’t work. 

But the child-centred approach that parents have is being squeezed. 
For example, some people I know have had their ability to work and raise their family affected by local authorities that can’t allocate the school places in a way that avoids someone having to drive miles between a school drop off and a nursery drop off. 
For others, it’s been that in order to “get on” – i.e. to be in the running for promotion etc., work has to be full-time – and that means 4 or 5 full days a week at nusery for the bambino, something we’re also told by the childhood experts is not good for children (note how short the school day looks to a parent and you’ll see that has been accepted fact for some time).
 
Long parental working hours are not good for anyone – tired workers are less productive, tired parents that don’t see each other suffer strained relationships not least because being a parent is really very hard work, parents working hours don’t get to see their kids and are not on good form when they do.  The right to request flexible working is genuinely a good thing (supported by all 3 main political parties in the UK) and being allowed to work from home sometimes cuts travel time and therefore means that more time can be spent with a child before and after childcare, and reduced hours means sometimes actually being able to do one leg of a school run rather than trying to get one of the rare paid childminders willing to do both before and after school and who ends up seeing more of the child than the parents do.
But many parents seem to fear that flexble working will impact negatively on their careers, so one parent doesn’t do it and the whole set up just gets even more complicated. 
Some compensate by treating the children as princes and princesses – in other words little monsters that are so used to being indulged that they don’t know what no means, and have been treated that way not necessarily becausse parents mistakenly think that this is what being child centred is, but because they are so damn tired all the time! 

France might think it has it right by banning toddler TV, but few women breastfeed there for fear of ruining their figure and if you are a career woman, your contemporaries expect you to return to work after 12 weeks otherwise you are letting down the sisterhood.
But even in the UK where we value choice, we don’t really value mothers that choose to stay at home to raise the kids in the way the childhood experts recommend for the first two years. 
Or if we do, we make it a choice only available to the middle classes who can just about afford to exist on one income, and the very poor who don’t work at all.
And those that work part-time are at risk of everything crashing if they are not circus-quality jugglers.
And those that work full-time are effectively letting someone else bring up their child.
And the tired, stressed out parents probably let the kids watch TV so that they can relax a bit.
Oh. 

So basically, with an economic set up that expects both parents to work, and a soul-selling attitude to work that – no matter what the lovely words in the HR guidance say – sends a mesage that flexible and part-time models are for slackers that don’t want to get on in their careers, and every moment that the child is with the parent needs to be a learning activity but that learning activities include pairing socks as well as structured play… argh! 
Basically the modern world is bad for children. 
I just don’t know what to do, except hope that trying to bring my son up to be happy, secure, friendly, outgoing etc. etc. in the best way I can is enough.  And try not to add yet another thing to the list of things to be tired over and stressed about…

And this?  My toddler took an unexpected nap and I was quick typing it…

Open letter to Ashford Future from some new residents

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Fantastic image of Ashford from North Street, copyright Iain Crump but licensed for further reuse, available at http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1142576

Dear Ashford Future

We really appreciate the role that you are playing in developing our new home town to accommodate 29,000 new households in the next 20 years.  This is a massive undertaking and we’ve now seen the overview plans that you have put forward to develop the town.  It’s good to know that there is an overall vision as so any towns see not to have one. 

We’ve not yet had a chance to read in detail the town centre plans that have apparently just been approved, but suspect that they are linked closely to the overall plan we’ve seen and on which these comments were drafted.
We don’t know whether you intend to keep consulting on individual aspects of those plans or whether you intend to give residents a chance to comment on the overall shape of the plans. 
Either way, as recently arrived resident who intend Ashford to be our home for the foreseeable future, we’d like a chance to share our views with you on some of the key elements.

Transport Links
Highspeed train – this is a fundamental in us being able to live here – commuting for even longer every day would make it almost impossible for both of us to work in London and also handle the childcare arrangements. 
Please do keep on at southeastern trains about train timings – every half hour is pretty good (a six coacher every 15 mins would be even better!), but the preview services were standing room only at some times of day and with new arrivals like us using the service daily, and at over £5000 a year, that’s a lot of money to stand at 140 mph…  Timing of the trains getting back in the evenings is frustrating too – there’s just not quite enough time to get to the nursery without being at risk of a fine. Is there any consultation or consideration of these things when timing the trains? 

We’ve read your car parking strategy.  Yep, sometimes even the X Factor or Dancing on Ice doesn’t give a thrilling enough Saturday night.  We noted that you pretty much intend to phase out town centre carparking and have Park and Rides.  Having lived in towns like that before, we’ve bought a house within walking distance to the station. Just one light against you, or traffic jam, and you’ve lost the time advantage you might’ve hoped to gain.
We noted too the comment that the station car parking needs consideration.  We’ve considered it – and again that’s why we’re moving to the town centre and not the prettier villages – the chances of parking near the station in 5 years time are looking remote.  Commuters are likely to want to live not just at Cheeseman’s Green and the like but in existing villages too – so what do you have planned for them?

We’re in favour of SmartLink.  Shiny blue buses do not of themselves a mass transit system make - and the website publicity focuses on the wrong things: the ability to buy tickets from a machine before boarding and nicely landscaped routes are not really the point when assessing whether the scheme is fit for purpose. 
As far as I can see the main questions are actually whether the tickets will be affordable (no more than a pound anywhere and with timed tickets rather than just single or return journeys), available as a season pass, on a smartcard which should be interoperable with Oyster and the rail system, the frequency, how and where exactly the dedicated bus lanes will be established, plus why, if you are intending to phase out the town centre carparks, you’ve not considered a Kennington route for SmartLink.  On this last point,  when I asked I was told that was because there was high car ownership in Kennington but as SmartLink is designed as a mass transit system and as part of the greening of Ashford, that’s a bit illogical.   

The new plans for M20 Junction 10A seem pretty good (do we really think though that it’ll allieviate traffic at Junction 10 by convincing traffic from Park Farm to join the motorway one junction further from their intended direction of travel? That’s not in line with human nature…). But the proposed lorry park, to be sited between Evegate and the substation at Sellindge really concerns us. 
Which road are you intending they use to get there?  The A20 between proposed juntion 10A and Evegate cannot cope with a lot of extra lorry traffic without disturbing the main route out of the surrounding villages, negating any time benefit that they might derive from the building of 10A. Plus the projected traffic flows for the area suggest that space for 3000 lorries would not actually allieviate Operation Stack in any case!   
And why build it there at all?  Surely the solution is to increase the size of the existing lorry parks at Ashford and at Folkestone which are surrounded by wasteland.  And if it’s cost as well as lack of space that’s the reason so many lorries end up parked around the market at Ashford, then lower the cost of using the lorry park and clamp down on the illegals – I think I recall that fines can be pursued cross-border these days?
 
New Housing
If you are going to build 29,000 new homes, there’s a serious case for making these eco-friendly.  Park Farm may be built to high eco standards and as we’ve a new build ourselves we know that the insultation etc. needs to be second to none.  We were pleased too to hear about high quality builds in Victoria Way. 

But what an opportunity this town expansion presents! 
We feel you should only be granting builders permission to build these new homes if they are truly sustainable – are you going to be requiring greywater or rainwater harvesting systems for saving water (this must surely be a priority in this drought-prone area of the world)?  What about solar panels on the houses, or possibly wind turbines? 
If you’re concerned that this would be difficult to achieve for lots of new homes individually, what about a communal requirement for each new estate or block of flats? 
Unless these things are required, we risk saddling ourselves with a huge housing stock requiring individuals to invest in a way that is difficult in a recession, but is much easier if the cost has been absorbed into the price that you can get a mortgage on.
We’re also a bit concerned at what seems to be a focus on building flats.  Who is it that Ashford is intending to attract?  What’s the future profile that is in mind here?  If we’re looking at young people that work locally, then my own family provides a good example.  My cousin and her boyfriend were school leavers with jobs locally – but they were not after a flat in the town centre when for only a little bit more they could get a house on one of the new estates, with a garden. 
Ashford has not to date been the sort of place you aspire to live in the centre of.  What is intended to attract people to live in town centre flats?  There’s precious little outdoor space, nor nice places to go out to in terms of chic little restaurants and wine bars to support this city centre approach to living. And are the flats to have parking?  If not, then there’s even or reason to require things to do in the town centre.

Update: my husband reminded me that I also meant to make a point about the need for commuter-friendly housing near the station.  If Ashford is looking to attract incomers from London, again they are unlikely to be looking for 2-bed flats. 

Charter House
Charter House is frankly an eyesore.  We’ve seen that the plans are to fill it with a mixture of residential and retail and offices.  The point is that Charter House looms in central Ashford and we’re not clear what could be done to make it look better.  Tall buildings are not a problem per se, but Charter House is surely beyond redemption.  Why not find someone to flatten it and build something inspiring, glass and steel?

Green Spaces
The thing is, we’ve lived in flats.  It’s normal in towns in the rest of Europe and it’s normal in London.  Our last flat had a roof terrace, and quite a big one, not just a balcony.  And it isn’t enough – you still feel boxed in and end up hanging your socks on a rack over the bath to dry.
The thing that flat builders elsewhere in Europe get right is the common green spaces.  If you’re building flats, you need to give people a decent amount of common outdoor space nearby.  There’s a human need to get your shoes off and feel the grass under your feet, to sunbathe, to picnic, to have a kickaround with your toddler or go for a bike ride. 
Funnily enough, that’s something that the Victorians in London actually got right – the parks and commons really are the lungs of the city.  At the moment, other than the tiny memorial garden or Victoria Park which really isn’t up to much, Ashford does not have much in the way of common land in the town centre area.  At the moment, it’s easy to say that the countryside is not far off and it’s easy to reach green spaces.  But, if you are expanding the town, that green space gets further away.  And sympathetic landscaping is just not the same thing as a bit of wild yet safe land.
Surely either Dover Place or Vicarage Lane car parks could – instead of both being handed over for retail – be given over to a beautiful green space?
And don’t get me started on the river.  The nice leaflet identifying a kind of chain-like link of grassy areas along the river doesn’t really hold up in reality (I guess that’s the proposed Stour nature park?). 
But where are the riverside restaurants around the Stour?  There’s a stonking great Hitachi rail depot on one side, and the Stour Centre carpark on the other… come on. Natural assets like a river frontage should be positively exploited rather than act as if we have our backs to a rather damp inconvenience.

Retail, Food and Drink
Practically every new development says that there will be retail, offices and housing.  That’s great.
But you’ll have all these new houses, and all these park and ride schemes and very little for these new people to be doing in Ashford.
The designer centre is a great place to start, but there’s a few stores that would really be welcome there which you can find at other outlet centres: Monsoon, Banana Republic (in Gap) and Charles Tyrwhitt.  But now that Waitrosehas arrived (albeit in the wrong place if that survey in town the other day is anytihng to go by), and Debenhams has made such a difference to the town centre, can a John Lewis be that far behind, especially with plans for County Square expansion? And what’s going to be done to attract something other than poundshops to Park Mall?    

Ashford’s food and drink is somewhat underwhelming.  I know we’re starting from having come from the gastronome’s delight of Northcote Road but a choice of four MacDonalds is not my idea of diversity.
So please, in the new places being built at the station let’s have a Pain Quotidien, or a Paul (it is Ashford International, after all).  And an M&S food – they seem to be compulsory at London stations these days, and putting one in at Ashford International would really help commuters who’ve dashed past all the fabulous shops at St Pancras or Stratford to bag one of the few empty seats on the high speed train home and forgotten the milk they promised to pick up.  
What about a Giraffe child-friendly but nice cafe in the town centre?  We’d love that – or Carluccio’s?  How about a Jamie’s Italian? What about Strada? Or a Nando’s? I’m not asking for Michelin three stars, but I can’t help thinking that it’s all very well these companies eyeing up the likes of Canterbury, but it’s Ashford that’s got the population to support them. I know a lot of the decent shops and restaurants have gone to slightly-posher looking Tenterden, but that’s o reason for Ashford town centre to miss out. 

Schools and childcare - what are the plans for new primary schools and secondary schools?  With so many new households, the schools are going to come under serious pressure.  It’s already hard to find the right sort of childcare to handle the commuting lifestyle. 
That said, resist the pressures and keep the grammar schools.  They’re a  major selling point for us people moving into Ashford from elsewhere (because of course we all believe our child will pass the 11-plus with flying colours) but they’re also good for social mobility and they give a chance to people who might not have had one otherwise in a segregated-by-address schooling system.

Europe’s best placed?
We are also particularly interested in what plans you have for the European side of Ashford – attracting business to the town from Paris, Lille and Brussels, and beyond.  We’ve already seen one attempt at sidelining Ashford for that build-it-and-they-will-come upstart Ebbsfleet (surely only there for the convenience of Bluewater?) by Eurostar, so how are you going to attract visitors and investment?  The town and wider region would suffer greatly fro loss of that link, so creative ideas (like the Calais metro train proposed for 2012) need to be brainstormed as well as the more serious planning. 

I’m not going to go on about recycling here, as you can read it in a separate post on this blog,  but surfice to say this really needs sorting if Ashford is to be carbon neutral and all the other things we can surely aspire to if we have a regeneration/ development agency with the word “Future” in the title…  

As you can tell, we’re genuinely interested in the future of our new hometown, and would love to work with you on making it happen.  Do get in touch and let us know what you’ve got planned next…

A few thoughts on feminism…

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MotherhoodImage(Image from the brilliant http://www.womensmediacenter.com/ex/101408.html)

I’ve joined the British Mummy Bloggers social network. While the new blog hasn’t covered much parenting yet, it will do.
I was struck by the categories used as forums on the site, and joined the foodie, writing and feminist groups immediately.

Feminist?
Yes, I feel a bit uncomfortable with the word.
Here’s my comment on the forum in all its glory…

For me, feminism is not about being and acting like men, but about gaining respect for things that are important to me as a woman.
The dungaree-wearing, man-hating, bra-burning stereotype seems to me to be fading away, but feminism still seems to be a dirty word.
It tends to be used rather than in the equality sense as a way of portraying strong women as being in relentless pursuit of men to put them at a disadvantage, or used by usually younger women that take their clothes off in public to justify what is essentially titillation as something that makes them feel less uncomfortable ethically about something that’s earning them a lot of money…
I feel inherently uncomfortable with the term – having gone to a girls school and having had it thrown at us as an insult and often used as if it were a synonym for lesbian as opposed to a political position.

The most obvious issue on which I feel feminist is work – while of course my workplace is pretty good, why does it continue to be acceptable in the main to require parents (or others with caring responsibilities) to fit to a working pattern than causes stress and complication in their lives?
Surely you’d get the best out of people by acknowledging that they are in fact people and have lives outside the office?
Why isn’t there more term-time working/ work patterns that fit with school or nursery hours?
Do workers that work flexibly and/or part-time get taken as seriously?
Is working long hours a prerequisite for good annual reports and/or promotion prospects?
And is enough being done to help younger women focus onprofessional jobs with prospects and a future rather than just hairdressing, childcare, etc.? I hope so these days, but this is in itself complicated because in order to work I need some people providing childcare that doesn’t cost so much that it’s not worth me working…
These are the issues that I feel are what the modern feminist should focus on.

I also think that feminists need to be making the case that having children is not a “lifestyle choice” but an essential part of the continuation of the human race, and raising them is as valid a way of spending time as pursuing a “career” (I say this as someone attempting to do both, of course) but that we have the right to do both to the best of our abilities.
Women are our own worst critics – we seem to trumpet the superiority of our personal situation over those of our sisters (older women saying that younger shouldn’t have it easy because they didn’t, the constant SAHM – v- working mum rivalry, the look our best -v- accept us as we are arguments…)

But it’s more complicated than that, of course. I don’t think that being taken for fools by fashion that’s designed with an eye on women changing their bodies to fit an unattainable flat shape rather than the curves we’re meant to have (size zero? The UK average is a 16 – who are we kidding?) is something that we could or should accept – fat is a feminist issue as it used to be said.

And to continue on from that, I think that feminism has lost its way a bit.
It’s not about a right to be near naked in public or to sleep with as many men as possible and not be called a slag when theres no real male equivalent term.
It’s not about telling Muslim women not to wear a headscarf (more about listening to each woman’s reasons for choosing to do so or not, and being supportive either way).
It’s not about championing abortion as if it is a consequence-free event, ignoring the support that women need if they choose to end a pregnancy (which is a lifechanging event).
It’s not about coveting the next designer bag, latest clothes, perfect hair and grooming – we should be valuing women no matter what model of beauty they do or don’t conform to.  (I myself am Reubenesque and so a few centuries out of date…)
For me, it’s about championing the idea that women, collectively and individually have as much right to do things their way and develop as individuals and members of families and society as men do and to be encouraged, supportedand taken as seriously as men are while doing it.

I simply cannot understand why we have fewer women in politics than some in some developing countries (and was horrified by the comments from one man that only pretty women would make it past selection procedures), and so few women in very senior management roles etc. unless timeserving counts more than anything else (such as decision-making ability, leadership) and unfair selection procedures are in play somewhere in the process.  Of course a good way of doing something about this would be to incentivise men’s flexible and/or part-time working so that there was a more equal balance of men and women taking on caring roles so that this element could not be built into decisions on employing a woman as opposed to a man so easily as there would be a much more even “risk” of them needing not to work all the hours God sends…

I think feminism will either get a bit of a shot in the arm – or will be susumed into a wider set of issues of a similar nature - once you get more Generation Y in the workplace… bear with me on this.
There seems to be an expectation amongst employers that the current attitude that is perceived in GenY will eventually be replaced and that they’ll knuckle down and conform, as if thinking they can have it all their own way is youthful naiveity.
I disagree – I think that in a world where there’s no job for life, no final salary pension etc., the attraction of being a corporate drone is much less than it was say a decade ago.
This is a generation used to downloading what it wants to, instant communication with friends, mixing the personal and professional with confidence.  They’re a product of the 1980s and 1990s in which they grew up – consumerist but green, individualist and (perhaps because of having spent more time in educational or childcare environments?) more used to being indulged by working parents.  They do no easily accept being told “no”.
The only downside if you like is the constant exposure to rap music with its objectification of women and the risk that this passes over into the generational attitude… but then my husband points out that “Skins” is not actually a documentary…

So let’s hope in particular that GenY women kick up one hell of a stink if they feel they’re being treated unfairly in the workplace, or in life.  And let’s hope the men do too – after all a fight ofr recognition of the needs and diversity of the individual applies to them as much as to women.
And as the generation before them, let’s be helpful, supportive feminists to help them get there.

Getting competitive… getting in to the European Commission

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Berlaymont building - European Commission headquarters

Who’d want to work in the EU institutions? 
Thousands, apparently, including me. 
It’s not easy to describe the job of a European Commission official, but in reality the actual work is not so different to the work of the civil service in any of the EU Member States.  And the pay, the tax rates and final salary pension – despite the recent reforms – are pretty attractive too.

So how exactly to you whittle down thousands of applicants to the couple of hundred you need to fill the vacancies that are available in the EU instututions?  Until recently the answer was essentially this: set a multiple choice quiz on EU related issues, and a numeracy test.  Put all prospective candidates through this in their second language (preferably English, French or German), then get them to write essays against the clock on EU-inspired subjects which, despite all the research and practice would not actually be marked unless the candidate passed the multiple choice and numeracy parts of the test sufficiently well…  there were further rounds with interviews etc, but as I didn’t reach them that aspect’s a bit less familiar to me.
Julien Frisch had a very interesting post over at http://julienfrisch.blogspot.com/2009/08/epso-criticised-by-european-court-of.html on the criticism of the European Personnel and Selection Office (EPSO – interesting to note that the Commission uses “personnel” long after other adminstrations have swtched over to “human resources”) by the Court of Auditors.  It’s worth reading, even if this post is a couple of weeks old now, not least because ESPO officials have actually joined in the debate below.
It is clear now that future methods of staff recruitment will be via Assessment Centres, a process familiar to many job applicants.  And the new approach is aimed at ensuring that it’s not just a way of identifying those with the time to study EU trivia (e.g. those still in educational environments).  Instead, the approach is supposed to allow demonstration of skills that would be required when doing the job.

So, with a decade of relevant experience, relatively good French (some remaining Spanish – and I’d have to improve at that in order to get a promotion within the Commission once in) and having entered my career for the purpose of gaining the skills to do this, am I actually going to enter the next concours?
I’ve been taking some time on my holiday to think about this.  Basically we’d be happy about a move to Brussels and I want to sit the concours.

But there’s a but.

I’m working part-time in the office and full-time as a mother.  While the UK Civil Service is actually pretty good about recognising the contribution that I can make, it’s not actually as easy as I’d hoped because face-time in the office does still count for something, especially as you get more senior. 
So I’m not sure the Commission would want me. 
Unless they’ve changed the rules that were in place when I did my stage that as Directives (e.g. those covering maternity rights) are addressed to the Member States so they don’t actually have to be exemplary in terms of employment law when it comes to part-time and flexible working?  They must’ve done – I gather there may even be some jobsharers now, but no one’s yet been able to point me to where within the Commission they work (and at what level).  
And with many highly qualified candidates attempting to find themselves the ideal post by appealing to the relevant DGs, who’d take on someone that only wanted to work part-time?  Several of the people I knew that passed the last concours have given up on trying to find a post – in other words they went through all of the stages I mentioned above, officially “got the ticket” but still have not got a job at the end of it.
Could I really put myself and my family through the extra stress of preparing for the different stages of the concours? And the extra stress of trying to get a job as a part-time employee?

The other thing is that, with 10 years experience, I’m not terribly keen on starting at the bottom again (moving from middle management to policy administration without a team).  Now, if there was to be a Head of Unit concours in the near future I can imagine that that would really be of interest…  So unlike my normal work-self, I’m feeling a bit indecisive.

There are probably people out there thinking that I’ve no right to expect to be employed as a part-timer.  That by having chosen to have a child and – let’s be honest about this- the likelihood that I’ll want to have another at some point, I somehow forfeit the right to be pursuing a professional career too.  Especially when you read some of the comments that are attracted by articles on this sort of subject on the Daily Mail’s website or even Comment is Free at the Guardian’s site. 
My brain hasn’t switched off.  I’m no less good at the decision-making or subject analysis or line management aspects of my job than I was before I had a child.  
What I can’t do any more is work more than my official conditioned hours, unless there’s a real emergency and/or I’ve had a chance to arange alternative childcare. 
My childcare is timelimited.  Even if it wasn’t, there’s a tiny little person who loves me and is dependent on me, and would not understand if he suddenly couldn’t see his mum.  
But the thing is, should there be an expectation that you’ll work more than conditioned hours on anything other than a rare occasion?

May be I’d better go and try to find the latest version of the Staff Regulations, and then think about it some more.  I’ve got a few months to find out…