Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Let's eat

A UNICEF report has just been published which says that British children are the most insecure, the least disciplined and the most unloved children in any European country.
I will tell you why this is so, and I would be grateful if you would publicise this in every forum available to you. The reason is: parents don't eat with their children. Let me put that in capitals: PARENTS DON'T EAT WITH THEIR CHILDREN.
Every culture I can think of, outside of the Anglo-Saxon one, makes a point of using mealtimes as a unifying cohesive event. It's primitive, it's atavistic, it's animal (think of gorillas, think of orangutans) : which is why it matters so much. And why it works.
Eating together, sharing, chatting, even arguing - it all matters.
Now, the sociologists and other babblers will give you all sorts of other reasons to explain - or, more sadly, explain away - the UNICEF findings, and probably find someone, eg the government, to blame in the process, but.....the family that eats together, stays together.
And now, for my next trick, I will solve the problems of renewable energy, third world poverty and global warming. Watch this space.

No comments: