Sometimes my blog notes,
collected over a week, as a kind of ideas stimulator, can be extremely cryptic.
So much so that when I come to write my blog, I have little idea what my
thinking was at the time. For example, here are some of the notes I wrote down last week: frog in a pan; thimble around her neck; what do
we tell the children? and chip butties. Make what you will of any of
these.
So maybe, the chip butty is as
good a starting place as any. In my mind it is the kind of story that can give good
research a bad name. It was a study commissioned by the supermarket chain Iceland
and carried out by Nottingham Trent University. Apparently, the perfect chip
butty, is made with two slices of medium sliced and buttered white bread, which
between them, contain 12 thick cut chips, smeared with tomato ketchup. It’s not
a snack I have eaten for many a year, although writing these words now, I could
easily eat such a chip butty. However, right now, striving to create the
perfect chip butty feels rather like a first world kind of issue, and there are
many other more worrying and pressing problems to be concerned about. Not least
of which is the continuing conflict in Ukraine.
The pictures and tales of so much
destruction, of so many innocent deaths and threats of worse to come have been
very distressing. But there have been heart warming stories as well. People
from all over continental Europe have self-mobilised to offer aid, food and a
place to stay to all those fleeing their homeland. There was the kindness shown
to young Russian soldiers captured, and who were bewildered and uncertain as to
what they were doing and where they found themselves. I read of several of
these young prisoners who only wanted to phone their mothers, to seek comfort
in the familiar and I would guess, to seek a restabilising of what they might
perceive as their usual normality. War brings about change to all those
involved in it, whether folk are directly or indirectly involved.
I think I must have been
reflecting on this when the image of a frog in pan came to mind. Among others,
it is a story in the book ‘The Age of Unreason’ first published in 1989,
and authored by the modern day philosopher and writer on organisational behaviour,
Charles Handy. He shared the idea that if you put a frog in a pan of boiling
water it will immediately leap out, whereas if you put the frog into a pan of
tepid water and gradually heat it, the frog will remain in the water until it boils
to death. Probably, this story is an urban myth, and please don’t try the
experiment at home. As a metaphor, it works well in perhaps understanding the
world’s slow reaction to the threat posed by Putin, a threat that has been
around for such a long time. Hopefully the world has now leapt out of the pot
and is still able to do something to end the madness that is Ukraine at
present.
As a professor in mental health care,
I have long disliked the use of the term ‘madness’ to describe anything because
of the ill-founded association it has to mental illness. However, the word can
more appropriately be used to describe other things. For example, a state of
wild or chaotic activity, and harmful activity inflicted upon others. To my
mind this begins to describe what is going on in Ukraine right now. If you have
the time, perhaps look at this article written by Chris Firth, Professor
Emeritus, University College London. At the very least it will perhaps make you
stop and think about the connection between what we understand by notions of civilisation
and ideas of madness.
On a slightly different tack, one
of the things that made me stop and think last week was hearing the account of
a father living in a small village in Ukraine. He was talking on BBC Radio 4
about what to tell his children about the war that was moving ever closer to them.
At first, he talked to his children of fireworks being let off, of a tractor
backfiring, but gradually he found himself forced into having a different
conversation with his children. This was a conversation about war, and a war
they were involved in. He is not alone. There will be many others facing the
same dilemma. I know that some of my children have had similar conversations with
my older grandchildren.
Finding the balance between
honesty, authenticity and the challenges of possibility and probability is
always going to be difficult. Trying to do so with young children becomes even
more complex. More often than not, young children have not developed a resilience
store that allows them to safely make sense of risk and rationality and certainly
don’t have the same moral concepts as adults. What children are very good at
doing however, is picking up on the emotions and feelings of the adults around
them.
Which is where honesty comes to
the fore. Personally, I think it is okay to say that as a parent you are
worried about what is going on in Ukraine, that you are concerned for all the
families impacted by the war, but you will keep them (your children safe). Children also often want to do something in
response to what they may have heard. I think it can be healthy to find a way
to allow them to do just that. It can be a symbolic as painting a blue and yellow
arch (like those NHS rainbow arches) to put up in the front room window. It is
the little things that often can make the biggest difference.
With this clue I was
able to go back and have a look again at the story that prompted my note. It
was about chickens losing their feathers due to an extraordinarily high wind,
something mentioned in the book. Not true of course. The ‘silver thimble’
was due to the fact that I only gift silver jewellery to J. However, like the
Chip Butty, in the context of what’s going on in Ukraine, this feels an
entirely frivolous thought. Peace not War would be a much better thought to
have.
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