The Cider House Rules

I'm actually shaking at the moment, because I'm on either my second or third coffee of the day - I'm not sure which, but I think third, and I'm only really used to having one. Getting to sleep 
tonight could be an interesting experience....

Anyway, even though I haven't written one in a few weeks, I'm going to go back to the Netflix fuelled film review blogs, because I think you can tell a lot about a person by their opinions and the way that they react to things, and I quite enjoy looking at that on other people, so I think it's only fair to make the opportunity available to others. 

So there's this film called The Cider House Rules that is about a boy who grows up in an orphanage, because he just doesn't fit with the families he's placed with. As he grows, the doctor who is in charge begins to train him as a doctor for women who are either about to give birth, or who are arriving at the centre so that an abortion can be performed, even though abortions were illegal in America (or at least in that state - the film doesn't exactly make it clear and I'm not sure on the history of it) at the time. 

As much as it is very possible to sit there and just watch the film, and accept that it is there solely for the purpose of entertaining or educating, if you let it, any piece of art, cinema, music or writing can make you think. I say, balls to curiosity killed the cat - blind acceptance kills meaningful conversation!!!  

The most obvious debate available because of the film is that of whether or not abortion should be legal. Even in the days where I was a pretty loud and angry atheist, it was something I wouldn't have been able to consider, but then again, I accept that when we create a law which is against it, it's not beneficial to people - mainly women. In every age, there have been myths of how not to get pregnant or ways to get rid of the foetus and some of them are down right brutal and not just to the infant. Women have died because of the injuries caused to their bodies or because of the infections which occur because of improperly sterilised implements or environments. I'm not saying that it's morally correct, but I think I would prefer their to be a legally regulated system as opposed to back street abortion clinics that become responsible for the deaths of young women as well as their potential children. 

If you look at the film again though, you can sort of see it as a coming of age drama where the main character has no other option than to take another look at his morals and see that sometimes you have to do things that you don't necessarily agree with for the greater good. To help a young woman he befriends, he performs an abortion, because he has the ability to help her and feels compelled to use it, even though he's not comfortable with it. Having grown up in the orphanage, there was no money for him to attend college or medical school, but after shadowing the doctor who is responsible for where he grew up, he has pretty much the exact training. He is the person who is needed to replace the doctor, so even though it involves lies and forgery to "prove" his ability to practice medicine, he sees where he is needed and reacts. 

If it's not obvious, I do love the film, but I was contemplating it for hours afterwards as to whether or not that was something I could do. 

For so long, he rejects the idea of being a doctor, of returning to the place he grew up and providing help for young women in trouble, but in the end he accepts that the gift which has been given to him - this medical training which enables him to help women and prevent them from harming themselves - is more important than his own selfish wants. It sort of reminds me of The Cross and The Switchblade - a fantastic book about Pentecostal preacher who brings religion back to New York City, to the children in gangs, to the girls who hang around the gangs to be used as nothing more than warm sex dolls and to the heroin users. He is pretty much dragged kicking and screaming to what he eventually feels is his destiny, much like I see the main character. 

Anyway, Goodnight you Princes of Maine, you Kings of New England.

Can You Spare a Room?

So, as of next month, the current administration is introducing a bedroom tax to council properties, which means that those considered to have a spare bedroom will have to pay an extra tax for the priviledge of. If haven't already read the guidelines, they're just HERE for you.

Now, the theory of this tax, I do completely agree with. I would use personal examples, but I'm not sure how certain people in my family would feel about that, so let's go with a hypothetical. If you have a couple living in a three bedroom or four bedroom home which is provided by the council, with council waiting lists so long, is it really acceptable for them to be wasting space that could house a whole family.

What I don't agree with is the government essentially prescribing to people where their children ought to sleep. I freely admit that I'm pretty priviledged, but at no point in my life - living at home anyway - have my brother and I had to share a bedroom. Under the rules of this tax, until the age of 10, my brother and I would have had to share a bedroom. If that had happened, only one of us would have reached age 10... The same rules state that until the age of 16, children of the same gender would have to share. I can't imagine anything worse than that really.

I remember what I was like in my early teenage years. I was a pain in the arse and I spent a long time in my room, on my own. At that age, being able to have time on your own, being able to have somewhere to go to that is private and that is your own can be very important, and yet we're essentially saying that's only okay if you're parents have the money to pay for it.

Before I start sounding a bit too left wing - come on, I don't want to mislead anyone around here - I would like to say that I do believe that if it's because parents are just on job seekers and always have been, then that's a little bit more understandable, but the issue I have is HERE. Cases like that of the Egglestone's.

It's just something to think about...

Dear BBC,

This is just going to be a quick blog because I found this really funny. 

So, BBC news is the homepage on my college computers. The first thing I saw when I connected to the internet today was the headline "Does the Modern Childhood End at 12?" followed by an article offering PARENTING ADVICE FROM THE BBC. BBC, are you serious? 

It feels like only weeks ago that the Jimmy Saville scandal broke into the public eye - and if you believe the Daily Mail then there is still news to be printed about this scandal (article linked to was published three day ago) - and now the BBC wants to give out parenting advice. I don't think so. 

Even still, I'd love a definition of what is the modern childhood. The age at which childhood ends has always been somewhat ambiguous and I think it fluctuates over time, dependent upon geography and actually varies person to person. 

During the times of the industrial revolution, childhood ended when the child was around five and could be put to work cleaning machines - because of their conveniently tiny little fingers - or up chimneys, because they were small enough to climb up them. 

After the passing of the Elementary Education Act 1880, the age at which childhood ends could be classed at age 10, when a child leaves compulsory education.  

Obviously from then there has been a progression into the modern era, where we seem to deem childhood as over by either 16 or 18, or even at 21 in America, depending on how you would determine the end of childhood, but considering we allow things such as the sexualisation of children through fashion trends and beauty pageants, as well as making children essentially adults in training by bringing in all the technological advancements we have in the working world - netbooks, iPads, iPhones etc - into the classroom, we can argue as to whether a pure form of childhood really exists. I really miss the days when I'd do stupid things like go on a bike ride for the whole day or go outside skipping or just general make-believe games that I remember as framing my childhood. Now, when I go home, most of the kids are on motorised scooters, sat on the corners of our street playing on the Nintendo DS or whatever the latest handheld games console is. 

The real issue that I'm having a moan about isn't whether or not the above paragraph is a destruction of what childhood should be in my view, it's that we're even complaining about things like this at all when some cultures actually believe that when a girl gets her first period which can be anywhere between the ages of 10 and 15, although the average is 12, that a girl has become a woman and it's time to have her married and having her own family. 

The adverts are all over the underground, and let's face it, there is barely more of an end to childhood than having your own child. This has ended up being a bit of a rant-gent (ranting tangent) from the original BBC parenting advice LOL but the point I'm making is Okay BBC, maybe we're pressuring kids to grow up too quickly and maybe a return to the days of playing hula hoop in the yard and then coming in for a bag of Hula Hoops when you've got home from school would be nice, but at least our 12 year olds aren't starting to raise their own families.

Childhood: When is it meant to end?