This week, I started writing a blog questioning my alleged feminism. I thought it was pretty hilarious because I am, quite frankly, the funniest person I know. (Jokes, third funniest after Daisy May Cooper and my Nan). However, given the atrocities in America right now, it would be completely tone deaf for me – a white British woman – to talk about discrimination of any sort. I’m lucky. I am so bloody lucky. The world is a truly disgusting place and every single person has a role to play in actively changing things.
To provide light relief, I want to write about how Norrie from Hey Duggee looks like a cock and balls or summer tit pit sweat or how my version of home schooling is basically dog training (Here boy, count to 20… good boy, have a biscuit… fetch). But none of it seems right.
As years go, 2020 is pretty shitty. I thought 2016 was a bit ropey, with the deaths of almost every famous person I admired (Bye-bye, Bowie. I will love you always), Brexit, and Trump getting voted in. But 2020 takes the piss. Disease and death everywhere. Violence and discrimination.
In many ways, I’ve lived a sheltered life in my white, relatively middle class, suburb of Liverpool. My sphere of experience is remarkably small. I don’t want to patronise anyone with any kind of indignant outrage. I am guilty of unconscious bias and I am totally ashamed of that. That is something I need to challenge in myself and prevent in my children.
So in the year of global devastation, when we have all been trapped indoors and carers have become teachers, maybe the best lesson we can teach our kids is love. The rainbows in windows and the gratitude for the NHS is a great starting point. This sense of community should be extended to every single person, regardless of the colour of their skin, their religion, their nationality, their sexuality and their gender.
There is a great children’s book series called Little People, Big Dreams. It is a must for all kids. The books chronicle the lives of people, from all walks of life, who have made a difference. Thanks to my friend Rach, who started our collection with a pair of Daves (Attenborough and Bowie), we have now read all about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Stephen Hawking and Muhammad Ali. (We defo need to up the female quota. I’m not The Jeminist for nothing)
So sod long division, don’t worry about onomatopoeia, balls to photosynthesis. Invest in the books, if you can, talk about the news, talk about how to right the wrongs. At the risk of sounding like a right-on, preachy hippy, show your kids what love and respect mean. It’s the only lesson that counts, right?
The Jeminist 