Potty training is political. Only in the Guardian.
Potty training is a parent’s job, according to Amanda Spielman, the head of Ofsted, interviewed earlier this week.
To which any reasonable adult would say “yes? so what?” I mean it is a parental responsibility is it not? Well, according to Zoe Wiliams, apparently it isn’t.
Demonising parents for not getting kids out of nappies is part of a wider class agenda at the heart of the austerity programme
What follows is wibble worthy of Pseud’s Corner. We aren’t supposed to blame parents who cannot get their children toilet trained by the time they are four years old because of austerity (FFS! we do not have austerity) – it’s all to do with poverty, hunger and anything except parental responsibility. My parents were dirt poor when I was an infant, but they would have been mortified at their failure if we had not been toilet trained by the time we went to school, because they took their parental responsibilities seriously. Parental responsibility has absolutely nothing to do with how poor you are and it has nothing to do with the government – whichever flavour is in power. It is to do with the parents and no one else.
But blaming the parents is a political act, about as political as it gets.
No. Making these kind of fuckwitted excuses is political – but this is the Guardian where everything is political and fuckwittery is what they do on a daily basis.
Well apart from disagreeing that we do not have austerity…(think disabled people being told they are fit for work and losing benefits only to turn up dead a few weeks later) everything else is spot on. Maybe one way these idiots that come up with this crap can actually learn is to point them in the direction of the past. Are there any statistics available or even a reasonable amount of anecdote from times past like say, during World war 1/2 about the number of children that were not potty trained by age four? Personally I wouldn’t be able to show my face in public if my kids had not been able to do this by that age.
Actually on reflection there probably aren’t any stats as those doing such research would have found the idea of kids not being potty trained by that age absolutely risible and not worth studying…
That’s nothing to do with austerity. It is bureaucratic incompetence and will occur regardless of the flavour of government or however much money is thrown at them
Bureaucratic incompetence or something more sinister? Given some of the more egregious decisions, I have a horrible feeling that there are assessors out there willing to create high-profile martyrs by misapplying the criteria in order to further their political aims.
Meanwhile, there’s a superbly pithy comment on the Guardian article:
‘But all three parties have connived at the destruction of the nuclear family by whoring out both parents to work while their offspring are left to the tender mercies of mainly indifferent (underpaid) strangers.’
I find that hard to believe.
Not the fact that they’d do it, but that they could actually come up with such a cunning plan!
Yep.
Compare securing money – from bank vs state
Banks – hours vs DHSS/DSS/DWP – weeks: a good example of state incompetence.
Austerity. Austerity.
Do these poor parents not realise that getting the wee yin out of nappies will save them money?
Or maybe they do not know that potties are not a single use item. Once emptied, rinsed, given a quick dash of disinfectant they can be used again. And again. By multiple users too.
+1
This is not a surprise, and is par for the course for the left: relieve parents of all their responsibility, pat them on the head saying; “There, there, it’s not your fault: nothing’s your fault – we’ll do it for you” and you have the perfect reason for big all-controlling government. There’s also what they see as the added advantage of a new generation whose first unquestioning loyalty is to the ‘nurturing state’. It is their agenda.
+ 1
Just when you think the Grauniad simply cannot become even more stupid they come back with another record-breaking nonsense editorial.
The way they twist things is something a Blackpool rock-maker would love to be able to do.
It makes me wonder how they manage to put up a decent crossword every day!
When I was a baby, there were no disposable nappies and my mother who worked full-time, did not have a washing machine because they were expensive. Getting infants out of nappies was as much practical as anything else, less work for Mum – and not particularly pleasant work.
Being potty trained, like being weaned, walking and talking was seen as an encouraging sign of development.
I think that it may be impossible for the guardianistas to admit that there are people that are at the bottom of the heap who have no one to blame but themselves. This has to be the fault of the rich or the Tories or something, otherwise their entire worldview disintegrates.
Absolute Bill Shut. Nappies/Pantnappies cost parents much, much more than a few sheets of toilet roll.
It’s a revealed preference to be lazy and abrogate responsibility even though doing so costs money and makes one poorer.
The Left wrong as usual.
An observation: on same “revealed preference” my mother partly blames cheap disposable nappies; if mummy still had to launder nappies she’d potty train them asap as with puppies.
To be fair, there were a lot of comments under that article essentially pointing out what a fucking stupid article that was… and the CiF moderators left them in…
@John
Fair? A “high-brow, respectable” newspaper should not be publishing utter rubbish like this.
Mirror, Record red tops are where it should be if they deign to stoop so low.