As a fresh contingent of British kids gears up for university, who should we be most concerned for – them or their parents? I ask because sending a child off to university seems to have morphed from an exciting rite of passage (for the child) into some dark, angst-ridden melodrama starring the parents. How do they feel about it? Are their hearts broken? Will they cope?
This is usually accompanied by emotional accounts of parents staring forlornly into their child’s empty bedroom, perhaps weeping on to a favourite toy from childhood, or bravely talking about taking up new challenges to “fill the void”. What emerges is a sense almost of competitive empty nest syndrome. “I’m sad about my child leaving for university.” “I’m even sadder.” “I’m practically suicidal.” And on it goes. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the most bereft of us all?
It’s not all parents and in any case people are entitled to be emotional about their children leaving home. It’s a huge deal. But whose huge deal? Parents should be careful that this doesn’t turn into an unseemly hijacking of a moment that by rights belongs to the child. You hear about parents sobbing as they drop kids off – not exactly a positive start to the university experience. Other parents rather overdo helping children “settle in”, practically getting in professional decorators for their dorm-rooms, embarking on huge food shops (guilty, I did this), taking them out for lunch, then dinner… How to put this politely – parents, eff off. The time when new students arrive is hugely important – for them to mingle with their peers, not sit in Wagamama with you.
A university professor has commented on “needy” British students demanding feedback and pleading “special circumstances”, much more than the Mexican students he’s also taught. Some of this might relate to the exorbitant cost of university these days, but perhaps “needy” student culture extends to hyper-needy parents too, with Mum and Dad emerging as the true, perma-melting snowflakes.
For some years now, there’s been a strange generational blurring, where kids can’t even go to rock festivals without their parents shouting “cooee!” from the next yurt. It’s usually nice, parents being friends with their kids, but, occasionally, things whiff more than a little of parental narcissism, where everything that happens to their child becomes more about them, and how they’re feeling about it.
Parents must resist inserting themselves into the central narrative of their child’s every experience – accept that parental marginalisation, even outright irrelevance, at the university stage is not only inevitable, but it’s healthy and crucial for the child’s independence. The good news is that, if your child is going off to university, or to do anything else positive, you did it, you launched them, miraculously everything is going to plan. Time to send up a quiet hallelujah to the parenting gods and toast yourselves with a celebratory glass of wine.
And if you miss them, don’t fret – they’ll soon be ringing home for money.
Cadbury’s choc won’t sweeten the bitter taste of racism
Cadbury has produced the first “woke’ chocolate bar. The Unity Bar features different colours of chocolate – from dark to blended to milk to white. It was released on India’s independence day, with the tagline: “Because sweet things happen when we unite.”
I’ve yet to taste the Unity Bar, but here’s hoping that earnest misplaced liberalism is as delicious as it sounds. There have already been witty Martin Luther King parodies on Twitter: “I have a dream that my children will be judged not by the colour of their chocolate, but by the content of their creamy filling.”
Clearly, Cadbury meant no offence – quite the opposite – but it’s still a little disturbing to see skin colours represented across the choccy spectrum. Is the blended one supposed to be mixed race? Did they actually go there – and with chocolate? Indeed, so many questions… Is Cadbury aware of the ongoing segregation problems in parts of India or of the oppression in Kashmir? Does Cadbury truly believe that confectionary activism is the future for racial harmony? Did no one in-house balk at the production stage of the wrapper, which appears to comprise illustrations of light and dark-skinned Indians?
An important lesson has been learned: while, for some, chocolate is the answer to myriad woes, it probably isn’t going to solve racism.
Polanski’s ‘genius’ in no way absolves his vile crime
Roman Polanski is at it again. In press notes for his new film, An Officer and a Spy, when it was shown at the Venice film festival, Polanski, 86, appeared to agree with the interviewer, the philosopher Pascal Bruckner, that he was nothing less than a victim of “neo-feminist McCarthyism” – dismissing allegations of underage sexual abuse made against by him by several women.
“Most of the people who harass me do not know me and know nothing of the case,” said Polanski of his 1977 conviction for unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. I’d say it was common knowledge that he drugged and sodomised 13-year-old Samantha Gailey in a whirlpool bath at Jack Nicholson’s house. And that he scarpered from the US to avoid serving his rightful jail time. It’s also well known how feted he has since been, including that rapturous applause when he won the best director Oscar for 2002’s The Pianist (Polanski has since been expelled from the Motion Picture Academy).
As much as anyone could get away with a serious sexual crime, Polanski has. Yet still he seems to view himself as a victim of a global hounding by a society that simply doesn’t understand the creative soul. In truth, he is a convicted child rapist who evaded full justice, and that’s why he can’t return to the US.
It ill behoves either him or Bruckner to try to frame this as evidence of a vindictive philistine world. It remains a stain on those who still work with him, the standard, rather grotty argument being that a genius film director is different to a regular child rapist. With all that’s passed in recent years, it says it all that he doesn’t even bother to fake penitence. It’s still all about him and how maligned he’s been. His genius seems to be one thing, his self-awareness quite another.
• Barbara Ellen is an Observer columnist
