Kids these days

Last week I was joking with a colleague about the futility of consulting with youth (much to the horror of other colleagues). I told him that all they ever say is “There’s nothing to do, nowhere to go.” We had a good snicker over that.

The colleague in favor of consulting with the yoof-of-today hadn’t heard my earlier summation and proudly pronounced that some research she was involved in with youth rioters had gotten to the root of the problems. It wasn’t just the racism and the poverty – no, they also didn’t have enough youth facilities.

Well, no wonder the windows were smashed and the cars were burned.

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Tonight the Vol-in-Law and watched a programme called Why Kids Kill.

As it turns out, the reason is: there’s nothing to do and nowhere to go.

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Chores. That’s what these kids are lacking. If they’re bored, if they’ve no place to go, if they’re brimming with excess energy that has no place to spell itself out except into property damage and fighting it’s because they simply don’t have enough chores to do.

Ghoulish policy

Today, on Halloween, CABE (The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment)
issued a report on the uses of cemeteries as open spaces for all, not just the dead.

The report found that up to half of all open spaces in some local authority areas were made up of burial grounds – and that this is an untapped resource.

Sarah Gaventa, director of CABE Space, said “Cemeteries should not be considered solely as resting places for the dead, they should be designed with the living in mind too. The great Victorian cemeteries were designed and maintained as beautiful public parks for the enjoyment of all. Every local authority should have them in their green space strategy and ensure that their full value is realised.”

Our nearest green space is a graveyard, and we go walking there almost every day. I occasionally see other people using the cemetery for walking (even jogging once), but it’s very rare. The cemetery workers are used to seeing me now, and they certainly don’t make me feel unwelcome. But I reckon a lot of people wouldn’t feel entirely comfortable recreating in a place of eternal rest.

anthropogenic climatological conditions

This week the theNorth of England nearly washed away in a series of floods. A number of people died and the economic damage was huge and is still being counted up.

And, of course, there were endless speculations about whether these June floods were the result of man made global warming. Well, I don’t know about that, but I do yhink that humans have worsened the impact of the heavy rains. And unlike climate change, there are things that we could do to lessen the impact:

• stop building on flood plains – the flood plains are already overbuilt and we’re not helping the situation by building on them more. If you build your house upon the sand, don’t be surprised if it gets washed away.
• stop concreting over everything – every bit of impermeableness placed on the land results in higher levels of run-off during periods of excess precipitation. Basically, the water doesn’t have a chance to seep into the ground naturally – it all builds up and ends up in your living room. It takes a little bit more thought, but we can have more permeable paving or breaks in the paving. We could start by ensuring proper drainage in our own patio gardens. Water used to pool up in our garden until we removed the concrete between the pavers. It seems a small thing, but in terms of run-off every little bit really does help.
• maintain the drainage system. In much of urban England the natural drainage system of creeks and gullies has been replaced by concrete canals. Sure – this contains the water in times of normal precipitation – but chanelised flow means water moves faster – and faster water is more powerful water. The drainage system was built long ago and wasn’t designed to cope with the high levels of run-off from our concrete jungle and sewage and waste water from our developments. The canals are often poorly maintained now, too. Clogged with willows and weeds and shopping carts, the flow isn’t uniformly smooth. And that causes all kinds of problems on its own.

The government is still not taking these factors into account despite numerous warnings. People are more concerned about climate change where the UK government’s actions will have minimal effect at best (even if you believe in the anthropogenic climate change model). But sensible action in flood prevention can save lives and property now.

Family focused policy

Over at the Tennessee Guerilla Women, there’s a call for minimum paid maternity leave in the US. The crapness of maternity benefits in the US reminds me in many ways why I’m lucky to be having my baby here.

Everyone in the UK who’s been employed for a minimum length of time (and I think it’s basically so you weren’t pregnant when you were hired) gets 6 weeks paid leave at 90% of their salary plus and additional 34 weeks (it’s around that) at £108 a week (that’s about $200).

I get more because my employer offers more – and I’ve been working for them for quite some time. They aren’t the most generous and they aren’t the most stingy. They are a bit lazy – and haven’t come out with a new policy since the law changed – but they tell me that the proposed policy will be that I receive my statutory 90% for the first six weeks and then I’ll get the 34 weeks at half my salary plus that £108 a week. So essentially I’ll get 9 months with not bad pay considering I’ll not be doing any work for them. I can take an additional 3 months off with no pay, but they have to hold my job for me – and then I can take my remaining vacation days – which will accrue as normal while I’m off, and well, I get a fair bit of leave. Twenty-eight days in fact.

I can also take parental leave of a fairly generous amount of time up until my kid is 5. You don’t get paid though – so I haven’t looked into it. But basically you can use that time if your kid gets critically ill and your job is protected – in some ways it’s probably not much different from the Family Medical Leave Act.

They also have to at least consider my request for part time work after I go back to work – and any refusal must be in writing and needs to be based on a solid business case. My husband has the same rights. My employers are pretty flexible, so I’m sure I won’t have any trouble going to part time – or even working 5 days over 4 – which isn’t impossible on my short contractual working week. (Although as a professional I usually work quite a bit more than my mandated 35 hours a week – but if you’re an American reader – I’d bet good money I don’t work as much as you do.) I will be urging the Vol-in-Law to do the 5 days over 4 thing though since he’s an academic- this would mean he’d be guaranteed to have a lecture free/ meeting free day and that would be one less day we’d have to pay exhorbitant London day care costs.

Demographic decline

The UK has one of the less generous maternity laws in Europe. Places with declining population (or fear of a declining white population – like France) tend to have better maternity coverage. It’s not a chicken and egg thing – policy makers are trying to convince women like me (reasonably well paid, well-educated) to breed by paying us off. The policy doesn’t actually work. A big deterrent for us breeding was making sure that we could keep our house after the maternity leave was over and we had to pay for child care. Child care in the US – my sense is – is more accessible and cheaper than it is in the UK. We also had to clear the regressive taxation in the lower reaches of tax scale. For the aspirant middle classes, breeding young is very expensive indeed.

The US is one of the few advanced countries that are still breeding at at least replacement rate. And I suspect that there will be little pressure on policy makers to improve maternity pay and leave until there is. This despite the struggle emotional and financial of young mothers who have to go back to work all too soon.