I was passing through Connolly Station when I heard the ticket master saying in a broad Dublin accent: “Enjoy your trip, love.” The girl he was addressing spun around and replied tartly: “ I am not your love!” He mumbled out some apology. I said to him: “She has little on her mind that one!” He shrugged his shoulders saying: ''That’s the way it is these days.''
It may be a sign of age but the whole spectrum of political correctness is starting to seriously annoy me. What’s wrong with calling someone “love”? I can think of a whole series of adjectives that I would find insulting but ‘love’ isn’t one of them.
As a fan of seventies sitcoms like Dad’s Army and Are You Being Served, I enjoy a good giggle at double entendre. It’s harmless and against a raft of new age comedians these old comedic shows can make me laugh without using an expletive or (Mrs Slocombe’s cat aside) referencing intimate body parts.
Our recent history shows that there’s a lot of misplaced nostalgic clap-trap about the good old days as there were a lot of things going on in the shadows of Irish society that could only be described as evil. So let's not lament those aspects of an era that created victims out of children and eulogised clergy, religious and others.
But there are other aspects of bygone days that are worth savouring - like our sense of community, personal responsibility and public accountability. Remember the time when politicians actually resigned for misdemeanours - now they can’t be dragged from public office for corruption, moral ineptitude or incompetence.
I grew up in an age where children were encouraged to stay out of adult conversations. ( Remember phrases like “little piggies have big ears!”) A time when as a youngster you offered a seat to an older person and held doors open for women. Meals were taken at the table - not in front of the TV. Doing chores formed part of growing up, teaching us about responsibility and the principle that respect is earned.
The jobs started out small like setting the table but grew with your age and size to mowing the lawn, tending family graves and washing the windows. My brother, the youngest in our family, is still doing the family garden in his forties. I didn’t enjoy chores like cleaning out the fireplace or bringing in the slack from a freezing coal shed but I did them - my protests noted then ignored. Running messages was done not just for the family but at the behest of any neighbour too. Nowadays you would be lucky to know the name of a neighbour three doors away, let alone run to the shop for them.
Today it's so different. Children seem to adopt a sense of entitlement very early on. Birthdays were simple in my day. Usually joined by cousins, it consisted of home baked Victoria sponge covered in rainbow icing with your name spelt in spider-like scrawl, butterfly buns ( a precursor to cupcakes ) and if lucky a few balloons. Nowadays whole play spaces are rented out, bouncy castles and slides and ice cream vans hired. Full blown catering is expected. If the child is at school half the class is invited. Parents get humpy when their child is excluded.
What has gone wrong with us?
And I say ‘us’ because it is my generation and younger that are indulging this kind of reckless financial largesse. Children’s parties now cost parents hundreds of pounds. Back in the day it wasn’t that our parents simply couldn’t afford such indulgence over a seventh birthday, they couldn’t and wouldn’t justify it, even if they had the money. Thrift meant something. Many younger parents still can't afford it but carry on regardless, borrowing to pay for parties for children young enough to be happy with a Peppa Pig DVD, a bag of Haribo Starmix and a trip to the park.
Political correctness appears to demand that we shorten childhood by introducing topics particularly relating sex and sexuality too early. It’s nonsense. Of course we want children to be loved for who they are and who their friends are too but it should be an evolving journey. Discovering and making mistakes is part of that. A child’s life should not treated as a reality TV documentary.
Thinking back to the train station, I have decided to become a champion of the gloriously politically incorrect. Life’s too short to worried if some calls you son, love, lad, pet or chicken.
