Spring
Today is officially the first day of spring according to the Met Office. I always think of it more as the 21st March on the Equinox, but it is good to see some sunshine and flowers bursting out all over the place. There is blossom on many of the trees now as well. Animals and birds seem to be doing what comes naturally and having a lot of fun. Courting squirrels use up a lot of energy rushing around each other. Nature has some amazing mating rituals - many much more sophisticated than the chat up lines I have heard over the years - perhaps the male of our species could learn something from it all! A male elephant will join the group around the female that they are interested in and spend a long time getting to know them all and protecting them. If the female likes him he is accepted and will join the group until the mating which will be celebrated by all of them. A few similarities to our courting rituals - apart from the public mating - could be a bit of a turn off for most of us.
After having a discussion last night, with friends who were very active in the women’s movement of the 70’s, the mating rituals and habits of other species do seem more elegant than our own sometimes. We were debating where the movement was now, what had it achieved over the years and the conclusions were very negative.
Concentrating mainly on life in England; We have more equal rights in some areas now. Women are able to work where they wish, pay is most often equal for the same job and we feel that we ought to be able to ‘have it all’, a career, a family, a loving relationship and be the perfect woman. At what cost to ourselves? Most often, having it all means doing it all, with not much support from others in our various life relationships. the result is often dissatifaction with areas of our life and feeling that we have failed if it is not all perfect.
I think we are being to hard on ourselves, trying to live up to ideals produced by the media and big business of how we should live our lives and losing sight of the things that could be more important and fulfilling to us. Many would say that working to keeping a roof over your head is the reason that their lives are so difficult, and I agree that looking after your family is the big priority. It is the other pressures that we could ease up on, To be slim, to buy the latest gadgets, to conform to all those pictures and stories thrown at us by the media every day. What are the values we are teaching our children?
I do not have the answers. I wish I could wave a magic wand and give our children self-esteem and confidence, let them explore life through art and creativity of every sort and learn that kindness gets you further than aggression and makes your own life better. Maybe my generation is to blame for the ideas we gave the parents of the children around around today. How do we turn it around for the better?