WHAT'S IN A NAME?

What a strange world we live in at times. Yes, that’s a generalisation but it can be bloody accurate and no more so than when dealing with punters inhabiting the departure lounge a.k.a. we baby boomers.

A couple of weeks ago Grandparents’ Day was celebrated in New South Wales. The state government produced a precis for the event stating that it ‘…is about celebrating the role of grandparents and older people in our lives.’ Further, ‘Grandparents, grand friends, kin, and those who take on the role of a grandparent in their family or community are recognised for their contribution.’ Well-intentioned, targeted, and affirming are all descriptors of this summary……… or so you would think. Apparently not.

A state primary school in south-western Sydney supported the oldster focus by organising a Grand Friends’ Day where the punters could visit the school, see a few student presentations and down a complimentary cup of Joe. But someone was pissed off that ‘Grandparents’ had been altered to ‘Grand friends’ on the packaging and publicity. How dare they!

The shock jocks at 2GB were alerted and that bastion of down-home sense and probity, Mark Latham, mounted his steed. All the buzz words/ phrases were mobilised- woke insanity, PC bullshit, nanna/ poppy ‘disrespect’ and inclusion ‘gone crazy’. The white knight even asserted that ‘Now…..grandparents are the victims of cancel culture.’

Of course, all this reactionary drivel missed its mark. The Beelzebub-controlled rogue school had established links with a local old people’s home some years ago and a pen pal program existed between the school’s students and the residents of the sunset village. By all accounts, it’s a great success with positive results for both the kiddies and the seniors. The school wanted to include the latter in the festivities, have them physically visit the school and feel a part of all that was going on. Hence the banner change.

Some of the comments I viewed in the socials were truly embarrassing. ‘The school’s staff should be sacked’, ‘I’ve earnt my right to be called a grandparent’, ‘Ridiculous’, ‘This crap has to end. They keep screwing with kids (sic) emotions’ etc etc.

Mark Latham must have a very short memory. His 2005 The Latham Diaries was a smorgasbord of vitriol and delusion, but it did have one saving feature. Latham’s twenty-page introduction to the diaries bemoaned the decline of social capital (his term, not mine) in our cities, suburbs, and regional hubs. In many ways, his analysis was right….and still is. But don’t let that get around.

So here we have a local public school directly increasing the social capital of its surrounding area yet Latham, the jocks and disgruntled punters want it pilloried.

I started this spray with a question and I’ll finish it with an even more obvious one: Who would be a principal or teacher trying to add value and meaning to their immediate community? After this shitshow, the search might take longer than anyone could ever imagine.