Earlier this year my daughter’s primary school, in a laudable quest for eco-credentials, banned all plastics. No bags. No bottles. No cling film. No juice cartons. No plastic packaging of any kind. That included all birthday treats, too. The cakes or sliced-up tray bakes must now be home-baked and arrive in a reusable box.
Of course, no one complained about this publicly. What are we, monsters?No, idiots, for putting up with this control freakery....
But once again it’s the lives of mothers (mostly) that get more complicated, our to-do lists subtly longer, our mental load gaining another item (or three).Then you should stop meekly acquiescing, shouldn't you?
What happened to 'I am woman, hear me roar (at the Green fruitcakes and their endless virtue signalling)!'..?
It won’t take much longer to make an oaty bar, but who buys the ingredients? Who will clean up afterwards? Yes, I can bake cupcakes, but, you know, it’s another thing to do after a long day at work and not all women like to bake.You have noticed that every supermarket - and even Greggs! - sels the things ready-baked, haven't you?
Once you start looking, you notice that much of the urgent planet-saving work is falling to women.Waaah! Waah! That's because you're too stupid to balk at doing it!
Eradicating plastic from a school is a commendable aim. But perhaps if we put just as much effort into levelling the domestic playing field, it wouldn’t feel like such a chore. Dads want to save the planet, too — let’s use the eco-crusade to speed up the rate at which they step up at home.Or...maybe you could both band together and tell the school where to get off, instead?
"Once you start looking, you notice that much of the urgent planet-saving work is falling to women."
ReplyDeleteOnce you start looking, you notice that much of the hoopla about how urgent it is to save the planet is coming from women - only fair that those women should be shouldering their fair share of the burden.
Regarding the behaviour of the school, it seems to me that they think that donning the planet saving hat gives them carte blanche to behave like totally inconsiderate jerks. Any pushback against them, no matter how reasonable, makes you an evil planet wrecking demon. I would suggest that home baking is less efficient at using resources than mass production of baked goods.
ReplyDeleteStrange how the planet savers spend their time preaching to the converted in UK which is already doing more than most other nations to save the planet. They could do so much more good in China or India, such a shame that their antics wouldn't be tolerated there.
ReplyDeleteI think I preferred the bad old unenlightened Before Times when pretty much everything did what it said on the tin: when teachers taught, police policed, firemen fought fires, etc.
ReplyDelete@Trevor
ReplyDeleteMe too; I assume you're of a similar vintage to me, as I seem to remember these 'Before Times' started their decline around 1968-1970.
@Ted
ReplyDeleteI was a blissfully ignorant primary pupil then. My piss began to boil during my late teenage years and reached bladder-scorching levels in the early 80s with the advent of the Loony Left councils, but in retrospect the seeds had been sown many years before.
"Once you start looking, you notice that much of the hoopla about how urgent it is to save the planet is coming from women..."
ReplyDeleteThat's true, actually!
"Any pushback against them, no matter how reasonable, makes you an evil planet wrecking demon."
Consider me Beelzebub!
"...I seem to remember these 'Before Times' started their decline around 1968-1970."
Indeed, but I suspect the seeds were sown about 10 years earlier.