h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I broke my 'No Church' policy yesterday and attened t'Boy's school church carol service - reception were doing a procession and he was so upset that I missed his bit in the harvest festival service I thought I ought to go to this.

I am very glad I did, for several reasons. 1) he saw me and his smile was so big the top of his head nearly fell off; 2) they were really cute and did really well with their singing; 3) it was good to hear the things the other years did; then we get to the disturbing part...

4) the last verse of the Year 6 christmas rap was specifically targetted at undermining those of us who are happy to tell the christmas story, pointing out that it is a story so can be enjoyed without believing it was true. They have upped their game to counter that message - this is good to know, but I reckon the interesting book I have got him on Norse mythology should help with the 'fun stories' aspect. The reason they gave was that this wasn't in any old fairy story book, but in the bible. That should be pretty easy to counter, but good to know what they are up to.

5) the Sermon. Good grief. The vicar got the kids to put their hands up for which they wanted as he read through a list of the top five xmas presents this year, getting them all hyped up and excited. He showed them a big wrapped present and asked for a volunteer to open it, choosing one of the reception kids. When she got it open there was nothing inside and he riffed on the theme of that is what christmas is like if you don't believe in the truth of the christmas story. So glad it wasn't t'boy doing the unwrapping, he'd have been really upset.

Oh dear lord... as if "Santa doesn't give presents to naughty children" wasn't bad enough now there's cod-philosophy about hollow experiences being preached at 5-year-olds?

Three times I've started this post, two I stopped myself, but here goes...

One year, on the big school year end before summer break, children, parents and teachers gathered in the big hall as usual. Songs were sung, speeches held.

And the headmaster lady held the longest speech about her childhood summers. About when her mother took her and her siblings to their country cottage for ten weeks, while Father stayed in town working. How lovely it was to swim and play and have mother's full attention, home made food, cinnamon rolls and picnics.

It felt so cynical, because very very few have a summer cottage they own. And if you have a stay home mum, you are very likely to have a poor family, and mum has no job. What she spoke of hasn't been real since the sixties, if even then. As a parent, I felt inadequate, even if I know I'm not, and the kids, I just hope they took it as a fairy tale and not something that can be expected. It hurt.

Milla

Why do some people have to be cruel to children? It's so unnecessary...

The vicar at T'boys school was so crazy!

Wow. Just wow.

As a godless-ish heathen-ish I've been looking at local schools to try and find a suitable one I wouldn't feel bad about sending my children to. Today I found an independent school within a 30-40 minute drive of here that looks promising.

The crazy thing is that I feel the need to do this WHEN I DON'T HAVE CHILDREN YET! Silly UK, what are you like?

Every other local / state school has daily worship of some kind, harvest festivals (Oh COME ON - pagan festivals!) christmas dos and so on. As DT refuses to move elsewhere 'for the children' I suspect there will be extremes gone to..

Norse mythology is cool - as is Greek - when you're a kid especially. I got these really nicely illustrated books out of the library when I was a kid but have no idea who they were by.

Ugh. That sermon is just *cruel*.

TRiG.