Changing Times Amanna Athraithe

Changing Times

My parents lived in London during the second world war. They were married there in 1939 and came back to Kerry to settle down after the war. I was the youngest of their 3 children and during my youth I heard lot of talk about bombs in London, air raid shelters and rationing of food. It was a different world then. People were full of war stories and tragedies. There was a lot of uncertainty in the world with everyone hoping that peace would endure.

There was a lot of unease too with people who had emigrated to England and joined the British Army. It was reminiscent of the Irish men [mainly] who responded to that great Listowel man Lord Kitchener in World War 1. The Catholic clergy also preached from the altar at the time that people should become soldiers to support Catholic countries against being downtrodden by the Germans and to join the British Army. They were decried and, in some cases, ostracised because they did not stay at home and support the Easter Rising of 1916.

My own uncle Pattie was one of these who joined the British Army in 1939. He was seriously injured during D-Day on the Normandy beaches and never felt welcome or at ease when he returned to Ireland on holiday. There was a certain hostility shown towards him in some quarters in North Kerry. His return trips became less frequent, until he finally stopped coming. Meanwhile he started up a furniture shop and reared his family in Manchester.

In Tralee at that time, we did not have a great variety of shops. There was a limited choice in food, clothing, games, pastimes. Employment was scarce and forced emigration to England and America was common. In my youth we often asked where some neighbour was gone and we were told that they had taken the boat, a euphemism for emigrating to England. Then many families got the parcel of clothes from some family member who had emigrated to America. The dollars and pounds were sent separately at Christmas and during the year to assist financially with festive and special family events. Very often the money was saved as assisted passage money to help another family member emigrate.

Despite this uncertainty, in comparison to today’s children, we had more freedom to play in lots of open play spaces. We were all on an equal journey together and reminded by our parents about the importance of playing together and supporting each other. We played football, hopscotch and everyone skipped and went fishing in the local river and sea. At home we read books, listened to stories, played cards, ludo, snakes and ladders and draughts, collected and swopped stamps which we enjoyed doing. We were great for sharing our limited resources and caring for each other.

It was through our play that we made sense of the world, made our own rules as we went along. We played out our fantasies with cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians while stereotypically the girls played house and dressed up their dolls.

In schoolbooks it was always Daidí sa gháirdín agus Mamaí sa chistin. Transgender was never heard of. We played out lots of scenarios on our young voyage of discovery through play scenarios with minimum parental supervision. We went out in the morning and came back for lunch. We were safe outside and everyone looked out for everyone else. Every house had an open door, and every child was raised by the village.

I remembered all this action from my youth when I became principal of a large urban primary school later in life. I spoke at many open nights for new parents over the years and always stressed the importance of the social aspect of play, of mixing with and supporting each other, about the escapism and freedom of expression for each child.

From very early on in life children started learning about turn taking, following simple group rules and how to play with friends. It was simple stuff and enjoyed by all.

They had to quickly learn how to socialise, to share with others, mix with other children and groups and tidy up after themselves. Very quickly their personalities, strengths and weaknesses showed up as they and the group were discovering themselves and each other. It has always amazed me how quickly children made friends, zoned into hobbies and skills of sorting, constructing Lego, playing with train sets, Jig saws, building blocks, colouring in colour books and many more child-based activities. They were happy and relaxed once they blended into the group and were accepted.

The young child and inner child within us all can still go down on the floor at home and do construction with building blocks or enjoy all the modern Lego sets designed for older children and adults. We can all exercise our childish imagination and creativity within us and produce wonderful work. It is also very relaxing and rewarding,

Life and play have changed immensely since my youth. There is much less free play nowadays.  There is constant worry about safety. Most children are in organised highly supervised play groups after school. Play dates are arranged for houses. Birthday parties and events are now a minor industry in child friendly play\ party zones.

Play time in educational establishments has changed too thanks to litigation threats. A lot of schools have banned running in school playgrounds because of safety issues. There is a consequent loss of child-based children’s games. A lot of summer play now involves costly organised activity camps dealing with a multiplicity of games, sport, art, music. They are expensive but are now part of summer in Ireland.

Today, children’s lives are dominated by smartphones, I pad, laptops, social media and video games. It is just impossible for parents to lay down usage rules for these because of the superfluity of devices available to children nowadays and their total exposure to them at home, at play and at school

I have finished reading ‘The Anxious Generation “by Jonathan Haidt. It is compulsive reading.

In it he discusses all the challenges of Generation Z [born between 1997 and 2012[ as compared to my generation raised in the 1950s and 60s. We had no radios, phones or television and many places in rural Ireland were just being connected in the rural electrification scheme. We never heard of phones not to mind iPhones.Climate change was never factored into our lives. Cyber bullying wasn’t mentioned. No one worried too much about self-image. We played, and we mucked up. We had our bath every Saturday night to be ready for Sunday mass which was a major social and community event. Life was simpler then without the deluge of social media and communication systems which we have today.

Today’s children face huge pressure from their peers and social media about their self-image. It is causing a lot of distress and mental anguish to a high proportion of young people. There is a tidal wave of anxiety out there among our young adults of today.

In my generation mental health was not discussed openly and family members who were mentally ill were often hidden away or locked out of sight within the high walls of the mental asylums around the country. Today the high walls are gone, and the barriers are broken down. There is a huge increase in classes for children with special needs and regular clinics and medication for treating depression and other mental health issues are more freely available. Mental health issues are more openly discussed in public and in the media which is good to witness.

The stresses of life have increased, however. There are now more wars and natural disasters world-wide than ever with huge increases in asylum seekers and refugees because of such global events.

At home people no longer have the safe job for life. Instead. there is the constant threat of restructuring, close downs and redundancies from the advancement of AI and the vagaries of some of its billionaire promoters whose sole purpose in life is lining their own pockets and planning trips to the moon and Mars with no concern for the poverty-stricken parts of the world.

In Ireland house prices have skyrocketed in recent years making it very difficult for young couples to save up a deposit and buy a house of their own.

We now seem to have more problems with carbon emissions, provision of public health care, public transport, public housing and education facilities.

Were we better off in post-World War 2 Ireland? I don’t know but the times are a changing fast and we just must worry a bit about the future of planet earth and future generations of people who will inhabit it.

When we were in school our teachers taught us to fend for ourselves and to be independent. In one class the following was posted on the wall “Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day, teach a person to fish and you feed them for a lifetime” I think we will need lots of fish and ingenuity to survive the present disorderr in the world

Mick O Callaghan