You've got to love the Daily Mail. Well...actually, no you don't, but I must admit to its online content being something of a guilty pleasure over a coffee every now and again. A quick scan today consisted of an article by a woman writing about how she believes women choose friends who are "just like THEM"; going on to illustrate how she became best friends with somebody who had "Fired Earth kitchen tiles and wore the very same Karen Millen cardigan I had also bought". Thank God those two kindred spirits found each-other!
But the article I wanted to talk about; the one that made me think, was the one posted about Kate Middleton reportedly having "tutorials with experts in government and the media...to prepare for a lifetime of royal duties". The article went on to describe how, if Princess Diana had had access to such lessons, things may not have turned out quite so tragically for her. Well, of course! But it was the 'reader comments' underneath the story that made an impression...most of them seethed with so much rage you'd be forgiven for thinking that instead of being typed, the words had been furiously spat out, covered in sticky flecks of congealed froth, straight onto the screen. "Who does this woman think she is?" protested one of the more balanced commentors. "She should try living on a council estate for a few weeks and see what it's like to be ME!" This seemed a very popular comment, going by the shower of 'green arrows' next to it (for the uninitiated, underneath each 'reader comment' is a red arrow pointing downwards, or a green arrow pointing upwards, which you use to 'rate' the comment. I'm ashamed to say I have - very very VERY occasionally - actually clicked on these arrows in the past Oh, the shame!).
People always seem to want everybody else to know what it's like to be THEM. That is the basis of all the moaning old people do; my Nan for example, has been quite bitterly vocal about how soldiers get counselling when they return from war. This is because my Grandad, who flew fighter planes during World War Two, had no such benefit. "They should just come back home and get on with their lives...like we all had to".
Parents do it as well. "You're really missing out, not having kids!" was said to me just last week by one such obviously harassed person. But I'm never convinced by that argument; in fact from all the evidence I've gathered over the years I'm more and more convinced that parenthood is so hard and ultimately thankless that people who do it just want those who have opted out to know exactly how hard and thankless it really is.
As unique as we all like to think we are, I think it helps to believe other people know what it's like to go through the things we have, even if it's largely pointless actually telling them about it. Such as the conversation I had with my little niece yesterday, who told me she was going to a beauty salon to get a luxury mani-pedi and a massage before her holiday. She's 13. "You don't know you're born!" I said in an only half-joking response, before regaling her with the fact that when I was her age such things were pretty much unheard of even for adults, unless you were super-rich which we absolutely were not, and how did she think she might do without all those expensive things in her bedroom...I would have killed for a TV in my room, and as for a phone...when I was growing up we didn't even have a landline in the house!
I drew for breath...only to find I'd been left on my own in the room. But still - I'd learned something, or at least observed it, and considering the seeds had been sown by the Daily Mail, I considered that rather impressive, really.
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