Categories: uncategorized
Date: 21 February 2006 13:45:22
An identity crisis moment. What do you do when you find yourself agreeing with and even liking people who you think are ideologically opposed to everything you stand for?
I started reading a book by Anne Atkins, evangelical tub-thumper and agony aunt for the Daily Telegraph. If you've heard of her, it's probably in connection with her reported homophobic or anti-divorce comments. Everything I'd previously seen of her in the media made me think that she just used people's situations and suffering to launch her own ideological agenda.
I had to admit a grain of respect though because at least she was eloquent in what she said. So I picked up her book, ‘Child Rearing for Fun.' And I not only find myself enjoying it immensely, but thinking how nice it was to just have someone who says it like it is and doesn't worry about being too PC. She just delivers time honoured truths in a refreshingly natural way. See my problem? I'm sounding like one of those people who phones in to the Jeremy Vine show to say that society's going to the dogs because children don't get thrashed enough.
But it's a good book. It's compassionate, realistic, funny and humane. But who am I - the left-leaning liberal I always was, or is a hitherto hidden conservative shedding his woolly cloak?
Or am I just a bit more open minded than I used to be?