Middle Class Concerns

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 26 February 2008 06:38:11

I am coming to the conclusion that sometimes, just sometimes I would like to live in a different world where the majority of my friends weren't middle class and didn't work in the public sector or give up their spare time to work with young people.

I'd like to live in the kind of world where people could moan about what was going on in their lives and where you could listen to people going on about what was going on in their lives without terms like "duty of care", "boundaries" or "signposting" ringing loudly in the back of the mind. I'd like to live in a world where everybody wasn't having to think about watching their own backs and the consequences on their careers of one bad decision or one blind eye turned in the name of common sense.

I'd like to live in a world where a cup of tea and a good chat could solve the world's ills and where you could say what you thought of "the system" without having to bear in mind that the person you were speaking to had x, y or z role in that system.

I'd like to live in the sort of world where it wasn't easier to avoid people because the boundaries between friendship and professional role are always going to be blurred. Where people could sit you down with a glass of wine and ask you what was going on and you could be totally honest without worrying about the consequences of your words.

I'd like to live in a world where society recognised that parents suffer from violence from children and men suffer from violence from women and where they had somewhere to turn when scared. I'd like to live in a world where people weren't in constant conflict between fulfilling their roles as professionals and fulfilling their roles as parents. I'd like to live in a world where 9-5 meant 9-5 and you just went to work, did your job and came home again. I'd like to live in a world without the taboos and silences.

I'd like to live in a different world (I think).