Believe it or not, your parents can be your best friends

Mother, father, brothers and sisters — they can get on your nerves, just as you can get on theirs. Have you ever felt that you don't want your father to pick you up from a party because you think your friends might laugh at him? Does your mother's loud voice give you the shivers?

And what about you? Have you ever asked your parents personal questions in public? Or divulged a family secret? The members of a family can embarrass each other, even without meaning to. But if you're sensitive to each other's feelings you'll be able to avoid upsetting each other too badly.

Understanding a parent is a two-way process. If your parents are open and reasonable with you, you owe it to them to be open and reasonable with them. That means telling them where you're going; who you're going with and when you'll be back.

Believe it or not, your parents can be your best friends, and they'll be pleased that you're growing up. They'll enjoy being able to hold adult conversations with you, as well as going out with you in the evening.

However, as you grow up, relationships within your family will change. The adults will continue to love and look after you, but the relationship will become much more one between equals. Unfortunately, there are parents who don't seem able to relate to their children at all. You may find one parent easier to get on with than the other.

The difference between your philosophy and way of life and your parents' is often referred to as the generation gap. You may think your parents are really old. But try to think about them as ordinary people. They have good days and bad days, too.

Sometimes parents are under all sorts of pressures. They may worry about money, or if they're a single parent, they may be lonely. There may be a sick relative who needs to be taken care of. Or they may be worried about getting old themselves and what that will mean to you. Your parents also have to deal with a world that is changing faster than it did when they were young.

What's the best action to take if you want to do something that you think a parent will disapprove of? First, work out why you think they'll disapprove. Why should you be allowed to do whatever it is? If you can present a carefully worked out argument, you're doing well. Talk things over with friends or brothers and sisters. Has anyone been in a similar situation? If you treat your parents in an honest way, their response is bound to be more reasonable. If you antagonize them, your job will be much harder.

A parent often worries that his or her children are the only ones who want to do things they don't approve of. Help your parent to see that it isn't true. Introduce them to your friends and show them that you all want similar things. Talk to other people's parents and see how they react. Introduce your parents to other people's. It can be an eye-opener. In some ways, you will find life easier than those young people who are allowed to do anything - at least you know where the boundaries are. And remember, if you want to change things, think before you act. Never lie to or deceive your parents. They would far rather hear the truth from you than not know what is going on.

1. Have you noticed the change in the relationship with your parents? What was it like?

2. Have your parents managed to treat you like an adult? What have they done?

ON MARRIAGE

Read the text and find out what approaches to marriage are dealt with here. Write down some key-words that might help you to discuss the views put for­ward in the text.

Marriage is different from love. It is a good institution but I must add that a lot depends on the person you are married to.

There is no such thing as a good wife or a good husband – there is only a good wife to Mr. A or a good husband to Mrs. B. If a credulous woman marries a pathological liar, they may live together happily to the end of their days – one telling lies, the other believing them. A man who cannot live without constant admiration should marry a “God, you are wonderful!” type of woman. If he is unable to make up his mind, he is right in wedding a dictator. One dictator may prosper in marriage: two are too many.

The way to matrimonial happiness is barred to no one. It is all a matter of choice. One shouldn’t look for perfection; one should look for complementary half of a very imperfect other half.

If someone buys a refrigerator, it never occurs to him that it is a bad refrigerator because it cannot play gramophone records on it; nor does he blame his hat for not being suitable for use as a flower-vase. But many people who are very fond of their stomach marry their cook – and then blame her for being less radiantly intelligent and witty then George Sand. Or a man may be anxious to show off his wife’s beauty and elegance, marry a mannequin and be surprised to discover in six months that she has no balanced views on the international situation. Another marries a girl only and exclusively because she is seventeen and is much surprised 15 years later to find that she is not 17 any more. Or again if you marry a female book-worm who knows all about the gold standard, the laws of planetary motions, you must not blame her for being somewhat less beautiful and temperamental than Marilyn Monroe. And if ladies marry a title or a bank account they must not blame their husbands for not being romantic heroes.

You should know what you are buying. And as long as you do not play records on your refrigerator and not put bunches of chrysanthemums into your hat, you have a reasonable chance of so-called happiness.

By G. Mikis (abridged)

Discuss with your friends the relationships in the young married families. The ideas below may provide topics for your conversation:

ü “Their marriage has been on the rocks for years”;

ü “They are both too busy pursuing their social lives and have no time to settle down”.

Prove that tolerance is the most important quality in marriage.

Eternal Problem of "Fathers and Sons"

When studying in school I was surprised to hear such words from my best friend: "I never say anything about my private life to my parents; they have no interest in me. They never notice if I'm happy or crying; they don't think whether I need a piece of advice, or need to share my joys and sorrows. When I tried to discuss my problems, they were always too busy to listen to "rubbish" which isn't worth paying attention to." My friend was really depressed about her relations with her relatives and I had no words to help her. It was a kind of shock to me: how can these people be so indifferent to their child? How can their dearest child be left to the mercy of fate?!

Parents have always been the most loved and nearest people since birth.

When a new person is born, it's a great occasion for everybody in his family. And your first steps, first attempts to communicate, and first experience in spelling words - all the important moments of your life - happen only thanks to a mother who is always near you. Her heart fills with joy when she sees you making progress in studying and achieving good results in your life.

All this seems to be a wonderful tale. But what has changed during the last 10-20 years'? Children now are more independent, more confident in solving problems on their own. We are slowly become alienated from our family - a teenager who has spoilt his relations with his parents is usual, even typical, nowadays.

Think: who would you like to tell about your problems - your friends or your parents? Of course, a friend knows more about you than your relatives; he or she is closer to you. Is the eternal problem of "fathers and sons" a characteristic feature of Russian family relations?

In today's difficult situation in Russia, everybody relies on himself and never waits for help. There is no other country in the world like Russia, where nobody can predict what will happen tomorrow, where the government lives one life and citizens another. We can't control our future - and try to adapt to the existing Russian system.

Comparing our family relations with those in the USA, we come to the conclusion: how the state power treats us is reflected in people's attitudes to each other. Every father in America dreams about the splendid future of his son, his successful career as a sportsman, singer, diplomat, or even as president. How much time they devote to their children!

And we? - we send them to a grandmother, an aunt, or some other relative, who is eager to look after a kid. It's clear: in the USA parents have, fewer problems getting money, they live in better conditions, and their living standard is much higher than ours. What are our parents busy with? They earn money, supporting their family is the meaning of their lives. And if we look at remote regions (far from the capital), we'll be shocked by the miserable wages, teachers' salaries and doctors' fees (in Moscow it's not much higher). People there are too worried about fighting for survival to spend time and communicate with their child. At best the mother or father exchanges a few words with him before going to bed, and it's enough after a long working day.

Parents are always absent, and who will show the best way of, for example, entertainment. Nobody can guarantee that your little boy or girl won't start smoking at an early age. Or the most awful - taking drugs. It's good when there are grandmothers and grandfathers to control a teenager; but what to do if there are none? The world seems so beautiful to us, Muscovites, who have access to higher education, places of interest, and every kind of entertain­ment.

We don't even have an idea of the dull, monotonous life in the suburbs and villages!

It's a great question to think over. I don't want to just say that the USA is better to live in; but I want to show that in such a situation in Russia, only we can change the relationship between children and their parents. We must try to be more patient, attentive to the family, especially to little kids. Let's dream about our children, and use all means to realize these dreams and to make them well-known stars in sport, TV, etc. Everything depends only on us!

VOCABULARY TEST “FAMILY MATTERS”

	муж/жена	husband/wife
	супруг	spouse
	теща/свекровь/тесть/свекор	mother-in-law/father-in-law
	невестка/зять	daughter-in-law/son-in-law
	семейный человек	family man
	кормилец	a bread-winner
	содержать семью	to keep/support family
	семья, состоящая из обоих родителей и детей	nuclear family
	семья, состоящая из родителей, детей, бабушек, дедушек, живущих вместе	extended family
	неполная семья	one-parent family
	влюбиться	to fall in love
	быть по уши влюбленным	to be up to ears in love
	встречаться с к.-л.	to go out with smb
	назначить свидание	to make a date
	сделать предложение	to propose to smb
	быть помолвленным	to be engaged to smb
	разорвать помолвку	to break one’s engagement
	молодожены	newly-weds/just married
	семейное счастье	marital bliss
	свидетельство о браке	marriage certificate
	загс	registry office
	брачный договор	prenuptial agreement
	быть женатым на ком-то/замужем за кем-то	to be married to smb
	жениться/выходить замуж	to get married to smb
	жениться по любви	to marry for love
	брак по любви	a love match
	жениться/выходить замуж по расчету	to marry for convenience
	брак по расчету	marriage for convenience
	неравный брак	misalliance
	счастливый брак/несчастливый брак	happy marriage vs a broken marriage
	быть беременной	to be pregnant
	родить ребенка	to have a baby
	быть одиноким	to be single
	развестись	to get divorced
	подать на развод	to file/sue for a divorce
	жить вместе без регистрации брака	to live together/to cohabit
	гражданский брак	cohabitation
	ссориться	to argue/have a row/quarrel
	воспитывать детей	to bring up/raise/rear children
	иметь детей от первого брака	to have children by first marriage
	усыновить ребенка	to adopt a child
	обязательство	commitment
	по семейным обстоятельствам	for family reasons
	ревновать к к.-л.	to be jealous of smb
	порвать отношения, поссориться	to split up with smb
	распадаться (о семье)	to break up
	распад семьи	breakup
	верность	fidelity
	платить алименты	to pay alimony
	нанести психологический вред ребенку	to harm the child psychology
	предоставить ребенка самому себе	to leave the child to himself
	недостаток понимания	lack of mutual understanding
	отчитывать	to tell off
	бить	to hit, to beat
	баловать детей	to spoil children
	учить детей на своем примере	to teach children by your own example
	быт	daily routine
	брачное агентство	marriage agency

A QUIET REVOLUTION?

1. a) You are going to read an article about the changing state of the family. Look at the following statements and check the meaning of the words in bold in your dictionary.

More young people are moving away from home and leaving their family roots.

Marriage is becoming less important to many young people.

Families are spending less time together.

The divorce rate is rising.

More parents are bringing their children up alone without a partner.

More women are having careers rather than starting families.

The average family is getting smaller as the birthrate falls.

b) In groups, discuss which of these things are happening in your country and why.

2. Read the article and tick (v) the topics above if they are mentioned.

3. Read the article again. Which one of the following statements is not true according to the information in the main text?

a. Although there is not very much divorce in Japan, there is more than before.

b. Although Ireland is strongly Catholic, quite a lot of Irish people are now having children without getting married.

c. Although families in Spain and Italy were often big in the past, these days they are becoming smaller.

d. Although a lot of people in France have children without getting married, marriage is becoming more popular there again now.

e. Although there are a lot of divorces in the United States, there are not as many as fifteen or twenty years ago.

As divorce rates rise and fewer couples bother with marriage, we ask if the traditional nuclear family is becoming a thing of the past.

While you are reading this article, somewhere in the Unit­ed States two couples will get married and another will get divorced. One in three American children now live with only one parent, and the United States is not alone in this: in Canada and France the divorce rate has doubled in the last twenty-five years, and in Hungary and Greece it has increased by 50 per cent. Even in Japan, where the tradi­tional family is still strong, divorce went up by 15 per cent between 1980 and 1995.

What is more, the nature of the family is changing. In Sweden and Denmark, around half of all babies are now born to unmarried parents and in the United Kingdom and France more than a third. Even in Ireland, traditional­ly the most Catholic country in Europe, the rate of births outside marriage is 20 per cent.

Families are also getting smaller. The average Turkish family had seven members in 1970; today it has only five. And in Spain and Italy, where families were always traditionally large, the birthrate was the lowest in the developed world in 1995. This fall in the birthrate is due in part to the fact that, as more women have careers, they are waiting longer and longer to start a family. The age at which the average woman has her first baby is now 28 in Western-Europe, and it is getting later.

So the nuclear family is clearly changing, but is it in danger of disappearing completely?

The truth is that it is still too early to tell. In some countries these patterns are actually reversing. In the United States, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom, the birthratee is rising once more; and in Denmark, for example, marriage is becoming more popular again. In the United States the divorce rate in fact fell by 10 per cent between 1980 and 1990, and it is continuing to fall.

Perhaps a new revolution is beginning?

From: Cutting Edge Intermediate. By Sarah Cunningham and Peter Moor. Longman, 1998.

WHY ARE WE BRITISH SO BAD AT BRINGING UP CHIDREN?

COULD the family be collaps­ing as the central Institution in our society? Is marriage as the 'normal' way in which couples live together and have children being eroded to the point where it is becoming a minority choice? And are mothers and fathers - particularly the latter - abdicating as parents?

These are big questions which affect every single one of us. We may not be able to answer them, let alone cure the social ills they reflect; but it is not for want of information - of a sort.

We live in the age of the 'statistical report'. This week alone, half a dozen, on these and related matters, claiming to be authoritative and decked out as official, poured from the presses and into TV stu­dios and dally paper newsrooms.

How far should we believe them? And if we do, what do they tell us?

Some appear to be purely factual. The Office Of Population Censuses has pro­duced a massive array of figures which seem to back up the Church of England's contention that 'living in sin' is now so coomon as scarecely to be sinful.

No more marriages take place in today’s Britain than a century ago, in 1889, when the population was only half what it is now. The record for marriages in a single year was reached in 1972, with 426,000. Since then it has dropped, flrst slowly then much faster, in 1993 falling to an abysmal 182,000.

As a result there has been a huge increase in cohabitation. The report adds that a large number of 'living-in-sin' couples eventually marry. Among adults under 50, about 56 per cent of men and 59 per cent of women are married. But 10 per cent of both sexes are just living together.

These figures help to explain the huge increase in children born to women who are not married. After varying between 2.4 per cent and 7 per cent over 400 years, the number of such children has recently jumped to an unprecedented 30 per cent and is still rising fast.

Moreover, huge efforts are being made by the liberal intelligentsia to ‘legitimise’ illegitima­cy, to present it as OK and normal. For instance, a much-vaunted columnist on a national newspaper (no prizes for guessing which) has no shame about having produced two children by different fathers and gives us all unsolicited advice about parenting.

ALONGSIDE rising illegitimacy comes an apparent collapse in parental skills and interest - at least according to a new report from Dr Barnardo's. This paints a terrifying picture of the wretchedness of children today compared with previous generations, blaming poverty, violence, abuse and unemployment.

It also suggests that many mothers are simply incompetent and that a large percentage of fathers are remote and indiffer­ent to their children's welfare. Indeed, in many cases, they might not exist so far as the chil­dren are concerned: they just scarper, for good.

First we must ask: how reliable are such reports? A good ques­tion. This week, another sensational report evoked a cho­rus of scepticism and downright disbelief from other experts in the same field. An NSPCC sur­vey, based on a sample of 1,032 adults, concluded that nearly one in six of us has been sexually abused as a child. In other words, if the report is correct, all of us ought to know literally doz­ens of people who have been the victims of childhood abuse.

I don't believe it. Nor does the Ministry of Health; nor, for instance, the boss of Kidscape, an organisation campaigning for child safety; nor the head of the Centre For Crisis Psychology.

For one thing, the NSPCC sur­vey lumps together under ‘abuse’ the actual rape of children, minor sexual assaults and various forms of ‘flashing’ and indecent suggestions, some examples of which might, on investigation, be found to be entirely innocent.

Lewis Carroll, author of the perennial children's bestseller Alice In Wonderland, who liked to dandle little girls on his knee - as did many of his age in those sentimental days - would cer­tainly have ended up in jail in today's climate. So would the Rev Francis Kilvert, author of one of the best diaries in the lan­guage, who regularly kissed little girls when he inspected church schools in his neighbourhood, duly noting it down in his daily entries.

It is always well to ask when confronted by surprising figures: who benefits from this presenta­tion? And the answer, in this case, is the Child Abuse Indus­try; a huge, ever-expanding col­lection of bureaucrats and social workers – ‘case officers’ they call themselves - who literally need child abuse to justify their salaries.

The more child abuse they can prove, the more their industry expands, the more underlings they have, the higher their pay scales and job promotion possibilities, the greater their status and importance.

In particular, the expansion of the child abuse industry has led to a dizzying increase in the number of children snatched from their parents and ‘taken into care’. In the case of some anti-parental witchhunts organ­ised by the industry, in the North-East and the Orkneys for instance, we now know that the parents did absolutely nothing wrong and tnat chidren were carefully coached by industry ‘experts’ in their stories of abuse. Of course, when children are thus kidnapped from their homes, they are dumped in local authority children's homes, where the likelihood of genuine and horrific abuse is dauntingiy high, as the recent scandal in Islington testifies. So we must treat these cunningly-presented figures with care.

All the same, many thousands of children undoubtedly lead miserable lives today - under-nourished, neglected, left alone with just a TV set for company, bruised and bullied, often cold, always deprived of love.

THIS misery is reflected in one set of figures which cannot be challenged: the number of children who are so ‘difficult’, as a result of neglect and ill-treatment at home, that schools cannot handle them. Considering the legal and administrative obstacles which now confront state school head teachers who want to get rid of or suspend an unruly pupil, statistics compiled this week tell аn astonishing tale.

The number of permanent expulsions has jumped from only 2,900 a year in 1990 to more than 14,000. Temporary exclusions (18 days a term) are now running at more than 100,000. The speed at which these figures are rising is truly frightening. Once expelled, a child loses the best part of a year's schooling and is heading straight for near-illiteracy, unemployment and a life or crime.

Moreover, expelling a child can prove mightily expensive. Such youngsters may well have to be sent to Special Schools, often as boarders. One such school I know, in South Bucks, costs the public £20,000 a year for each child. Another, in South London, runs at £40,000 a year each. Eton and Harrow are cheap by com­parison.

Child neglect is not confined to the poor, to our growing ‘under­class’, though that is where it is most common and pitiful. In many affluent families, too, where children appear to have everything, they lack parental love, not necessarily in theory but in practice.

This week, NOP reported that 54 per cent of fathers, even in regular families, spend less than five minutes with their children on weekdays. Many fathers who think they spend 15 minutes a day with their kids - not much in all conscience - in reality spend all of 40 seconds.

Rob Parsons, who has written a brilliant book about parenting called The Sixty Minute Father and has been well described by Lynda Lee-Potter as ‘the man who reinvented fatherhood’, learned, almost too late, to change his priorities and put his children on top of the list, but many of us never learn.

The evidence, whether statisti­cal or anecdotal, drawn from our own acquaintance and what we hear in our neighbourhood, shows that a lot of fathers put sport, the pub and, not least, do-it-yourself activities before getting to know their children. They think they are good fathers and they undoubtedly care for their children - they work, in fact, very hard to earn the money to give them everything they need and think they want. But what they do not give is their time - time to talk, listen, teach, and have fun together.

The results show in adult performance. Of course, all families are different. Over lunch this week, Sir Kingsley Amis, an only child, told me: ‘When I was little, nobody told me sto­ries. So I had to tell myself stories. That's what made me a novelist.’

But there is much evidence to suggest that a child, especially a boy, who has a close relationship with his father, who benefits from a lot of time spent in his father's company, is likely to be a high performer - and a happy person. Time spent with a child is, as it were, a direct investment in that child's future well being.

I wish, like Ron Parsons, I had known about this and thought about it when my own children were small - and acted on it. Looking back on my own child­hood, I find I have vivid memories of my father taking me out painting when I was quite small. Indeed, I learned to draw and paint simply by watching him. He died when I was 13, just when he was becoming a close friend - the greatest blow I have ever suffered.

In my days as a father, I was often abroad on assignments or an over­whelmingly busy editor at home, so I must have been neglectful to some extent.

But I look back on some things with self-defensive pride. We had all our four children at home and I was present on each occasion. Indeed, when my daughter was born suddenly in the mid­dle of the night, I delivered her myself.

I also recall that when we lived in Len­nox Gardens in Knightsbridge, I regularly took my two eldest sons, on Sunday, into St James's Park, pushing them in their double-pram. This distin­guished vehicle we bought second-hand from Julian Amery MP, who had twins" and who himself had bought it from the original owner. It was made by the Hoopers, who created the coachwork for the best Rolls-Royces, and it was beau­tiful as well as grand and sturdy.

You may not believe it, but to those days it was almost unknown for a man to be seen pushing a pram in public. I used to get a lot of stares, even an occasional glance of pity from women: 'Unhappy fellow - a divorced father, obviously the innocent party since he has custody. Or perhaps a widower - young wife died of cancer, poor thing!'

BUT SURVEYS show that this is not the norm in Britain. There is a kind of macho cul­ture, associated with soccer, rugby, golf and other sports, which has the effect of discouraging fathers from playing with their kids. It's regarded as 'cissy'.

There is also a hedonistic young-couple culture which encourages the affluent working and middle-class who can afford to get babysitters to spend their evenings m restaurants and discos and partying. Some have literally never read a bedtime story to their kids, let alone helped them to read for themselves. These modern, Nineties parents have exactly the same kind of selfishness and remoteness of English upper-class par­ents in Victorian and Edwardian times, who virtually handed over their small children to servants. Sir Winston Churchill described, in pathetic detail, how he hardly ever saw or talked to his adored father, and how his mother was a kind of magic being whose rare visits to the nursery were cherished. His real mother, for all practical purposes, was his nanny, Mrs. Everest - and she was the one he loved.

It is odd that this 19th-century aristo­cratic pattern is now being repeated in ordinary homes all over the country. But so it is. I sometimes think that the Brit­ish - the English especially - are simply no good at having children. Perhaps we know we are no good at it... and that is why we tend to push our children out of our lives as much as possible.

It is nothing short of a national tragedy, Children do have rights. Not the tiresomely legalistic rights written into the absurd and dangerous 1989 Children's Act. But they have the right to our attention; and above all, to our time.

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