Not a Princess

My daughter (2&1/2) announced yesterday that she was a princess. This was inevitable, but I had not thought it would come so soon. I informed her that she was not and reminded her of her name. She then started singing the wheels on the bus, life moves on fast at 2. But it did make me think I need to pre think some strategies for tackling this one as it continually raises its head over the next few years. 

The timing of this comment was interesting since there is also another child born recently who will not be a princess but will most probably, though finally getting a republic is always a possibility, become a prince. I have to say that along with Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett I also feel a slight sense of relief that the royal baby is male and will not have to suffer being a princess.

Anyway in search of advice I went to twitter, and while I received some excellent suggestions much was about how to re-define or reshape what a princess is. I'm not sure I want to. I think I'd rather make being a princess an unattractive option. Also I don't want to lie to my daughter. I am not royal so she will never be a princess. I could say that princess can run around, climb trees, wear trousers, but they can't. Kate cannot wear what she wants, say what she wants, eat what she wants, yesterdays revolting issue of OK proves that. 

Also there is the danger of simply replacing one stereotype with another. I don't know if my daughter will enjoy climbing trees yet and I don't want her confronted with the options of pink princess or 'tom boy' princess. I'd rather she could just be her in any combination of interests and abilities she enjoys. 

It is not just the gender stereotyping of princess that I find so difficult but also the inherent hierarchy we cannot all be princess. As much as I love Brave and watch it with my little one repeatedly I'd much rather it ended with the king abdicating and setting up a democratic co-operative community. 

There is too much, competition, I'm the best, look at me, in children's media and for girls princess seems to be the ultimate expression of that. Princess also teaches our daughters to place the highest value in their appearance to the exclusion of other attributes. And not their appearance for their own enjoyment creativity or self expression, their appearance as measured by how sexually attractive they are to adult men. Which is why I would rather expose princess for what they really are (slowly and in an age appropriate way) than redefine princess as something a little more diverse. 

It's going to be hard work.

Taxes

There have been many terrible terrible thing's that have been said of late about social security and those in receipt of it. And there are many people doing a valiant attempt to refute them in the rhetorical war exploding around us. However there is a phrase that I keep hearing that is not being challenged which is 'Taxpayers money'.

Is it just me or does this phrase not make sense. If I pay taxes then the money that I pay to the treasury is by definition no longer mine but belongs to the nation. Now I have a democratic duty to hold the government to account for how they administer our collective resources, but it is not my money it belongs to all of us as a collective.

The problem with referring to it as taxpayers money implies that as a taxpayer I somehow have greater right to decided how it is spent than those who currently are not paying tax, and by inference the more tax you pay the more decision making power you have. There is something inherently undemocratic in that. 

I am also fed up of being told what upsets me as a tax payer. There are things about social security that upset me, but not the ones the government tell me are upsetting me. It upsets me that there is such a thing as working tax credits and that people can work a 30 -40 hour week and still not earn enough to survive. I fundamentally think the purpose of social security should not be to subsidies the private sector; they should jolly well pay decent wages. 

It upsets me the amount of housing benefit people need to claim. Which is the result, not of too many children or people scrounging of the state, or living in Kensington. It is the result of unscrupulous capitalists, decades of daft housing policy and an obsession with private ownership. It upsets me that the tax system isn't such that it curbs the behavior of such empire builders.

But what upsets me more than any of this is that while friends and love ones are being squeezed to live on what is not possible to live on, while the price of everything is going up and life is getting tougher for almost everyone I know. I take a walk round central London and see wealth oozing out of the city. When I pass 6 Starbucks on a street and get sent links via amazon. When I see an add for a bank that the country bailed out with amounts of money I can't even conceive of, offering me an app to help me budget better. Then I get really really mad. That is what Tax payers are upset about (well this one at least).

Shopping

I just did the weekly grocery shopping. It was quiet exciting. 

I have decided it is time to make public my new years resolution, which is to move our household to more sustainable patterns of living. I think I need to say it out loud and have it eternally recorded for the world to see because: 

1.) I am starting to struggle to separate online and offline worlds and have overwhelming urges to tweet every thought that passes through my head.

2.) It is a way of keeping myself accountable and motivated.

3.) Politicising housework might make me feel less demotivated about the whole thing.

So the first big project is grocery shopping. Today I went shopping and went only briefly into 1 supermarket (co-op) which didn't anyway have the mustard powder I was after. The whole process did take longer than had I popped to the local supermarket however I came home without a headache and a well exercised and now sleeping toddler. There where many other pleasing aspects too for example:

• When queuing to pay for my shopping at no point was I presented with an array of chocolates and sweets carefully positioned at children's eye view. In fact the only thing my daughter asked for was bread and a banana, both of which I was happy to supply.
• At the butcher (not quiet ready to tackle meet consumption yet) I witnessed one of the staff tacking the time to have a nice long chat with an older man who was sat having a cup of tea, I guess during his weekly shop. 
• I discovered at the green grocers that truffles are currently selling at around £4000 a kilo. I've got to find me some of them I thought. (I am aware that they are probably not growing in my garden but who knows!)
• The veg was considerably cheaper and better quality than it would have been in a supermarket, and not packaged.
• The fair trade rice and porridge I bought in the whole food shop was also cheaper than supermarket equivalent even though it was organic - mostly because I bought it lose. 
• I had a very nice chat about the relative ethics of two cleaning products. 
• No one asked me repeatedly if I wanted to use the self service check-out and then look at me baffled when I asked them if they realised it was taking their jobs.
• Everyone looked happy with life.
• I can be sure that the majority of what I spent will stay within the local economy.

So I appreciate these are very humble beginnings and we have a long long way to go, but it's a start and it's about habit changing and that takes practice. I'm aiming for a place where sustainable living is second nature. I'll keep you posted and would welcome guest posts on the subject.