It seems that the Health and Safety Gestapo have over reached themselves this time. Not content with banning all sorts of normal, everyday activities on the grounds of the "risk" that they pose to health and safety, Nanny has decided that motherhood is itself a risk and banned it.
That is what Liz Cooper, and five month old Dominca Jimenez, found out recently when they were at an evening group study session in St Mary's College (Blackburn) library and IT room.
Security staff asked her to leave.
For why?
Seemingly on health and safety grounds because of dust, temperature and hard-edged surfaces!
Ms Cooper has been been told that she can only have Dominica with her in the breast-feeding room, or the baby-changing facilities.
Ironically Ms Cooper is in fact studying for a degree in early years health, and one would have thought that she had some idea about the health and well being of her daughter.
Sarah Flanagan, spokeswoman for the college, said the decision was made on health and safety grounds.
As Ms Cooper said:
"The breast-feeding facilities are
all well and good, but if I can't take
her onto the rest of the site,
what is the point?
I'm not going to take her to
college just to feed her.
It's not as if I was in a lecture
at the time, it was a small study group.
The college accommodates people will all
sorts of disabilities and other learning
needs, so why not mums?
The college is saying that the problem
is health and safety, because of dust,
temperature and hard-edged surfaces,
but that's exactly the same as you would
find in a supermarket at home or anywhere else,
so I don't see the problem.
She was asleep and quiet and I was carrying
her in a sling so she wasn't disturbing anyone.
If she had woken up and cried
I would have immediately left the room.
I was very embarrassed and upset -
they called me away from my group and
asked me to leave. It was absolute madness
and I was made to feel like a criminal.
I was working in a group of four people and
there were only another four people there
they weren't being disturbed either.
It seems like I have to be either a student
or a mum and I can't be both."
Ms Cooper has not yet learned the rules of the Nanny state:
1 Parenthood is a disability and a disease
2 Nanny can't have children herself, and hates those who can
3 Parents wasting their time looking after their own children are not working to provide Nanny with the tax revenue she craves
4 Parents are not best suited to bring up children, it is the role of the state
Nanny is very annoyed that people have not yet learned these rules, and will be spanking your bottoms soon if you don't learn them.
Ken wrote:
ReplyDelete"Nanny is very annoyed that people have not yet learned these rules, and will be spanking your bottoms soon if you don't learn them."
Indeed, but probably not Ms. Cooper's bottom since the journey to Blackburn would involve free first class travel on the West Coast Mainline but the chances are Nanny would be frustrated by 'engineering works'. My guess is that she would assuage her needs closer to home where, no doubt, opportunities abound without the need to travel too far.
Personally I would have preferred Nanny to have told the truth as to why she didn't want the kid in college.
ReplyDeleteI suspect it is more about the fear of being sued if anything went wrong.
I personally have little sympathy for the woman, as I would not want babies in the classroom if I was studying there. The only exception would be if the presence of the kid was relevent to the particular task being studied at the time. ie hands on lessons on baby bathing or similar.
I personally get fed up with people constantly ramming their kids down my throat....you know, the one that allows their kids to run riot while he/she sits there watching it and smiling proudly.
I don't think we need to take kids to work or to college with us and it is not a policy I would like to be encouraged....I even stopped going in my local pub when they went family friendly....I go down the pub to get peace and quiet, not to watch a load of chavy kids running around and worse of all, knocking my beer over while the parents look on proudly grinning.
Yes, I am a misanthrope
Nanny hates the family and would prefer if we simply handed our children over to her at birth to be brought up as productive little tax drones.
ReplyDeleteFailing that Nanny is happy to arrange for a nice homosexual, transgendered or lesbian couple to adopt them - anything except the stable mum, dad and kids family which she and her Marxist minions abhore.
Driving home near Dorchester on New Year's Day I saw hunting with hounds in a nearby field.
ReplyDeleteNanny must have been incapable with either drink, hangover or rage.
Nobody interfered.
Tonk wrote:
ReplyDelete"The only exception would be if the presence of the kid was relevent to the particular task being studied at the time. ie hands on lessons on baby bathing or similar."
Would dissection count?
Oh, no, can't do that these days in biology classes can we?
Might it be OK as practical training for child care workers though? Or perhaps social services?
There are several - equally disturbing - aspects to this story. One is the automatic assumption by Ms Cooper that she can take her kid with her everywhere she goes without pissing people off (or, worse, that anyone who did get pissed off would be acting unreasonably).
ReplyDeleteAnother is that, rather than taking a 'robust' stand and telling the Cooper woman that kids in certain places (pubs, supermarkets,libraries, classrooms...) are, just by their very presence, a pain in the arse
and whether or not there had been complaints, bringing sprogs to College was not allowed, so take the bloody thing away; the authorities took the soft - bullshit - option of claiming to be protecting the kid. Wouldn't it be refreshing to hear once again some honest support for what everyone (basically) knows to be a reasonable standard of behaviour?
As for Ken's idea about 'spanking bottoms'- surely, whoever did this to anyone in present-day UK, would earn themselves some time in nick (and probably inclusion on the 'Pervert's Register'?)
Grumpy, and others, I take your point about kids being allowed into adult areas.
ReplyDeleteI myself cannot stand them when they are a pain in pubs, restaurants or anywhere else adults go.
In this particular case I was prepared to give Ms Cooper the benefit of the doubt re behaviour of kid, and acceptance by her other class mates of kid.
I would note, however, that Nanny should have had the stones to simply say "no kids allowed" (were that the real reason) rather then create an 'elf and safety issue of this.
Ken
Spanking bottoms is a favourite pastime of Nanny's clean living servants known as MPs.
ReplyDeleteSo keen on this activity to be 'genuinely representative of the population' are they that some favour lady bottom spankers, wearing ethically sourced leather material, whilst others (of the lib dem persuasion) prefer chaps dressed as football players to administer the botty slaps.
Love the PsiCorp ref!
ReplyDeleteI have put a link to your blog on mine..