How to make a baby
There has been a particular advertisement running lately on the Irish channels.
It’s one of those cheap ones where they use simple cartoons on the assumption that we are all five years old [or less]. It’s also one of the new “inclusive” ones as even in cartoon land we have “people of colour”. They are proud of it as it comes in two versions, in English and Irish. It is advertising a website which apparently tells us what children are and what to do with them. Strangely, the site is only in English which is going to come as a shock to those who only speak Irish. They advertise mychild.ie but it just dumps the visitor into the HSE site.
I wonder if anyone told them people have been having babies for thousands of years. I even managed it myself [with a bit of help from Herself] and the result isn’t too bad.
But now it seems that the infantilised new generation now needs a website to tell them how to do it. It’s inevitable, I suppose.
I wandered into the site to have a look around. It was bland in the extreme and kept referring me to videos which didn’t exist on my browser. All I got were large blank spaces. Maybe I’m supposed to use my imagination after all?
I think the site must be still under construction as there are whole sections missing. I couldn’t find any area which dealt with punishment. In my time I really could have done with a pointer to the relative merits of waterboarding, cattle-prods or solitary confinement. Equally there was nothing on the rights of pre-teen children in the workplace [I did check under “Labour” but there was no mention of getting the little brat to earn a living]. There wasn’t a hint as to the best age to start them on cigarettes [not too early as they are liable to set the cot on fire].
All in all, I was very disappointed.
Maybe I should write a companion site [based on the real world] and sell it to them?
Don’t.
The “real” world at least in the “West” is a sexual / gender minefield.
I am so glad, present aging decrepitude excepted, that I passed through my breeding years when men were real men, women were real women and little furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were….. you know the rest.
There were those of an alternative persuasion, but they were friends and none of us made an issue of it.
My mistake. By “real” I meant good logical old fashioned world where most of us were reared. Kids should learn about gravity by falling. They should learn to fight viruses by mucking around in dirt to gain immunity. They should learn bad behaviour can have dire consequences. They should learn respect for those who [generally] know better. Most importantly they should learn that life is full of rough and tumbles and should not be wrapped in cotton wool and bubble wrap.
Does it not have this handy info on it?
“This is available in other languages including;”
This became common on all government leaflets in the late nineties as I recall.
Wonder what change prompted this.
I searched everywhere on the “Mychild” section and couldn’t find any reference to language. As far as I am aware, all gubmint sponsored information has to, by law, be in Irish and English. Other languages are optional.
At the very bottom of the page there is a tiny link – “Accessibility”. That brings up a page where language can be changed to Irish [as required by law] but there is no linking baack to the Mychild” section. In fact I can’t find any links on the HSE site that point to it. Crap web design!