Thousands of children ‘not ready for school’ at five

Thousands of children ‘not ready for school’ at five

By michaelgcasey

I was so not ready myself that I ran after my mother down the school drive, 1963 was the year I think. Years later I was the Head Boy of the school.

As for the general population, am I old fashioned in thinking some parents don’t love their children. You don’t have to have children, there are pills before and after, and men can even do something, so there are no excuses for having children, IF you don’t want them.

But IF you do have kids then LOVE THEM. I had a humble beginning, if you find the photo of my mum’s home in Cromane Lower back in 1920s then you’ll see just how humble her beginning was. The difference between now and then is just how poor my family and millions of others were.In Andrew Marr’s show last night, which made me seasick because it jumped so much, his observation was that the village comes to town, to mega cities, and it is that which binds communities together. Obviously I was looking out for Shanghai as that’s where my wife is from.

When our girls were born, Ma came all the way from Shanghai to be with us here in Birmingham, on each occasion she stayed six months to help out. Sadly in the modern era there is no granny, or granny is a party animal in Ibiza or is on a fly drive in USA.

So you don’t have an extra pair of hands, as granny wants her freedom, this means 5 year  olds miss out on granny’s love. 5  year olds get lots of plastic rubbish with batteries, but love, where no batteries are required, that is sadly missing.

Yes people have to work,  I’m content that we love our kids, and there isn’t any money for plastic rubbish, and as for batteries…              I used to sit at the top of the stairs and have a “social” with my mum, then she’d pat my bottom and send me off to bed, I was happy because I was loved.

My kids are lucky because I’m from a large Irish family, so they have lots of uncles and aunts who love them, give them plenty of crayons and paper, 600 crayons was the last audit of all things for drawing. A pencil and paper IS enough to set a child’s mind free, when you unite this with Love from mum and dad and uncles and aunts, what do you get? You get happy kids, Granny in Shanghai is not forgotten either, with the wonders of the Internet granny can talk to our kids every  Saturday and together they read the Bible and teach granny more English, as for my girls they practice their Chinese.

Is this old fashioned and not all hip and groovy? I don’t care, I have great kids who love me, and their Chinese/Irish family nothing is better than that, and guess what, batteries are not included.

Attachment: Padre Pio and Me.doc