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Walking through the park with my daughter this afternoon I saw some of our senior citizens playing bowls and I wanted to heckle them and boo them and blame them for wrecking Phoebe’s future. I didn’t do that of course because even though it was senior citizens who swung the EU vote the way it went (as well as young people not bothering to get out to vote and a myriad of other factors), who knows how those individuals voted. My parents voted remain and are devastated by the result. But it feels like someone should take the blame and a concerted campaign of making all baby boomers live through the remainder of their days greeted everywhere by a chorus of boos and incivility feels like a good response. Some of us will have to live with their decision for decades, whereas most of them won’t be here in ten years time. I saw a statistic that said by 2018 enough of the older voters will have passed on, with enough new young voters to cause the decision to go the other way - mainly guff, (after all who knows how it works in the middle - will some middle-aged people turn more right wing as they pass into their old age?) but interesting.
It will take time for the dust to settle and to find out if the vote will be as devastating to the economy, the national psyche, Europe and the world as it appears to be from these first couple of days. And I still have some doubt that any prime minister will actually press the button on this one. All is not lost and maybe if it is things won’t be as bad in the long run. I tried to comfort my wife by arguing that a slender remain win might have led to increased anger on the brexit side, more support for UKIP and worse consequences in the long run. But to be honest there’s no way of knowing what the consequences will be as it is.
Nothing is any comfort.
Any road, I tried to enjoy my day off with my daughter. She’s a law unto herself and I love her for it. We tried to take her to song time at the library, but she just wants to run around and run away and bolted for the door without even looking back to see if we were following her. All the other kids sat pretty quietly or at least stayed in the vicinity, but I enjoy the fact she’s boisterous and hard to keep pegged down. She’s a little bundle of energy, curiosity and craziness. I am proud of her inattention.
Later I took her to the sand pit, where she brims with the confidence that comes from never having your heart broken. She tried to befriend and play with older girls, because why wouldn’t they want to play with her? They didn’t though, but Phoebe is not yet able to pick up on that and just smiles and clucks and tries to join in. It’s mildly tragic because she doesn’t realise that we can’t all just be friends (and why can’t we?), but also she’s unaware she’s been rebuffed so it doesn’t matter. And she’s pretty mercurial with her affections herself. This morning she kissed my knee, which was rather sweet, until she then immediately kissed the radiator. So I am not necessarily at the top of her list of loves. She knows how much I love her so she can treat me with the disdain that I deserve. I’ve been here a thousand times before with love. But never loved anyone as much.
