Report to the People
31st December 2007
New Year, New Rights
With
the last few hours of 2007 ticking away, I hope your Hogmanay preparations are
going well.
Is
seems, though, that the traditional family Hogmanay house party on its way out.
Revellers now shun the joys of smoky living rooms with cans of Tennents Special
and black bun in favour of nights out in pubs, clubs or restaurants.
But
perhaps it’s no surprise when the idea of the “traditional family” itself
is also changing.
Buying
my Christmas cards this year, I noticed, in among very specific, if faintly
disapproving, offerings such as, “To my daughter and her (ahem) partner on
their first Christmas in their new home”, a series of cards intended for
“granny”, or “aunty”, all of which added, “you’re like a mother to
me.”
In
our ever-changing world, we may well be going full circle.
Some thirty years after it was supplanted by the nuclear family as
society’s standard family unit, it looks like the extended family is making a
comeback.
The
reason, though, is all too modern. Across
Scotland there are parents whose drug abuse makes them unable to care for their
own children.
These
children, therefore, live with grandparents, aunts and uncles, or other
relatives, many of whom are desperate to help, but have tight household budgets
of their own.
If
2007 saw government recognition, in principle at least, that these selfless
individuals need real rights and proper support, then 2008 has to be the year we
make that aim a reality.
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