Children In Need and Mermaids

It reminds me of when we used to hold cake sales for the starving at my school.

You can send your child to school in mufti and write a letter to say you will donate to another charity instead. No school can compel anyone to donate to a particular charity of their choosing.

Well the primary school head teacher is now rather off with me since I raised the subject. This whole thing is really pissing me off.

Pardon me.

www.thenational.scot/news/16406240.glasgow-and-clyde-rape-crisis-funding-cut-for-not-doing-enough-for-men/?ref=twtrec

(News story just repeated on me)

Producing more tat to throw away. Maybe they should give money to environmental charities? I haven't seen so much this year thank God.

I'm surprised at the amount of CiN merchandise there is. I can't work out how it is more cost effective to get somebody to buy Pudsy Bear ears (assuming a % goes to CiN) than it is to just get them to donate the money to charity, unless you are paying the person who makes the Pudsy Bear ears a very, very small amount of money.

I can just about understand socks - everyone wears socks and I suppose some people might wear CiN socks all year, but a lot of the branded stuff seems designed to be worn once.

Just seen Caroline Molloy make this point:

It feels like childreninneed is now about teaching kids young, that the way to address poverty amongst their fellows is sponsored fancy dress not democratic/political action. I guess the former makes cuter photos but its just selling these kids a false & disempowering narrative.

twitter.com/carolinejmolloy/status/1063454052296650752

Or trying to tackle the knife crime that is just crazy levels now.

Why not on disability, race, religion, mental illness, 'education and celebration' or sexual orientation?

In the same way that breast cancer is pinkified and is handled differently to other cancers - some protected characteristics are deemed to be more attractive and worthy of attention and funding than others.

I'd like to see CiN contributing to proper RSE so that children grow up knowing how to identify forms of DV including coercive control. It would be a huge benefit to our society if we understood more about mental health issues and appropriate response to it.

Ditto for so much more but it's lacking in TV sparkle and 'woke' which is what seems to matter.

Why is the focus so heavily on trans? Why not on disability, race, religion, mental illness, 'education and celebration' or sexual orientation? I don't hear about schools and workplaces holding workshops and assemblies for this.

Why are small minority of men being lauded as modern day St Joans?

"Educate and celebrate" also deliver pro trans assemblies in secondary schools - I withdrew my daughter from school for the day and explained why in great detail

Dc2 had a non clothes day with donations of spare change. So I sent about 50p in.
Dress down at work (£2) too, but I didn’t and annoyingly no-one asked why not!

Wow! I have always supported CIN. I had no idea Mermaids were benefitting from the funds.

I wonder why they don't include clips of children wanting hormone blockers and sex change operations as per their clips of children in heart wrenching situations?

I wonder.... 🤔

Now I know Mermaids are benefitting I won't be supporting CIN any longer.

So CIN and CR off my list then. This year we are supporting a local church who are providing Christmas Day food and fellowship for the lonely, disadvantaged etc. Thank goodness they are out in the community just doing good and not encouraging division.

Will there be a Mermaids segment tonight? Each charity usually gets a five minute slot?

Schools are turning into a bit of a hot spot for fund raising - my school is in a particularly poor area and I hate it when kids are put on the spot. General gripe for me, this is.

In practice, though, if you have sent your child in non-uniform it’s accepted that the quid pro quo is paying a donation. I understand what you mean, but would find it difficult to place my child in an awkward situation. Luckily for me the school isn’t doing anything for CiN at all! This is a relief in its own right after all the spotty clothes and superhero dress up that has been required in previous years!

I’m not sure what I’ll do if it’s a non-uniform compulsory donation though.

Donations are by definition non-compulsory. So your dc can go in non-uniform, and not bring a donation.

I won't be donating to CiN.

I see that £9k went to Swansea YMCA. I know for a fact that this group went into a local comp and did a Trans talk some years ago. I heard from a teaching colleague that they delivered a "girls have penises and boys have vaginas" talk in 2016, with no parental consent sought nor any prior warning.

Sadly I don’t think the teen that’s now a boy feels like that. He looks totally depressed. So very sad.

The one that’s a girl now looks like Barbie and doesn’t seem very down-trodden.

Anyhow. CIN. No letters home about a mufti day so maybe I don’t have a decision to make this year. By next year it will all be sorted ...

Yawn. Oh it's getting old hat now. I remember when being a rebel and member of a sub culture shocked the horses - it was a bit edgy.

It's not edgy if you can cry 'it's not fair, stop picking on meeeeee! I'm calling me maw and the polis!'

I wonder if having two trans teens on my street outs ME? I almost hope so.