A country built on relationships: Lord Glasman

“The next election is ours, with a really patriotic celebration of the country built on relationships” Lord Glasman the Times May 14^th 2011.

OK then!

This was one of my most interesting reads of the weekend not least because I felt a little like I was sitting on a pew in my local church. Lord Glasman promoting a political ideology that would support and strengthen family and social relationships. I certainly agree with those values, I am not sure quite how his “blue labour” would deliver but I am happy to go along with the thought for now.

I found it quite cheery to find somebody writing if only a little about what I think is the most important thing in life, human interactions, warmth and though he did not say it directly love.  Even though I do like to know what is happening in the world in which we live and I am quite passionate about politics, gazing too frequently at these subjects can occasionally leave me feeling a little or a lot dejected. Power crazed dictators, Power crazed “democratic” politicians, Power crazed business people… Hearts filled with what appears to be unreasonable hatred resulting in the death of innocent people. Policies and co-operate greed that place’s families under unnecessary pressures and worries as they struggle to make ends meet. It can all become a little bit gloomy.

In the end though, despite all of this I love life, and I love life because of people. Because of the human interactions I encounter every single day.

The importance of human relationships has popped up rather frequently of late in arenas that one might not expect, so to hear a view that a focus on those relationships could be the key to who wins the next election absolutely caught my attention and I have to admit made me laugh a little.

Whilst in training recently the other delegate and I were told that human beings are the only mammal’s that are born with absolutely no ability to look after or provide for itself. We unlike most mammals cannot move ourselves from one place to another for months and do not have the ability to walk for around a year. We have no ability to protect ourselves from danger or to provide ourselves with food. Most Mammals can walk within minutes thus having some ability to move if they need too, granted many require their mother milk to survive but they can at least make their own way to the source of their nourishment.

We were told how fairly recent breakthroughs in the ability to study electrical patterns in the brain confirm that the brain requires relationships to develop normally. The brain of course is key to a person’s ability to develop in every area of their lives. In short they have found that when a baby is not nurtured, cared for, interacted with, given hugs and kisses that child’s brain does not develop adequately resulting in often debilitating impacts upon educational achievement and emotional/behavioural development.

I can hear the voices of many of my friends saying Lou, didn’t we now this already. I guess we did from a social science, psychological and religious perspective but now medical science has the technology to see the physical impact of neglect and abuse upon the brain.

It was not the first time I had seen these pictures but they are pretty graphic.

Above left is the picture of a child that has had their needs generally met by their parents during infancy. The red indicates the parts of the brain that have been developed; they are active and generally being used. On the right is the picture of the brain of a child from an orphanage in Romania as you can see there are massive gaps. (Very old picture)

I remember only too well reading some research about children from Romanian orphanages who were adopted in America. They found that a large proportion of these children experienced learning disabilities and behavioural/emotional difficulties as teenagers despite the fact that they had been adopted since their infancy. The authors argued that the lack of stimulation they had experienced as babies had affected their ability to develop “normally”.

I may not agree with everything that comes out of Lord Glasman’s mouth but I do agree that family and real community are important. I happen to think they are important no matter what age you are and without them all of the other stuff that we do does not really mean a thing.

With this in mind and with all the negative news we have been hearing of late I have to say thank you to the BBC for also cheering my spirits over the weekend with a story of human warmth and compassion in the midst of war.  They told a nice little story of a German soldier who was captured and then imprisoned in a prison camp in Scotland. The now very old man recounted a wonderful story of how the community treated him well during those years of war between Brittan and Germany. They treated him so well that when he passes away his estate will be donated to the elderly people of Comrie and his ashes will be spread upon the mountains that overlook that small village.

I comfort myself with what I believe is the fact that in all of these war torn lands there are many stories of human warmth and compassion, that are just not reported in our daily news. I am grateful for the relationships that help me to flourish be they personal or professional and even for the little community in which I live that feels safe, secure warm and friendly.

One of my many favorite  motto's “to love and be loved”