Must remember to write to Mr Miliband

"I want to hear your experiences of how the cuts are affecting you and your family and discuss how we could do things differently"

I got a letter from Ed Miliband last week and keep meaning to follow it up. It asked me to contact him on his website. 

polyp.org.uk

Although I can understand his approach, asking for feedback from the public, I think it is also approaching everything as if it is money, the economy, that is the centre of our lives. I don't think it should be, even if it has become that way.


When I think about my family, I don't see money as making us the happiest we could be. Yes, we need it to pay for a home to live in, for food, utilities etc. But we can confuse need with want, I know I do (oooh holidays, a different car, new clothes, tv etc.). That doesn't mean that we should live in caves and not treat ourselves to these things, I just think that money and spending it should not be the centre focus.


The most important thing is love and being in the right state of mind and life to share it with those we care about. 

Having time and space to take care of your family is something I believe would help our country much more, so changes to the economy should support families beyond money itself.

Alot of Mums and Dads work because they don't see that they have any choice. Our economy is reliant on the income generated from both parents earning a living. Their children are then missing out on the potential amount of time and attention that previous generations could give, when the balance between work and life was different. Although years ago women didn't have the choice to go out and find stimulating careers if they wanted to, and the freedom provided by the work of the feminist movement was a major advancement for society, I also think that families should have the choice to work or not to work, now that both sexes have the freedom to work and progress in their careers. Not enough weight seems to be afforded to the work of being a parent as being good enough by itself ("Is that all?").

Not everyone wants to be a stay at home parent, not everyone wants to be a full time career person - there is a continuum between and we should be able to find the right balance for us. Happy parents = happy children. I worry about the lack of choice. If any political party could offer Mums (or Dads) the choice to stay at home and take care of their children, instead of working, I think this could help the work/life imbalance that exists in Britain today.

Over the past few decades, consumerism has grown so much so that people haven't realised what they're earning money to pay for. Perhaps we don't actually need what we purchase and the time put into earning money to pay for them can be put to better use. Although many families' income does cover the basics for their family, with no extra consumables. There's also the potential to get into debt for people who wouldn't usually have the cash to cover the extras and the very difficult consequences brought about by borrowing on a low income.

Its difficult to associate one thing with another, but I see links between rises in consumerism and rises in unemployment, family breakdown, anti-social behaviour, and depression and other mental health problems. Furthermore, this way of life perhaps limits our ability to spend time with our families, to show them love and attention that helps them to thrive physically and emotionally. Of course, the balance of family life is an element of such big subjects - there are many, many other reasons for these problems (and consumerism isn't the only causal factor), which I'm sure much more informed people could comment on instead of me.

So what I'd like is a political system that supports families, enables them to choose whether to both work, and to support single parent and low income families so that they can take care of their young family, rather than have to work all hours of the day. I don't know quite how the taxes and laws can be modified to redress things in favour of families (but hopefully the politicians can figure that out, and then I'll vote for them).