Adaptations

Shortly after arriving on this off shore shoal in the North Sea, I wrote a post in which I went on and on about the blessings of a strong middle class and how I had miraculously landed in the bosom of one of its last remaining outposts.

Well, I must have been too tired to keep my eyes open and/or my brain sufficiently nourished when I was writing this or maybe I was simply blinded by all the flashy two- seaters speeding past.

While we may indeed live in a middle class neighborhood, everyone around us is trying to be anything but that. Just everywhere else, the middle class is under such pressure it seems that nobody likes to remain in it, if they can help it. People do everything to move up and out before it implodes and all that’s left will be a couple of bent Volvo hubcaps.

And by that I mean virtually anything. At times it borders on the obscene, especially with parents and their children. From day one in a child’s life all energy is spent on positioning her or him for the big run up the ladder.

Local magazines abound in advertisement for elite preschools, extra-curricular this and that, and distinguished ‘independent’ (i.e., private schools) including training sessions on how to get into one of them. And sadly, parents buy into all this (not just the magazines).

They virtually inhale what they hear, see, or read and with it also the smelly old school us-against-them mentality.

I am not much of a flag swinging socialist but this here has the metallic smell of New Age Darwinism. Funny enough, Darwin said that it’s not the strongest or the smartest who will make the cut “but the ones who are most adaptable.”

So, maybe it’s time to relax and wait until the last one drops dead. It’s too bad for the kids, though. But maybe they’ll learn to adapt as well. The question is...to what.