At the beginning of last night's debate on the politics of wellbeing at the House of Commons, chair and organiser Derek Draper noted that if he'd hosted a meeting on the same topic when he'd worked in parliament, he'd have been lucky to get a quorum. Instead, the room was so packed out that half an hour into the discussion we had to move to a larger venue down the corridor to accommodate the interested parties who were continuing to arrive to hear Oliver James, Richard Layard, Neal Lawson, James Purnell, Tim Loughton and Sue Palmer talk on a subject that is now unquestionably in the mainstream.
A few observations about the night. This could only be the very beginning of a conversation. The discussion was inevitably sprawling: ranging from the meaning of happiness to the comparative effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy with other therapeutic methods, and from the impact of technology on family bonds to how much politicians can influence cultural mores. The audience itself was similarly disparate. From the tenor of the questions I'd guess there was a majority of therapeutic practitioners, as well as charity workers, writers, and a pleasing number of younger faces. Keeping this conversation going will require much more focus, and must find a way of connecting specific issues with those who have most to say about them.
Clarity is also needed about precisely what is meant by wellbeing: happiness, the absence of a vague zeitgeisty malaise, treating mental illness more proactively?
Inevitably, one of the most contentious areas discussed was childcare, in particular Oliver James' insistence that children under the age of three were best off being looked after by a parent. He was especially critical of those feminists he described as "men in skirts" - by which I assume he means professional middle-class women who want to return to work when their baby is less than his preferred age.
I have such an enormous amount of respect for Oliver's work, but I do wish that he'd be a wee bit more savvy. There's no point in needlessly alienating people who otherwise really want to be on your side. Though he caught himself last night, I've too often in the past few weeks of publicity for Affluenza heard him referring to "mothers" rather than "parents". Also, I'm reasonably familiar with the research on early years care myself, and I don't agree that it proves what Oliver says it does. Taken together, the data suggests that nurseries are the worst option for children up to the age of 18 months, while home-based care by nannies or child minders is significantly better than that provided by informal carers such as grandparents. But the studies also emphasised that the differences were small and that toddlers whose mothers were depressed or otherwise insensitive to their needs benefited from high quality nursery care.
Finally, it really was extraordinary the amount of time we spent referencing Margaret Thatcher, and not just because she was unveiling a bronze statue of herself down the hall. From child poverty to - as Neal Lawson phrased it - how we conceptualise what it means to be human and free, her shadow is a disturbingly long one.
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