The presidents of five royal colleges and expert organisations have called for a sea change in British attitudes towards breastfeeding. This would mean that we stop starving our children of the magical elixir and creating generations of shrivel-brained and bloaty-bodied citizens. It would also prevent us showing up so dismally in the world breastfeeding rankings. As part of the need to break down the “multiple barriers” between mothers and the successful wielding of their mammarian equipment, the experts suggest teaching schoolchildren about the practise and its benefits.
It’s an admirable intention, undoubtedly, but if we are going to heap another item on to the already overfull plate of the average school curriculum, there are many more life skills that could go into the mix as well. For example:
1. Full mastery of Facebook’s privacy settings
The precise reasons given regarding the need for such a skill to be adjusted according to child’s age group and number of times he/she has already been approached by an online paedophile.
2. Genuinely useful cookery skills
Rice shouldn’t be a personal rubicon you cross only when you’re in your 30s. A 10-year-old should be able to master a baked potato with a variety of fillings, understand that Starbursts are not fruit and that Coke is not a food group. (Flipside – they must learn that clean eaters on Instagram should be roundly dismissed.) Schoolchildren should also be taught how to roast a chicken, along with the deflating but necessary knowledge that nothing else in life comes close to the ratio of effort to reward that this particular act provides.
3. Financial literacy
They should learn what interest is, why interest is, how credit cards work and how no one on God’s good earth has the slightest intention of enriching you by the smallest degree without enriching themselves ever so much more. So, check the small print and then check it again – you have missed something, for sure.
4. Detecting drivel
A line-by-line debunking of every entry on Gwyneth Paltrow’s site Goop as an inoculation against every form of balls-out claptrap they will come across in life.
5. History
All of history. So that they know nothing good or bad is immutable, new or unavoidable. Except climate change. And so to …
6. Basic survival skills
How to dig a well, purify water, make a solar oven, use a crossbow, dress a wound, live without electricity.
Good luck, kids.
