Afternoon, all…
I’ve just caught up with the Adventures of Ash and Ada (Alf optional), and wondered whether - and tell me if this is too farfetched - she’s lining herself up for a prospective political career once she moves to London.
I mean, consider it - she’s ‘aged out’ (how genuinely horrible/despicable that concept is) of her Career in Underwear; her children will be at school soon and, even if legislation is not introduced/passed re: monetising those who can’t consent, they may be evermore resistant to appearing on camera, have lost the ‘cute factor’ associated with extreme youth, or subsumed beneath the next wave of ‘influencers’. So what does she do? I can’t imagine her on OnlyFans or similarly grotty sites; she’d get too much pushback as it would clash with her feminist stance, apart from anything else. I doubt she wants to train for a new career. So… Minister for Women, is it? Testing the waters on TM to register her in the public consciousness?
The big problem is that she ‘speaks’ for a very small subsection of women: middle class, bourgeois and materialistic ones. She has made no attempt to engage with the largest group of women, who indeed are largely (and shamefully) invisible: working class ones.
Working class women are underrepresented in a multitude of ways - working class mothers even more so. Single mothers who are working class even more than that. Single mothers who are working class and come from minority ethnic backgrounds even more. What could an influencer, who is given everything she hints she wants (or openly demands), have to offer such women? Women from more diverse backgrounds? Women who may have had fewer educational and professional opportunities? Women who have not had the privileges or chances available to Ashley? Women on the breadline? Women working two jobs, minimum wage jobs, who have caring responsibilities, who have no time to concern themselves with gender ideologies or climate change or the immigration/asylum debate (two VERY different things which do not collapse into a single issue, Ashley)? Women with whom she may disagree on every topic, yet whom she would have to treat without fear or favour, without judgment or criticism? I just can’t see her managing to speak for the working class, for people largely marginalised by the middle class chatterati. And I can’t see them accept her as a role model, prime example of motherhood, or someone to emulate.
The lack of working class voices in public discourse is a major problem for all political parties and perspectives. When Ashley cites statistics re: childcare, of whom is she thinking? Herself? She has money to burn on PTs, unnecessary aeroplane flights and private hairdressers; what would she do if she were a carer on £10 an hour in this economic climate? When Ashley says it’s ‘okay’ for Alf to be neurodiverse, that it doesn’t matter (although when either she or one of her minions came on here and had a pop at my own autism, she/they certainly thought it mattered), has she considered what such a condition would represent to a working class woman who could not afford a diagnosis, whose child may go to a failing school where his/her condition was not picked up, that their learning and potential could be greatly inhibited, and that their neurodiversity could be misread as challenging and antisocial behaviour - which could lead to lack of educational attainment or employment opportunities? (Phew, what a long sentence!) When Ashley bemoans men in general and their purported lack of engagement with their children/families, has she considered what happens to single mothers, abandoned women, survivors of DV/SA, generational lack of fathers/fatherhood?
No. Everything comes from a middle class perspective. The upper classes/aristocracy are a convenient scapegoat re: wealth disparity and a source of cultural entertainment (to wit, her horrible approach to Kate’s absence/surgery/revelation of her tragic diagnosis, and her wish to present Meghan as a victim). Her ‘bad’ day merely shows how entitled she is - unable to deal with the children she willingly brought into the world, calling upon her non-husband to charge across London to rescue her like something out of a 1940s film, her inability to cope with the smallest possible iota of adversity. How does she plan to get through life and motherhood? What is she going to do when Alf’s school demands she deal with and have assessed his ND traits, or if Ada has behavioural problems, or the teen years in general? How is she going to instill resilience in either child? What kind of role model is she, that she films herself weeping because she encountered some adversity?
TLDR? Don’t go into politics, Ashley, because it requires humility, empathy, hard work, sometimes vicious levels of scrutiny and judgment of every part of your character, and the need to fall on your sword for the party if a higher-up has fucked up. Don’t represent yourself as a voice for women without researching, engaging with and understanding working class women. Don’t say it’s ‘okay’ for a vulnerable child to be ND without understanding that life is incredibly hard for children who don’t conform to evermore restrictive behavioural norms. Don’t embarrass yourself on national television by going off-piste with antigovernment rhetoric if you don’t have all the facts and evidence at your fingertips. Don’t demand kindness from others when you display none. Don’t demand pity and understanding from those who have lives that are actually challenging, those living in poverty, those who have no help and those who never, ever have any time for themselves.
Sorry to inflict the longest post ever on you all, but I started work at 0400 with overseas students and I’m feeling crabby.
. But the normal response isn’t to continue to baby and stunt your toddler. You find ways give them more attention and make them feel safe again and they get over it. I agree not to pressure them or shame them, but you need to encourage and help them to behave appropriately for their age. 
