Dear Mr President, there are lots of things, other than childish ones, that deserve to be put away, writes LUCY KELLAWAY.
IT’S TIME to put away childish things, President Obama told the world last week. But is it really? And if so, why? Many childish things are really rather nice, and so to insist that they all be put away seems needlessly draconian.
Obama was quoting from St Paul (1 Corinthians, 13:11); but if one wants to play the let’s-pick-bits-out-of-the-Bible game there is plenty of evidence suggesting one should cling on to childish things for dear life.
“Except ye . . . become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven,” it says in Matthew, 18:3.
As a modern heathen I know that putting away childish things can be a big mistake. I’m glad I never put away the stuffed panda I was given as a christening present, and neither did I put away my love of Maltesers, which provide me with much comfort now, further into my fifth decade than Obama is into his. I have, however, put away liquorice fountains, Angel Delight and Cindy dolls, none of which I have any more use for.
Either way, it is a personal decision what best to hold on to and what to chuck, and each of us knows what is right for us.
I dare say Obama hoped his words would resonate beyond the toy cupboard and sweetie jar, but even so, they are feeble advice. If he meant that we should stop behaving like weaklings, clowns and simpletons, then I’m right behind him, though a bit puzzled that he thought such an uncontroversial view worth sharing with the entire nation.
If what he meant was that we should also abandon all other childish traits, including a desire to tell the truth however bad the consequences, then it is harder to agree.
It was a child, after all, that pointed out that the emperor had no clothes. Neither should we dream of putting away the childish focus on the job in hand. As Heraclitus put it: “Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.”
In the past week or so, I have come across four childish things that have been put away; the first two were bad things that we are better without, but the second two were precious and a shame to have cast aside.
The first banishment happened in my own head.
Last week I decided to stop behaving like an economic infant in copying what everyone else was doing. Since September I have been spinelessly keeping my purse shut for the simple reason that everyone else seems to have theirs shut, too.
Now I have turned my back on spinelessness and have decided to do some heavy counter-cyclical spending instead. In particular I’ve decided to have our entire, shabby house redecorated. I have been handsomely rewarded for this as an orderly queue of British builders has formed, each offering reasonable quotes and volunteering to start work right away.
Never has employing builders seemed less stressful. For people like me who are still in work, spending a lot of money is not only adult, it is sensible, satisfying and morally the right thing to be doing, given the power of the Keynesian multiplier.
The next childish thing to have been rightly cast aside is infantile training courses. I saw a press release the other day saying that half of all UK companies were taking axes to their management training programmes, which means that staff will no longer have to cuddle baby dolls and walk around barefoot in jam in the name of teambuilding.
While this is welcome, there is further work on putting-away that could be achieved in this area. I have just been invited to “Britain’s first Charisma Masterclass”, one ludicrous management training course thing that Obama never had any need to attend.
Meanwhile, other childlike things are being wiped out unnecessarily.
I notice the recession is making recruitment consultants show a most unpleasant adult side. In the past few days FT.com has been running jobs ads for some of the few jobs going in the financial sector – all of which are in Dubai.
The recruitment consultant has been deploying the heavy-handed authoritarianism that teachers use against recalcitrant children in a school playground.
At the top of each advertisement, before the bit where it lists the outstanding skills the successful candidate must have, there is a penitential paragraph that says:
“Please note the requirements below are not negotiable, if you do not fit the criteria please do not apply to the role. The Dubai team of WH Marks Sattin will block any time wasters from future vacancies.”
Too much childishness has also been banished at Davos. The Swiss resort will this week be a martyr to some of the least attractive traits of adulthood: self-importance, long-windedness and the ability to sit through politically correct sessions on corporate social responsibility without fidgeting.
Most tragically, visitors to Davos have put away the childish way of saying simple things in simple ways.
At a briefing in London at Accenture last week to discuss what was going to be discussed at Davos this week (a meeting about a meeting being a concept that no sensible child would ever tolerate), two new words were introduced to the business lexicon. “Optics” is a new noun referring to how things looked. And “to synchronise” is a new word for meeting people.
At Davos, a variant on Obama's quote from Corinthians would seem to apply: "When I was a child, I spake as a child. Now that I have become a man I have put away the dictionary and am making it up as I go along." – ( Financial Timesservice)
