Another child gone

I nearly expired from ranting this morning. multimedia technology enabled me to simultaneously read an infuriating work email at the same time as listen to this story on the radio. So angry was I with both of these that I exploded into a coughing fit that took some minutes to subside, and hurt.

At the time, work irritated me most, but during the commute the schooling story just depressed me. Here is Radio 4's summary:

A mother is refusing to send her daughter to school because it will not let her wear earrings. Eight-year-old Alisha Dixon has not attended school for nearly a month.

It's a fair summary, but it doesn't convey the problem once the mother started talking - the interview was just bleak listening. The school is probably being inflexible and a little bit overly draconian on uniform - I neither like nor defend uniform policy in general. However, as soon as the mother started you realised it doomed. Having revealed that she pierced the girl's ears at four initially, she argued that once she had done them again at eight, she wasn't letting them be done again. She ended up saying 'I went to the papers because no-one was listening to me.' It had clearly never occured to her that four year olds, and probably eight year olds simply shouldn't have pierced ears, and people ignored her because this just isn't important.

However, this isn't really the point. What is central to this is her assumption that her view is so important that the school should abandon their policy (albeit one I also don't agree with) and - most importantly - such trivia are more important than her daughter's education. And you know - right there - that's a another child gone - education of so little consequence in the family that it would be a miracle if she comes out engaged and given the tools for a future career. People witter on about academic routes not being best for everyone, but it's pretty much a disaster if they don't even get to find out.

I'm sure the mother has nothing but her daughter's best interests at heart and it's this that makes it so depressing. She sounded caring, and interested in her daughter, but there was obviously no-one to tell her to grow up, stop wasting time, take the earrings out and send her back. Society isn't great to those without opportunities, but there are times when people really don't help themselves.