#0030 Building the future

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Hey loved ones,

This week started our marathon run of school viewings starting with primary schools for my youngest and we’re preparing for sixth form open days with my eldest. I was proud this week as I got to impart some of my professional wisdom to him. As he’s gotten older I’ve been more and more conscious that this is a time where he’ll need to be poured into by his dad so they build a lot of memories and foundational values together in a way that I can’t as a woman. Luckily I picked well so I know that our values are shared.

So besides impromptu hugs, words of reassurance and generally keeping him alive, I am teaching the eldest how to build a website portfolio for his sixth-form applications. We were able to invest in his extra-curricular education from early - he started drama at five and piano around 6 - so he’s built quite an impressive body of work - that I can now help him display and shape the story we want the admissions teams to see. I’m out here like his built-in agent, publicist and hype woman alongside what we already do as mothers including spokesperson, carer, taxi-driver etc.

I’m taking the cream of what I know how to do professionally to help and teach him how to present the gem that he is to schools and it is giving me life to be able to do that for him. It made me realise just how much we can impart in our kiddies and that is part of our legacy.

Have you heard of ‘British values’?

On my first open day for the youngest, I was surprised to see a massive display entitled British values. I’d seen the same thing a few weeks back as part of my induction session for a new training course I was on. I’d asked the teacher why this part of the induction was necessary - it wasn’t lost on me that everyone in the room including the lecturer himself couldn’t claim Anglo-Saxon heritage - and his answer was so wishy-washy I don’t even remember what he said. He promptly read them out and moved on.

I can’t lie there’s a part of me that finds its title quite colonialist or nationalist I suppose is probably a better word. And a little bit arrogant and creepy??? When I looked into it seemed the Brits have done what they've always done well: taking something that isn’t theirs, rebranding it and selling it to the world (British Museum anyone?). I mean the components are what I would consider basic human rights and decency with nothing particularly British about it:

• Democracy

• Rule of Law

• Tolerance

• Individual Liberty

• Mutual respect

And in the grand scheme of things some of the headings are ambiguous like ‘rule of law’ and ‘democracy’ - what do those phrases truly mean to a child in reception or nursery? I went to do some more research and discovered on the .GOV website that this was something introduced under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government and was part of the government’s ‘Prevent’ strategy.

The premise? To stamp out radicalism and terrorism in this country. I wonder how that's going? With the amount of young people recently involved in the race riots including a 12 year old who ended up in court whilst his mum chose to go on holiday i’m not sure whether the message is penetrating? Maybe Rishi's idea of national service steeped in these British values wasn't such a bad one and should be given to those who were sentenced as part of the riots rather than burdening an already stretched prison service.

It's yet another example of someone in the Department of Education probably with no history of teaching making blanket decisions to suit a political agenda and not that of those they're educating nor their teachers. When I asked my eldest if he'd heard of it the closest he came was citizenship class. I'm hoping that while there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the values that his school thought the name was as ridiculous as it sounds.

Meet international property entrepreneur Lesley McKenley

This week is the final week The Black Female Narrative will go out in this way before simply being branded in my name. With that comes the last video I filmed in the summer which stars international property entrepreneur Lesley McKenley.

This. Woman. Spoke. Life.

I always say that I feel there is like BP and AP: before the pandemic and after the pandemic. It's felt like life got weightier after the pandemonium but Lesley seems to transcend that and I would too if I had built a STUNNING location in Barbados and spent my life living! In this interview Lesley discusses her philosophy on life and how she built her property portfolio that gives her own personal brand of freedom.

Whilst the route might not be for everyone, I think Lesley's idea of building a life you love is just so potent and something I'm trying to remind myself is possible no matter what stage or age you are in life. Check it out on YouTube now!

See you in our new phase, Loved One!