Key Highlights :
Travelling solo with an 18-month-old child can be a daunting task, especially when it involves a long journey to the airport and a flight that will last for hours. It is a challenge that I recently faced and it made me think about the difficulties that those most vulnerable and in need of support and assistance have to face when it comes to accessing the world. Could the world be re-organised in a manner where priority is given to how it can be accessed by those most vulnerable, those most in need of support and assistance?
I recently moved to a remote area, and getting to the airport involves taking at least three trains and a total travel time of at least five hours. This can be quite daunting when travelling with a child, and I had to make the decision to head to Bergamo the day before our flight and stay the night in a hotel. It was an additional expense, but it was worth it for the good night’s sleep that both of us got. I have been feeling a sense of ease, an equanimity, and I narrowed the reasons for it down to being in possession of a sense of closure. Until recently, I had always found myself wondering about my choice to be so far from my family.
The intense September heat made being outdoors impossible in my new home. This felt challenging to our routine, since, on a daily basis, our child spends less than three of his wakeful hours indoors. In Dubai, because air conditioning is omnipresent, the extremity of the difference in temperature between indoors and outdoors feels insufferable. Over the week we were there, I ate superbly and enjoyed spending time with my family, but my body felt sluggish because of the lack of movement. Although our toddler didn’t mind having his playground time substituted with mall time, he did end up with a fever and a nasty cold that took more than a week to shake off.
I felt relieved to be back. I felt a sudden appreciation for all the things we could do outdoors, even when it was cold or raining. We had eschewed easy access to airports in lieu of sprawling meadows and pedestrian-friendly zones, and child-friendly libraries, parent-organised play centres, and five parks within our immediate vicinity. All the small luxuries that parents who live in big cities struggle to access.
Because the birth rate in Italy has dropped so significantly, we are offered money by the state to compensate for the lack of the ‘village’ to raise the child. Don’t get me started on how women disproportionately bear the brunt of it all, even in developed countries. Parents around the world are always getting a raw deal. Capitalism thrives on the labour economy that parents enable but does little to offer them a decent quality of life.
What if world politics, architecture, culture and society evolved through the prism of child welfare, with a view towards enabling the ideal conditions for children to thrive? What if we re-organised the world so that we thought, first and foremost, about how it can be accessed by those most vulnerable, those most in need of support and assistance? Would all lives then be considered equally grieveable?
It is clear that the current system of politics and economics does not prioritize the needs of the vulnerable. Capitalism thrives on the labour economy that parents enable but does little to offer them a decent quality of life. Political machineries have consistently toyed with our notions of what constitutes ‘a good life’. We need to re-organise the world so that priority is given to how it can be accessed by those most vulnerable, those most in need of support and assistance. This will ensure that all lives are considered equally grieveable and that the needs of the vulnerable are met.