Living Arrows 17/52

Nice weather has meant a lot of time outdoors. Whole days have disappeared under the warming glare of the spring sun. Even this week, with the drop in temperature, we've still be busy out in the garden. This photograph was taken after a day in Manchester. I needed to buy some last minute things for a wedding on Friday, and Ebony is always in need of things, so we made a day out it. I had the nicest day walking around with her, trying on clothes and looking at make up. Finally, we are the Gilmore Girls I always dreamed we would be. I don't have the words to describe how much I love the sight of Ebony in these dungarees, but I was a BIG My Girl fan growing up (and still now, obviously) if that helps at all. 

Once again, I am running a little behind on these photo posts so I'm making up for lost time here. During the Easter holidays we went into Manchester for the day with some friends. It was a really lovely day, and this photo was taken at The Clore Studio in Manchester Art Gallery. I will write a bit more about this place soon, it's the perfect place to take kids in the city centre. 

And finally, a photo of Ebony with her new favourite toy. I can't explain how much she loves this water hose, it's yet another way for her to get lost in the rich games of her imagination. It's so lovely to see the games she comes up with, and see all her different likes and dislikes shining through now that she is getting older. 

Read All About It: Traditional Outdoor Childhood Activities In Decline

Firstly, look how tiny Ebony used to be! For this week’s Read All About It post, I thought I’d write about the importance of grazed knees, muddy fingernails and rosy cheeks. A friend shared this Parentdish post about the decline in traditional childhood activities. According to a recent survey commissioned by Eco Attractions Group, kids are spending less time outdoors than previous generations.

This doesn’t really come as much of a surprise, especially when you discover that children aged five to 16 spend an average of six and a half hours a day in front of a screen. It’s no wonder kids are missing out on the activities that made up the bulk of their grandparents’ childhoods. What with school, television and computer games there’s not really much time left to enjoy the outside world.

A child in the north west spends on average five hours a week outdoors, this is less than half of the time their parents would have spent playing outdoors as kids. As a result:

• 35% have never splashed in puddles
• 44% have never stomped through mud
• most children have never been on a family bike ride
• around half of all children haven’t made sandcastles on the beach
• around half of all children haven’t eaten a picnic anywhere but their own back gardens
• around 70% haven’t picked blackberries
• and about two thirds of children haven’t ever gone searching for insects

These figures are a bit scary. How can we expect children to learn about, love and respect nature if they never spend any time in it? How can they be expected to want to protect native wildlife if they never see it? How can they be mindful of the food they eat when they have no idea where it comes from?

Outdoor play is so important for developing children. Without walls in their way kids are able to let off steam by tearing across an open field. Climbing trees builds confidence as well as balance, strength and bravery. Splashing in puddles is one of simplest and most fun way to get your children excited about heading outside in bad weather. And mud is always going to be a hit with toddlers.

As parents, we worry about muddy clothes, ruined shoes, grazed knees and bumps. But our kids shouldn’t worry about that stuff. What will the laundry powder adverts of the future look like if there are no muddy clothes to be washed?! Children should be fearless adventurers soaking up the world around them. They should learn through play, push boundaries and seek out new experiences.

Three quarters of parents would like their children to spend more time playing outside, and around the same number admit to being part of the problem. If, as parents, we do not embrace the great outdoors then how can we expect our children to? I often hear UK parents talking about how much better kids have it in Australia, how children over there spend their free time outdoors instead of cooped up in front of screens. I have no idea if this is true, I would guess that there are plenty of kids in Australia glued to their x-boxes right now. And yet, you only have to have visited a local playground in the past couple of weeks to see what a difference a bit of sunshine can make to the visitor numbers.

I must be honest, I’m not really all that keen on trudging around in bad weather. And for that reason, when Ebony had just mastered walking, I made it my mission to spend time exploring nature with her. I blogged about it all here. We went to National Trust gardens, foraged for blackberries, collected conkers, paddled in streams and picked wild flowers. We went out in every kind of weather possible. We splashed in puddles, slid through mud, built snowmen and rolled down grass hills.

I’m so glad that Ebony has experienced so many of the outdoor activities I loved as a child. We are failing her in a couple of areas though. She hasn’t yet flown a kite, though I did get one recently from a charity shop so we should be able to tick that off soon. And she’s never been camping, mostly because we don’t have a tent. She has been motorhoming though, does that count? And we’ll be staying in a katas for a couple of nights over the summer.

Ebony is growing up and it won’t be long before she is starting nursery five days a week. The thought of losing that time with her makes me feel a little sick, so I’m going to make sure we make the most out of the weekdays we have left together. This article has inspired me to seek out some new outdoor adventures with my little adventurer, and see what fun we can have outside our front door.

How much time do your little ones spend playing outdoors each day?

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A Letter To My Daughter

Dear Ebony,

It finally feels like summer has arrived. We’ve spent the past few weeks knee deep in mud in the garden. I’ve been doing a lot of gardening, and you’ve been helping me. You have a gardening set, and can often be found, squatting over a pile of mud, exclaiming “A worm, mummy! Be careful of him, he’s very precious!” Together we have gently relocated hundreds of worms over the past few weeks. You love finding new creatures in the garden. Every ladybird, centipede and bee gets your full attention.

We’ve been spending full days out there, and the hours have flown by. You have the most wonderful imagination and I love hearing the stories you come up with as you play beside me. Most of your toys have to go to hospital, and some of them even end up ‘deaded’.

You have recently developed a love of playing Pirates, and I stumble out of my office on a weekend to find you and Laurie huddled over a treasure map. You do the best pirate voice I have ever heard, and say things like, “Ahoy mateys, yeah mate, yeah” like some kind of mancunian/pirate hybrid. You love digging for treasure, especially in the bit of garden that is definitely finished and absolutely not a random digging site.

You don’t let anybody tell you what to do, which I love but also secretly wish you would let me tell you what to do. You get very cross and shout at anybody who tries to boss you about, which the woman from the charity found out very recently. The next time we went in, totally unprompted, you apologised to her for shouting and my heart melted. She also told you she deserved it which you smugly nodded along to.

You love your daddy so much and always ask whether it’s the weekend so you can play with him. Your weekends together are filled with adventure, make believe and laughter. You often tell me you miss him during the week, and always hope he’ll get home before bedtime so that you can tell him about your day.

You wake up early and, much to our annoyance, demand breakfast right away. After that, you’re happy to read to yourself in your bedroom, quietly looking at the pictures in your books. Every morning I find a carpet of story books sprawled across your bedroom floor. This morning I found you in your teepee having a picnic with all of your toys.

You have recently developed a love of dressing up, and often walk into the room dressed as ‘Elsa’. In actual fact, you are dressed as Cinderella but because the dress is blue you think it is Elsa’s dress. I haven’t told you otherwise but dread the day when an older child breaks the news to you. Hopefully you won’t believe them and will simply think them a fool.

You have lots of dolls and refer to them all as your babies. You also spend a lot of time talking about your eggs, and telling me that one day you will have babies of your own. Girls, of course, two of them. Both called Ebony. You think it’s very unfair that you have to wait until you’re older to have babies of your own, and would really much prefer to have them right now so you could make them sleep in your wellies and throw them up trees.

You seem so old and wise now at three. You are still calm and observant, though can kick up a fuss when you think it’s necessary. You love your friends, and are always excited to see your grandparents. You can often be heard randomly saying life-completing sentences like, “Mummy, I just love you so much.”

You are going to be a bridesmaid next week, something I am secretly very terrified about, but which you are hugely excited for. You play weddings most days, and tell me about how you can’t wait to marry Emma. You are excited for dancing at the reception, but a little bit worried about what who will hold your flowers whilst you do that.

You are kind and caring and compassionate. You are fierce and strong and brave. You are independent, funny and sassy. You are everything.

xx

Wicked Uncle Toy Shop Review

There is absolutely no way in the world Ebony could claim to be short on toys. She has a playroom full of stuff, but when Wicked Uncle offered me the chance to try out their service, I decided I couldn’t refuse. I was offered a £40 voucher to buy some products from their site.

Wicked Uncle differs from other toy sites because it is a dedicated gift giving service. Far from being aimed at parents, the site is used by aunts, uncles and grandparents looking to buy presents for birthdays, Christmases and other occasions. I remember from my own pre-motherhood days that buying gifts for children can be stressful. If you have no idea about child development (and why would you when you don’t have kids?) then it can be hard getting presents that are just right (I definitely always used to buy things way too advanced for the age of child).

If you don’t fancy spending your lunch break surrounded by screaming children in an overwhelming toy shop, then Wicked Uncle is definitely the site for you. Wicked Uncle have a great selection, and have pretty much every type of toy you could wish for. It took me a really long time to decide what to get. The toys are ranked by popularity allowing you to get a good idea of the sorts of gifts  being given to children of different ages - helpful if you’re not really a children person yourself.

Wicked Uncle have a good selection of gift wrap, and will hand write the cards with a personalised message. They even include a pre-written thank you postcard for the child to send to you! If you order a birthday present from them, they will automatically remind you of the birthday again next year. I think this is pretty clever, I’m terrible for forgetting birthdays and really only ever remember because Facebooks tells me on the day.

After a long and intensive search, I decided upon the firefighter’s water sprayer (£17.95), the vegetable grow mat (£10.95) and the space torch and projector (£6.95). The website was easy to use, and the stuff arrived really quickly. The postman knocked at the door just a couple of days after I placed my order. I hid the package away for a while because I didn’t really fancy standing in the rain with the firefighter toy (terrible mother, I know), but luckily the weather has picked up so we’ve been able to test out the toys.

The fireman’s water sprayer is hands down the best toy ever. It has a plastic backpack bit that you fill with water, and then a hose (essentially a super soaker style thing) that you can shoot water with. We have already had hours (and hours) of fun with this in the garden. It’s well made and brightly coloured. This is absolutely definitely the perfect toy for a three year old. Ebony loves running around the garden ‘putting out fires’, and even answers the fire station phone with an “Oh goody!” (let’s hope she is never actually a firefighter). As an added bonus, I haven’t had to water any of my flowers for quite a while now because of the conveniently placed imaginary fires.

The space torch was also a hit, though I let Laurie do that one with her. It projects images of space onto the wall, and there are a number of different slides to choose from. My own space knowledge is rather limited and after realising I didn’t know what any of the planets were called, I handed it over to Laurie. I also ordered the vegetable grow mat which looks amazing. The mat is pre-planted with vegetable seeds, so all you need to do is bury the mat and take care of it until it’s time to harvest the vegetables. We’re in the middle of a big garden project so at the moment don’t have the space to plant it just yet. There are piles of rubble and mud pretty much everywhere you look, so I’m keeping the mat until we have a little more space.

I thought Wicked Uncle was a great site, and really love the products I chose. The only negative thing I have to say about the experience is how toys are categorised on the site. Everything is split by gender, and that’s something I really don’t like. Ebony might be a girl, but she loves dinosaurs and firefighters as much as the next kid. She likes fairies and princesses too, but it’s not all she likes. I had a look through both the girls and boys sections on the site, and noticed that a lot of the products I love simply weren’t included in the girls section.

I’d hate to think that Ebony would miss out on a gift she’d love simply because of her genitals. I understand why many sites choose to offer a gender division for clueless gift buyers who simply want to choose something quickly, but it certainly shouldn’t be the only way the site is organised. I much prefer to look at things by age or by toy category. I think it would be great if Wicked Uncle considered rearranging their site so that more little girls can enjoy awesome presents like the firefighter hose.

Perhaps not all boys lust after Elsa dolls, and maybe not all girls are crazy about cars, but let’s let them make these decisions for themselves rather than restricting what options they have to choose from simply because of their sex. I would absolutely recommend this website to anyone looking to buy a present for a child, but I’d encourage them to check out both the boys and girls sections.

Wicked Uncle very kindly offered me a £40 voucher in exchange for this review, but all words and opinions are my own. You can find out more about Wicked Uncle on their website.

Read All About It: Talking About Abortion

Jemima Kirke (Jessa from Girls) spoke publicly about abortion this week. It was reported by a number of gossip magazines, broadsheets and television press, that Jemima had filmed a video for the Draw the Line campaign. The campaign is run by The Center for Reproductive Rights. This US organisation campaigns for women to have access to safe, legal reproductive health care. The Draw the Line campaign encourages women to share their personal stories to remove the stigma associated with abortion.

Jemima Kirke has joined a number of other celebrities in supporting this campaign. Other celebrity supporters include Meryl Streep, Amy Poehler and Sarah Silverman. Jemima filmed a short video of her talking openly and honestly, without shame and embarrassment, about her abortion. You can watch her video here:

I chose to write about this news story this week thanks to a political hustings I attended at the weekend. One of the candidates, when asked about euthanasia, happened to mention that his religious beliefs prevented him from supporting this and (I’ve forgotten the exact wording he used) any changes to abortion law. There were no opportunities for a follow up question, so I didn’t get to find out his exact views on abortion. Would he support further restrictions on abortions, like those suggested by Conservative MP Nadine Dorries in the current parliament?

The idea of an MP who values the word of God above any science is more than a little bit terrifying to me. We know that women need safe access to abortion, and that without this many women suffer infection, illness and even death. Ignoring this fact, and all of the science out there about fetal development and survival rates, could potentially put women at risk.

Jemima shared her story to fight stigma, raise awareness and show how important access to legal, safe abortion is. And I wanted to help her do that.

This is a post for the Read All About It linky. You can link up any recent post that relates to a news story - it could be local, national or international news. Feel free to share your thoughts on Katie Hopkins, the election debates or the emotional problems facing young girls. Whatever you write about, link it up below. All you need to do is feature the Read All About It badge on your post, and then fill in the linky form below. I look forward to reading your posts!

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Read All About It: Inspired By Sheila Kitzinger

The Read All About It Linky is a place for bloggers to share recent posts that relate to news or current affairs. This could be anything from a serious post about an international news story to a funny response to a newspaper column. You can write about local, national or international news, and can write about absolutely any news story that interests you. With that in mind, here’s my post for this week.

I stumbled across Sheila Kitzinger’s name by chance on Sunday. I was researching for an article about the pain of birth, and happened across a reference to her views on birth. A few hours later, as I was about to switch off my laptop and leave the world of work firmly behind me, I saw her name again. This time on the BBC News site, Sheila Kitzinger had passed away.

I immediately checked Twitter and, as expected, my timeline was filled with midwives, birth activists and mothers talking about what an inspirational woman Sheila Kitzinger was. They spoke of her achievements, her campaigns and her beliefs, but most of all they talked about how her work had impacted on their lives.

If ever you were looking for proof that one person can make a difference, Sheila Kitzinger would be it. She was an inspiring activist and academic, a powerful combination. She studied anthropology and was fascinated by birth. At a time when birth in Britain was very much controlled by obstetricians, Sheila Kitzinger helped women to take an active role in the decision making process. She introduced the birth plan, and through it helped women to make informed decisions about their care.

Birth plans are not set in stone, and many births sadly do not go to plan. But the process of writing a birth plan is in itself empowering. First of all you must read up on the pain relief and birth options available to you before making an informed choice about the kind of care you want. Before the birth plan was introduced, many women gave little thought to such things, and the commonly held view was that the obstetricians were the experts and so should make the decisions.

At a time when episiotomies were common practice, Sheila Kitzinger wrote a paper arguing that it would be better to allow things to tear naturally if such a thing were to happen at all. This paper inspired midwives to be begin questioning birth practices at their places of work. Just three weeks after Sheila Kitzinger’s paper was released the number of episiotomies at one hospital fell from 70 to just 40 percent. They are no longer considered to be standard procedure, and the rate of episiotomies is now down to 13 percent in the UK.

Sheila Kitzinger was a home birth activist who believed low risk women should have the option of delivering at home. As one of those women, I will always be grateful to people like Sheila Kitzinger who paved the way for modern home births. I can imagine no better place to give birth than in the comfort (and privacy) of my own home. When I think back to my daughter’s birth three years ago, I remember the candlelight, the quiet and the wonderful support of my husband and midwife. I really could not have had a more perfect experience.

I’ve read quite a few articles about Sheila Kitzinger since discovering her just yesterday, and one of the things that most stood out to me was the work she did with prisoners. This is probably partly because my dad worked with prisoners for years, and partly because the things she campaigner against seem so barbaric it’s hard to believe they ever happened. Sheila Kitzing campaigned for an end to prisoners being handcuffed during childbirth. The practice had been introduced by a Conservative government keen to prove just how seriously they took crime. As a result, women were forced to labour whilst handcuffed to prison officers. Thanks to a strong and emotive campaign, this was banned in 1996. You can find out more about all of this here.

Sheila Kitzinger was a feminist who campaigned for women to have the freedom to make choices about how and where they wanted to give birth. She championed individuals, fought for change and supported women in their quest for their ideal birth. And I for one will be eternally grateful for her achievements.

Please link up your posts below. Any news and current affairs related posts are welcome, no matter how big or small. All you need to do is include the Read All About It badge on your post, and then share your link below. I look forward to reading your posts!

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A Little Trip to Amsterdam

Last week, with the help of some friends, I finally cut the metaphorical umbilical cord between Ebony and myself. I went all the way to Amsterdam, all by myself, without a three year old in sight, for two whole nights. This might not sound like much, but it was the first time I’d really left Ebony, and definitely the furthest away from her I have ever been.

The trip was booked months ago, long before I’d even spent a night away from Ebony, and for ages it felt like a distant event. Then suddenly it was two weeks away and I needed to start preparing Ebony for my trip away. Or so I thought. In actual fact, she wasn’t bothered in the least, she seemed more excited about Laurie being off work to play with her than she was about me disappearing for two nights. Though she did mention that she’d quite like Laurie to take her to Amsterdam while he was off work.

It’s been way too long since I’ve travelled on my own. I’ve totally forgotten how to play it cool. My days of carefree travel are firmly behind me. On the way to Amsterdam I felt so stressed about having to go through security that I bit my lip so hard it bled. Cool.

How are you meant to pack all of your things into hand baggage? The mere concept doesn’t even make any sense. Lots of my things are liquids, how is this ever going to work?! Argh.

Our hotel was… erm… basic. Think backpacking chic without the chic, but we didn’t spend much (any?) time there so it didn’t matter so much. We stayed near Dam Square which we hadn’t realised was quite so close to the red light district, and our apartment was on the outskirts of that area meaning a wrong turn took you face to face with, I can only assume, the reality of human trafficking.

Amsterdam is such a beautiful city, I really love the styles of the houses there. Tall and eclectic, with great big windows, towering above the city’s canals. There are bikes as far as the eye can see, and nowhere near as many cars as you would find in a city over here. It’s a really lovely city, and one I think would be a great place to live, assuming you were really far away from the red light district and the hideous men that area attracts.

We stumbled across a vegan cafe and shop whilst we were wandering around one day, it was called Vegabond and is definitely worth a visit if you’re down that way (somewhere near Anne Frank’s house). I finally managed to get hold of one of those Vego that I’ve been seeing on social media for all eternity. So good, like ferrero roche in a bar, my only regret is not buying more. I only bought one, and that was a gift for Laurie which I’d eaten in its entirety before I even left Amsterdam*. They had loads of amazing looking food in the shop, and a few cakes and salads on sale in the small cafe area.

It was really lovely to go out drinking during the day, and drink long into the night without worrying about how awful the toxic combination of hangover plus three year old would feel in the morning. It was nice waking up of my own accord rather than being dragged kicking and screaming by a hungry (and hair pull-y) child. And it was nice being near canals without feeling absolutely petrified that I would have to jump in to save my own offspring (does anyone else share this irrational yet overwhelming fear of canals and locks?)

But it was also really lovely to get home again and hear Ebony say the world’s most beautiful sentence, “I missed you, mummy.”

* I am not the world’s worst wife though, I did replace this with gin.

Living Arrows 14/52

Ebony has developed a real love of Lyme Park. My parents take her quite regularly, and she loves it. They eat a picnic in the car, spend hours on the adventure playground, and have a drink in the cafe before returning home. 

We took a trip there over Easter weekend. It was raining, a lot, and there were puddles everywhere. She had fun wading through the deep puddles, and shrieking that some puddle had splashed in her boots. It was lovely to take some time away from working and have a proper day out as a family for a change. 

Read All About It: HIV Treatment For Foreign Nationals

Read All About It is a weekly linky where you can share posts about news and current affairs. These can be anything and everything - from a response to a local news story, to your take on an international scandal. Whatever it is, it’s welcome here. All you need to do is link up your posts below.

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I was on holiday when the debates aired, so I didn’t catch them live. I watched them on catch up the next night, knowing it would totally dampen the relaxed holiday vibe I had going on. It took us two hours to watch the first 40 minutes of the debate, because we had to keep stopping and ranting at the television. And pouring more gin, of course.

I knew that the debate was going to annoy me. I hate how politicians speak in half truths and misinformation, manipulating facts for their own means, and focusing more on great soundbites than the actual truth. This is infuriating enough when it’s the main parties doing this, but when hate-fuelled idiots like Nigel Farage are invited into my living room to spew their racist crap all over my carpet, it really makes me gin boil.

Nigel Farage is a tiresome bigot who adopts a stance of self-proclaimed bravery at being the person to say ridiculously idiotic things in the media. As though it takes some kind of guts to say sexist and racist things out loud. Damn those pay-deducting wombs.

During the debates, Nigel Farage very nearly caused my head to explode by implying that the NHS is in crisis because there are 7,000 diagnoses for HIV on the NHS each year, and that 60% percent of these are for foreign nationals. Obviously, this was manipulated nonsense. And thank goodness the internet exists so that it’s easy to see how many lies our politicians regurgitate during election season. If you’re interested in the facts about HIV diagnoses on the NHS, you can find them here. To summarise, Farage exaggerated the number of new diagnoses by over 16%. He also, perhaps unsurprisingly, exaggerated the number of foreign nationals diagnosed. When he talked about  the (greatly exaggerated) number of foreign nationals diagnosed with HIV, he failed to mention that many of these may have been infected whilst in the UK. It’s hardly the attention grabbing story of health tourism he tried to spin, is it?

Offering HIV treatment free to foreign nationals on the NHS only came into effect in 2012, so it can hardly be blamed for crippling the NHS. Not only that, but experts welcomed the move as a way of reducing the strain on the NHS by ensuring diagnosis and treatment for an increased number of those infected, thus reducing the spread of this infection.

When the free treatment was introduced, Lisa Power, Policy Director for Terrence Higgins Trust (who let’s just assume knows a little bit more than Nigel Farage does about this issue), said: “We strongly support this move by the Government to bring HIV in line with all the other sexually transmitted infections which are free from charge on public health grounds. It makes no sense to deny people medication that dramatically reduces the risk of them passing on their infection to others. Leaving people without treatment also means the NHS pays far more further down the line when someone’s health fails and they need emergency care. These changes will protect more people from HIV infection in the UK and will save the NHS money in the longer term.”

Nigel Farage claims to believe that the NHS should be there for the ‘British people’ who have been paying into it for years. But that’s not the point of the NHS, is it? You don’t have to pay into it to enjoy the health care offered. My daughter hadn’t worked a day in her life (lazy), and yet the doctors didn’t turn her away when she was admitted with pneumonia as a baby. The quality of care you receive isn’t based on how much you’ve paid in, and thank goodness, because what a horrible world that would be. And yet, we know that UKIP are in favour of privatising the NHS, and creating a tiered healthcare system like they have in the US. You know, the US, the place we all gaze at and think ‘Wow, what a great healthcare system they have...’

With that in mind, Farage’s arguments for saving the NHS are even more ludicrous, when we know he has little intention of ever doing that. It appears it was simply another great way to get a dig in at those damn foreign nationals that are totally ruining our country’s health service. You know the ones I mean, our hardworking doctors and nurses. Tut.

What was most horrific about Farage’s comments, was the fact that they were seen as vote worthy. Not by the other politicians, of course, or by the audience who cheered at Leanne Wood’s response, true. But for it to have been said on television, UKIP must have felt it was going to attract positive attention.

And it did, which is just about the most sickening thing to have come out of this election so far. According to a YouGov poll, 50 percent of those questioned supported the idea that people coming to live in the UK being banned from receiving treatment on the NHS for a period of five years. Half of the people who will have the ability to vote for change in just a few weeks time, thought that Nigel Farage had made a good point. They weren’t outraged, sickened or disgusted with his comments. They thought he made sense.

Ok, I know the far right appeals to some people. Hateful people. Disturbed people. I know that, but I always assumed those people were a sick and twisted minority, not that they made up half of those eligible to vote. How have we ended up in a place where we support the refusal of free healthcare to those in need? Why are we approaching the election with an ‘us v them’ attitude? Why are people in support of the idea that basic human rights should only be available to certain people?

Nigel Farage seems to think we should put ‘our own people first’. Well, I think that’s a great idea. The 50 percent of voters who support Farage’s offensive suggestion are not my people. Not at all. So yeah, let’s put our own people first. The ones who need it. The ones who believe basic human rights should be available for all. And for those of you who don’t, for those of you who feel your birthplace guarantees you a higher place in the hierarchy, you are not my people.

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