Protest marches

and here comes chucky who never knows the facts but likes to make them up...THERE has never been ANY independenc marcher arrested during or after a march ..speak to Police Scotland if you dont belive me .Its a carnival atmosphere and if you're fightened by people singing ,enjoying themselves bands and Banghra drums then I'm sorry for you .
There have been in the past month THREE arrests of people causing trouble with the YES bikers ,3 men out simply to cause problems and thats not counting the clowns who try to side swipe us with their butchers aprons as we walk past .As far as I can see its the LOW lifes that come to wave it...the guy who is always there PAID folk £20 a head in apub to stand outside and harangue the marchers.Proud to one of them ? Good for you!!

If the protesters are in Portsmouth I hope they are rounded up and prosecuted, not one of them are fit to lick the boots of the people who served our country.

JenniferEccles said:" people commenting on here are quite correct in stating that the rent a mob protesters are all left wing."

That's not true though is it. People protest about all sorts of things.

Those protesting against the war with Iraq were not all left wing, just sensible.

Protesters against chopping down some trees in Sheffield were not all left wing, they just liked their trees.

People just want their opinions to be noticed and to be listened to, whatever they are protesting against.

Lindylou51. I do agree with the feeling of distaste when seeing these little tots older children holding their placards, It does seem out of place to me and terribly wrong in many instances since the children are too young to understand and make up their own minds on the subject. I hated it when recently some children were interviewed and clearly repeated mummy and daddy's views learned at the table or in the car.
Was it Greenham Common where we saw the arrival of babies and children on the scene of protest? I remember seeing some in a news report. But the scenes there became nasty so I imagine the children must have been moved away. Does anyone remember? Yet the Police there became very rough in their handling of the women. A friend of mine told me she had her breasts grabbed and rubbed by a policeman under the guise of pulling her away from the fence.

MaizieD. You are so right! We have worked to attain a high standard of farming and animal husbandry in Europe only to leave and start all over again with the horribly low standards across the rest of the world. It does not just apply to chicken, but pork, lamb, and beef are not afforded the standard which we insist upon here. I have stopped eating anything but British meat. If it is dearer I just eat less. Also, when I used to travel, I tried to be careful about what I ate.

paddyann. I didn't understand what you meant by:
"and here comes chucky who never knows the facts but likes to make them up...THERE has never been ANY independenc marcher arrested during or after a march". I looked at chucky's posts and couldn't find the reference to an arrest. Also you said "chucky who never knows the facts but likes to make them up"
I take strong exception to that personal indictment. I can prove that you are wrong and that chucky has written may facts and not made up things. On another thread recently she was extremely well-informed and helped all of us understand the subject in hand with the information she gave which she learned from the original source which disseminates the facts she gave us.
I think you owe chucky an apology for your indiscriminate, misleading and unfair remark.

Ilovecheese. I think there are many peaceful protests where as you say:
"People just want their opinions to be noticed and to be listened to, whatever they are protesting against."
There are just so many types of protest and marches going on nowadays.

The OP was asking about the babies in buggies and young children being in marches where there is noise and chanting and shouting. I agree with her, it does not seem the right environment to me for a little child. It could be frightening. It most certainly could be boring. It could be cold and wet. It would be so much better to be at home or in the park playing.

I can't help wondering, since we are looking at the wisdom of taking young children on protest marches, what it is actually teaching them?
All marches are in essence to protest. The idea that when you can't get what you want you march for it and yell is not what we teach our children in the home. Yet many marches and protest movements in history have been glorious and brave and have moved civilisation forward, shown injustice to the poor and, as the Dagenham girls showed, demanded equal pay for the same work whether the worker be male or female. The "Ban the Bomb" marches may have seemed very moral and right and to be worth instilling in our children's minds.

So the cause would seem to be the criterion on which to judge the worthiness of bringing our children to the experience of the march.

I cannot help wondering how the people on the Independence march justify their cause. I would love to hear from them. I cannot get away from the fact that they are trying to reverse the referendum vote to leave the EU. It seems to me that this is behind their marching. This I do not understand. This I do not want young children to learn. For it teaches them;
"When people have been given a fair chance to choose about something, and most people have chosen one thing, in this case to leave the EU, so the decision is fairly made that we shall leave, then children, if you do not want that, then go on a march and shout protests until you get your own way ! It does not matter that more people voted to leave. We want to stay so we shall march and protest until we get our own way.

It is exactly the same as when mummy says, "No, only one ice cream!" But Billy wants another, so he lies down on the floor and screams and bangs his feet and causes such a disruption that mummy gives in.

I think marching, protesting, refusing to accept the decision fairly won, just because they don't want it, is not what I want children to learn.

Just for Chucky ...this is the usual "unionist* that turns up to cause trouble ....watch it and see for yourself the low lifes they are .

youtu.be/Vmt9T-WrsvQ

Surely the point is ' whichever' side is behaving in an abusive, threatening manner it should not matter a jot. Physical threats and contact are now common place and I find it perverse some seem to think it is OK for ' my lot' to do it but not the ' other lot', that is an hypocrisy but principles to some seem to be very one sided.

They are ALL as dumb as one another.

As for the OP question then I would not take my child to any protest march as things may start out peaceful but things can take a turn for the worse very quickly and you are in the middle of it all possibly. Why would you take the chance with your children's safety.

Violent behaviour, swearing, looking at the words and pictures on some of the placards ( if they are old enough to understand) is not what I personally would want my child to experience.

I think parents are frankly sending out a mixed message to their children but certainly one that makes them believe this is typical adult behaviour and it is not typical of adult behaviour, it usually belongs to the drunks on a night out.

There isn’t just one type of demo or protest march, so we can’t say that they are all bad/ good/ unsuitable for children / people in wheelchairs etc - so stop making generalisations. There was a march to save our local maternity unit recently lots of kids and prams on that one with placards saying “ I was born in xx unit” on it. And eventually the campaign was successful and the unit was saved. The March was nothing like “ drunks on a night out”, what a slur. Blanket “ protest marches are all wrong/ a waste of time/ unsuitable for anyone not able bodied/ under 18” whatever, sorry, that’s just wrong we are entitled to free speech , that’s what many of our mums and dads risked their lives for.

crystaltips

I take your point there is a difference to say protesting outside of your lical hospital, Council office etc. so I should have made it clear I do not generalise.

However I stand by my opinion that I would not place my child in the middle a protest march that most people would not be surprised to see had turned violent, accept that some are there to cause trouble and find abusive behaviour acceptable.

If you are of the belief things cannot turn quickly into abuse and violance and children are in no harms way then all that means is we hold a different option.

paddyann. On a public thread there is no such thing as "Just for Chucky"

Also what has it to do with the OP? She asked about taking small children on marches/protests.

Please keep to the subject and don't start sniping at one person. It is not fair to the OP, to the person you are attacking or to the rest of us.

crystaltipps. How I agree with you! I thought the OP was maybe thinking of the recent very well covered on TV march about the Brexit situation. That had many children and toddlers in it as shown in the Press etc.

But to make a "one rule fits all" statement is completely impossible and unsuitable as you so clearly said!

I remember when Glenfield Hospital in Leicester was under threat. At our Church one of the children had had his life saved by some heart surgery there. He was a baby. Without that hospital the nearest would have been so far away the family would have had terrible trouble either being with the sick baby or looking after his older brother. So many of us campaigned and children did have banners saying this hospital saved my life.

So that is one example of a good reason to have toddlers with banners.

I do worry about very big marches. However well organised, the fact that they are big and highly publicised can easily lead to crowd problems, even difficulty finding a loo. My friends said it was very difficult getting transport home, even getting back to the station after the last big "People's Vote" march in London. To cope with young children's needs in under these circumstances would be stressful.

So the answer as it nearly always is, becomes "*It depends* upon several factors...."