Another side to 'free movement' -

[chessie]

OK we' had the referendum;  we're having to listen to both sides complain and berate one another....

One of the big points to come out of this is all the talk about 'free movement' and how stopping it will be so terrible.

There IS another side to this which I've been thinking about today (mainly trigerred by watching the Somme Remembrance, and family and loss of life - so I'm in a philosophical mood - bear with me........)

'Free movement' is seen as one of the wonderful benefits of the eu.   But is it really, truly so ?   Think about this.   We do know that many schools in the UK are having to cope with increased numbers of non-English speaking children - some of whom more or less 'turn up at the school gate' needing places.

Here's the downside.   Those young children, because their parents want to 'make a better life' for themselves have moved to the UK.   They have uprooted themselves, and their children, away from grand-parents, aunts, uncles, cousins - their whole family network.   They've been removed from their family roots and connection; their history, their culture, the place that is their 'home'.

Leaving behind bereft grand-parents and others.   The children make a life for themselves, with their parents, in a different country - but they lose their ties to their homeland.   That is sad.   Look at what happened in Eire over the years from the potatoe famine onwards - large numbers of young people went to the UK, or to the USA - never to return to their homeland.   A large number weren't even able to make occasional visits to see their family.

Now that is a loss;  it's a break in family continuinity - and is sad.   I know the longer I live here, the more and more I'm missing daughters and grand-children.   Didn't matter for quite a while because we were having the adventure - but family ties do pull.

I wonder if the 'free movement' is wonderful for the young, no ties, no family, rolling stones to move on where and when they want.   But it is far more complex for families.  

Just a sideline on the 'free movement' - maybe it should be limited to the footloose and fancy free, no ties, no attachments.....

[YCCMB]

The big tell in that is your comment "the longer I live here, the more I'm missing daughters and grandchildren" . But you did it, just the same....

From personal experience, I've seen many young women from various EU countries who came to the UK to work, leaving their children back home with grandparents or close relatives. They did so because they couldn't get decent work at home, and wanted their children to have a better life. As a mother, I can't imagine how hard a decision that must have been to make.

Whilst the retired are able to up sticks and move to another country on a whim, younger people, "footloose and fancy free" or not, tend to do so in the current climate as a hard economic choice in order to be able to find employment. I know. I count a fair number among my clients.

[woolybanana]

Chessie, must totally differ; the advantage of free movement of peoples is that they are able to get away from the oppression of family, the dead weight of conformity. Families are frequently introverted and breaks on poeple being themselves and a break on their potential to achieve.

So, let people go where they want to create something different, different lives.

And the same with national cultures - only by leaving and moving to something new can peoples develop themselves.

Cultures interact where they do not create ghettoes ( this latter is the failure of multi-culturalism).

Take the oppression of women in Muslim communities - by leaving their traditions they have a chance of a future, unless we toss them back.

Of course one misses individuals and that is sad.

When I was in Belgium, some youngsters refused to leave their communities to seek work and were unemployed for long periods, if they ever found a proper job. Certainly their career develop was stilted, but they were able to marry the boy (girl) that they had been in kindergarten with and still go to see granny every weekend, then mummy and daddy and the inlaws every other week, plus taking part in the same sterile community activities.

Hideous.

Others moved away, many to foreign countries and boy did they take off.

Besides, you can travel round Europe in double quick time these days, on trains, buses, planes.

Phew!

[andyh4]

Chessie

I suggest that the situation you describe could just as well describe a family relocating from Sheffield to London - even to the language, where the differences in accents and idioms are enough to mean that children will initially struggle in school. Try saying "now then" or "Ey up" to an East Ender and see what happens.

And as far as being remote from family links, I guess that the travel time back to Sheffield will be longer and more expensive for this fictitious family as it would for a Polish family returning to Warsaw.

Fact is that our modern world has caused a dislocation of close knit families of the 19th/ first half 2oth Century.

That disconnect existed before the EU. The EU maybe extends the distances but modern travel reduces the time distance.

I have just received an email from a friend who apologises for not attending a funeral because he is in the US visiting this daughter and grandchildren - the ease of movement (if not freedom) goes way beyond the EU.

[Rabbie]

Chessie, free movement gives some people the chance to have a better life. Why do you want to deny them that? It may not be the best solution for everyone but it is not compulsory so people should do what is the right thing for them and their families.

[YCCMB]

In my own family circle, younger son's gf comes from a family who are very close knit, and her parents seem a bit controlling. Her two brothers, parents and surviving grandmother all live within spitting distance, and her parents would like nothing more than for her to settle down close to them. She's ambitious, has a good job and already she and my son have had to choose where they live as a compromise: she works near Bicester, he near Heathrow and they live in St Albans, whilst the parents live near Ascot. Son is getting a bit cheesed off with his potential future in-laws consistently hinting they'd like them to buy a home based on what suits the parents, rather than what suits the young couple.

In this day and age, the world is open to people with free spirits, a desire to succeed and a sense of ambition and adventure. Some (far fewer than certain interest groups would have us believe) want to take that opportunity, whether it's to retire to France, or move to work in the UK. If parents can move away from their children and grandchildren, I see no reason why the reverse shouldn't be permissible.