"Look at me right now"
Published:
October 8, 2011 at 4:05pm
I have a lot of theories and observations about what happens to those who grow up without siblings, whether it’s because they have none or because the age gap is sufficient to ensure that there is no need for cooperation in the nursery (though I have met some wonderful exceptions).
All of them apply to our next prime minister. So I was not surprised to discover that Miss Abela Garrett is an only child. She is the classic only child, just as Joseph Muscat is (the phenomenon is often made worse when the parents are older than usual, as Muscat’s are).
From Facebook:
Nicolà answered: What child are you? with Only Child.
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And isn’t it odd how Nicola Abela Garrett’s supporters appear to think the reaction to her ‘spontaneous outburst’ is all about the bus service?
Just read this comment on Lou Bondi’s Blog:
Silvio: “Helen , are you implying that because you had “a Bad time” when still a student,to-days students shoud thank GOD, they are better?.
Times change,and above all if you had a bad time it could be because you had no guts to fight for you rights.You where just a bunch of cowards. All you ever did was tie youselves to the railings at Castile.”
The injustice of this just chokes me! A bunch of cowards, he calls us. I wonder if he was ever confronted and chased by half a dozen thugs, twice his age and twice his size, wielding chains and iron bars and grunting a litany of obscenities. Knowing full well that if you were caught, there would be no limit to the beating they’d give you. Knowing also, that when they’d done with you, the police would take their turn.
We faced all that over and over again, and this Silvio says we had ‘no guts’. Yet here comes a spoiled brat, studying to graduate in a subject which would have been labelled ‘karta tal-incova’ by her beloved Mintoff, knowing full well that nothing but publicity/fame would come out of it, and she is hailed a heroine.
‘A bunch of cowards’, Silvio ? At least we could spell.
I need some medication.
Dear ‘Not Tonight’, Thanks for the support. Just for argument’s sake I am again reproducing my comment from Bondi Blog………..just to check if I am going insane or not. Here goes………
“Ms Nicola BISKUTTINI F’HALQ IL-HMIR. Your only problem as a 20 year old is to get to lectures on time. My problems were way different when I was 20. I couldn’t get into university without a parrinu, I couldn’t read In-Nazzjon on the road (It was called N-taghna cos we weren’t allowed to say NAZZJON). my weekends were spent going to mass meetings to fight for democracy, not knowing if we would return home safe and sound, after a beating from the members of the police force. I can go on, but instead ask your parents for a lecture of what it was like to be 20 in the 80’s. They could while away your time on the bus stop and then you wouldn’t call Dr. Gatt an FW. “
If you are implying that we are here talking about the same Silvio, there is a chance that you are making a mistake.
If you read my coments, you would not have jumped to this conclusion.
I condemned what Nicola did, and I still do.
As regards the part “No guts” my eldest son was there that day, even though he was not a university student, he was there to show his support, something I am proud of.
What I hope is that the next time I have to go to a bank, they will mix me up with another Silvio, and give me the red carpet treatment, maybe with some pretty thing thrown in.
In Mintoff’s time there wasn’t even any academic course in theatricals and in many other subjects now freely available to stipend-receiving university students. This bonanza is the result of the efforts of Silvio’s “bunch of cowards” and their violated parents.
Mintoff reduced our university to a mere shadow of what it was before and to what it was restored as soon as he was shoved aside. Those young persons were arbitrarily deprived of a University education. The only outlet left for them was an unskilled pioneer job under military discipline.
And up pops this Silvio to insult them as a bunch of cowards!
The classic only child theory has been disproven by many experts in the field. TIME magazine had a very interesting cover story about the topic last year.
[Daphne – Strange then, how outside the experimental laboratory reality bears it out time and time again. And when you think about it, it’s obvious that a child raised alone is not going to have the same personal interacton, negotiation and cohabitation skills learned by those who have never been alone. I am not saying here that one is better than the other, because we know that the majority of awful people have siblings, but how can there not be a difference when the formative years are by definition completely different?]
But you are not an only child and you still have a horrible character.
[Daphne – Know me, do you? ‘Only children’ do not have horrible characters. Horrible people have horrible characters. I am a stereotypical eldest child.]
I do think that a lot would have to do with how parents bring up the only child. Will try and dig up the article and send you a copy Daphne. It made for some interesting reading.
@El Pibe I agree with Daphne’s ”one child theory” where a child raised alone does have some personality behavioural patterns. Even birth order has an affect, let alone having no siblings. Watch this part, go directly to 22.50, taken from University of Harvard justice lessons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcL66zx_6No&feature=PlayList&p=30C13C91CFFEFEA6&playnext_from=PL
not a lesson, that should read “lecture”
How do you not realize that you are not being perceived as one woman criticizing another but as the PN bullying a 20 year old student?
[Daphne – The world is full of people with a very low IQ and I can’t possibly be held accountable for what they think. ]
Please do not speak about matters which do not interest you or that you do not understand Ms. Caruana Galizia. I will not waste time typing about the merits of being an only child or not. You are not a scientist. Nobody on your team is a scientist. You can quote scientists, but you definitely cannot make the mistake of assuming you can judge a person based upon stereotypical anecdotes such as where they’re from, what school they attend or how many siblings they had when growing up.
If you must know, however, Statistics 101 teaches you that in any range or specimen, there is a median and an upper and lower bound range in the same group. In laymen’s terms; even in a class of geniuses, you have 10% who are A students, 10% who are D students and the rest are in the middle. So please, don’t be daft and make such sweeping statements. Its unbecoming.
PS – move on from this bloody story. It has become mundane.
[Daphne – Marc, if you needed something called Statistics 101 to teach you that standards and averages are relative to the group, I’m concerned. Yes, you can assess a person based on what school they go/went to. Different schools produce different attitudes – or they used to. If that were not the case, parliament wouldn’t be stuffed full of Old Aloysians. One does not have to be a scientist to write about these matters, just as one does not have to be a politician to write about politics. And the word you are looking for is not ‘mundane’. Don’t try to use words when you are not quite sure how they should be used. It doesn’t make you sound smart, but rather the reverse.]
I had thought that it was only explosives salemen who could afford only one child.
I’m surprised that as an only child she still depends on Arriva and hasn’t got her own car bought by her papa’ on her 18th birthday.
I don’t think that being spoilt has anything to do with the number of siblings in the family.