Family Love, Hate, Fat & Firstborn

The newspapers are carrying stories about hate crimes, attacks on fat people and honour killings. Makes me realize how lucky I was to have what I considered unexceptional and normal. loving parents. So what has gone wrong when people attack their children, or total strangers in the street? And of the victims, what has gone wrong when they defy their parents, run away, or eat excessively? Are these two sides of the same coin?

Is there a common pattern whether the offspring or victims are male or female? Or does it vary?

Female, Firstborn - and Fat- Seeking Love
For example, let's take the females who are overweight, or victims of 'honour' killings, or runaways converting to another religion. I know of one instance of a friend's family where the firstborn child was a girl and the father wanted a boy. The gap between the children was several years, enough for the a pattern to be set in which the disappointed father criticized the daughter. She was heavily overweight until after she married and her father died. So here's eating for emotional compensation, comfort eating. And pressure on a firstborn female to punish her for not being a firstborn son.

Seeking Love Elsewhere
Then, the 'honour' victims are sometimes girls. The parents want to control the girls. But the female seek love elsewhere. Sometimes the runaway does not care how upset their parents are if the unmarried girls choose somebody from another group. The girls are running to - love elsewhere.

But instead or in addition the runaways may be running away from - home. Sometimes the love-seeker deliberately seeks out another religion or race. It is not merely the fascination of something different and new, like the traveller seeking new experiences. It is an attempt to start again, where the runner's childhood and past is not held against them. Also to avoid all the aspects which have brought about pain or punishment in the past.

Or is it simpler than this? If you look at anthropology, some groups go for marrying within the group. Others marry out.

Opportunity
Educated women, or those moving to a Western culture, have oportunities to meet other groups, Is it chance and bad luck that they pick somebody the parents disapprove of?

Choice
Is it merely defiance? Resistance? Or simply that when you are told you can't have something, you want it?

Or is it taking the first opportunity to get away from emotional abuse? Or is it a deliberate choosing of another group, thinking, 'my group does not love me or make me happy, so try elsewhere'.

I look at a news story and think I see a pattern. But you need a control group. One can always argue, yes, but some people who are punished from childhood do not overeat. Some people do not run away and break the rules.

Each case is different and can involve one or more of these elements. I am looking for a solution to the problems. Sometimes when you look at the question, just phrasing the question tells you the answer. As you get older and more experienced, you see more repeating patterns. I think, 'Not another ....!' Jumping on somebody in the street without knowing about them is prejudice. The whole point of law courts is that you hear both sides. A wise judge, or head of an organization, hears both sides before judging.

Toilet design

I looked at the fanciful designs for toilets.

They all looked claustrophobic.

I never walk into any building unless it has windows and looks like you can communicate with the outside world or climb out in an emergency.

Where is the Z shape entrance enabling you to enter hands free with your suitcase on wheels or shopping trolley, whilst concealing those inside from view?

Where is the window to the outside, for the claustrophobic and for exit in any emergency of a different kind?

Where are the mirrors so you can comb your hair and check you skirt is not caught at your waist and your shoes are not dragging bits of toilet paper?

Where are the foot operated bins for dispsoal without getting your hands dirty?

Are the seats wide enough to support a 20 stone person without breaking, sliding sideways, and leaving everybody else without toilets for a year?

Are they cheap enough to build and produce and distribute and move to new locations?

What about toilets for events, exhibitions? Any event attended by more than 100 people is going to cause a long queue.

Where are the seats so that people can wait for friends?

Where are the wide hooks which can hold your heavy shopping bag?

Does the toilet wash down?

Does it use natural light so you can see if you can't find a light switch, or if there is a power cut, and to save energy in daytime?

What was the brief given to the architects - a brief which should have included the maximum heights and weights of people in a cubicle and number of cubicles - even room for adding more cubicles, like a lego block or mosaic or jigsaw.

How much space is needed in a cubicle for a wheelchair or twins in a buggy?

How much space is needed around a toilet to get in when the door is opening and shutting?

Which colours are most soothing?

Where is the automatic dispenser of toilet paper and towels?

The room around the drier so it doesn't go off in your ear whilst you are washing your hands.

Is it free of metal toilets and basins so that a faulty light bulb does not electrocute you?

How about a free flow of air to keep it smelling sweet.

Pictures and information?

Wash your hands signs.

Apparently the latest successful health measure ask you if the person next to you is washing with soap, not just water.

Signs should at least read Please wash your hands with soap, not only water - the soap makes a big difference.