Bring back hanging out

This is written on the back of the longest recreational break I have had since I left school in the 1960’s. It all began with a week on a canal boat, which was followed by a friend’s 60^th birthday party, then two weddings on the Pacific coast of North America a fortnight apart and, after a further week, a cousin’s 40^th wedding anniversary. There was even a sort of symmetry about it all – two celebrations for oldies flanking two celebrations for the up and coming generation with a subconscious subtext that relates to passing on a baton of some sort. We, of the post war, baby boomer generation may not have resolved the political, economic and social issues of our times but we have been able to watch our children emerge into a social network of family and friends. In a sense they seem to be better at it than we were, certainly more active as this particular community of cousins has established a lively ‘in your Facebook’ relationship.

Why is this important? Here follows a digression rather than a direct answer. Though each of these celebrations involved an event on a particular day, they were each the focus of concerted involvement of family and friends for days before and after the event. Circumstances, principally being on holiday, allowed us to be involved in these pre- and after-shock happenings which ranged from a visit to the manicurist (for some reason blokes didn’t get to do this) through meals, cycle rides, walks to simply hanging out together.

Now hanging out is a term that I associate with teenagers with nothing better to do, so the experience of ‘whole family hanging out’, as conceptualised by American friends was a novelty to me. It needed to be approached with all sorts of British caution and reserve -‘we don’t want to intrude’, ‘they will need family time’ and so on. We were a little slow to allow our friends to know their own minds and to accept their invitation as an invitation.

Why was the experience something of a revelation to me? Perhaps because in recent years I have been far more willing and able to allocate time to a purpose than purpose to a time. By that I mean that the purposes I espoused were largely limited and specific, with some measurable outcome in prospect. This is not to say that I am not aware of the larger purposes in life and that I do not pay lip service to them; however, my behaviour strongly suggests that I prioritise the specific: reading a book, cutting the grass, even writing a blog. This is strange when the outcome I count as most rewarding is that each of our children not only has an established network of friends but that they are firmly established in their community of cousins.

Returning to the question, why is this important? a couple of words that reflect past experience in the pharmaceutical industry come to mind: verification and validation. Verification confirms my identity, that I am who I am and verification has the greatest authority when it is provided by the family from which I come. As a parent it is reassuring to know that your children’s identity will be verified for them long after I am gone by as wide a community as is possible. Verification is important to us all but is often overlooked. Validation on the other hand is more immediately recognised as a need; it affirms our value and can come from any community of friends or family.

Communities are created by building relationships; relationships are built over time and it seems to me that hanging out is all about allocating the purpose of building relationships to a time, whether it be an hour or an afternoon or a week. If this is something we did in our teens, my message to myself is, “Bring back hanging out”.

Is this a good time to talk about trust?

Am I delusional in thinking that the general mindset of the UK population is far more upbeat today than it has been in previous periods of economic difficulty that I can remember? How do you square such a relatively positive outlook with the experience of losing a job, losing savings or seeing the value of a pension plan evaporate in front of your eyes? I don’t really know. But I wonder whether after the genuine anger that follows loss has passed, more people are looking to themselves and to each other for help in working out the way forward rather than expecting the elusive ‘them’ to come up with a solution. This could point to a greater degree of self reliance and decreasing expectations of state support. Both of these developments are probably for the better though I hope that the corresponding reduction in reliance on the state and financial institutions does not lead to a loss of trust in the community.

Perhaps there is an opportunity to catch the mood by introducing a serious attempt to decentralise power; you never know. To quote a quote, Bagehot in the Economist reports that Gordon Brown has written in the Independent, “There is no option I will not consider if it redistributes power.” Bagehot (The Economist, 30th May 2009) goes on to suggest transferring power from the executive to Parliament though he does admit, “Boosting MP’s freedom and remit might seem another strange response to their misdemeanours . But it is necessary and overdue.” Perhaps giving MPs a bigger role in government will instill a greater sense of responsibility. And why stop with Parliament? What about having another look at devolving power to the regions as well as to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? It might just be the right time for the national mood to respond to loosely coupled government and that a central government orchestrating (as opposed to managing) regional activities will see increasing levels of enterprise across the country.

It is not that anyone seriously believes that local politicians as a group are any more honest than their national counterparts or even that the national politicians are particularly dishonest, in spite of the recent revelations of quite unseemly behaviour. The issue is for the state to trust its citizens more, giving them greater responsibility with the corresponding authority to manage local affairs for the betterment of local communities.

There is an interesting irony here because I think that Mrs Thatcher was instrumental in fostering this greater sense of self belief while, if I remember aright, she was also instrumental in centralising power away from regional authorities. Perhaps now is the time to build on the former change to reverse the latter.