The Castle hight of Indolence,
And its false Luxury;
Where for a little Time, alas!
We liv’d right jollity.

And, certes, there is for it Reason great;
For, though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail,
And curse thy Star, and early drudge and late,
Withouten That would come an heavier Bale,
Loose Life, unruly Passions, and Diseases pale.

‘The Castle of Indolence’
James Thomson
1748

With the election now mere hours away, my thoughts have turned to matters political. It is very difficult to know who to vote for, as each party in turn has committed themselves to policies I find quite impossible to endorse. Yet I feel I should put my cross somewhere, and some time back developed a foolproof process of elimination. Any party that employed my least favourite political cliché was immediately out of the running in my books. The odious cliché I refer to?

“Hard Working fucking Families…”

But what could any reasonable person find objectionable about such a phrase, embodying as it does the moral and economic backbone of our proud nation? Allow me to explain…

Taking the first part of the phrase, I have no time for anyone who thinks that hard work is a virtue unto itself. I think I’m pretty well qualified to comment, as I’ve experienced both ends of the spectrum. I’ve worked hard on occasion. Typed away until the screen began to blur and the sun crept around the edges of the curtains when a fierce deadline loomed. I’ve also had my share of hard graft in the past, walking home like a wound-down clockwork toy due to exhaustion, falling asleep with a beer in my hand in front of the TV. I’ve also experienced idleness. Doing nothing for the sake of it, or simply because there was nothing much to do.

I’m not a fan of either. Idleness gets dull pretty fast if you have a lively mind. Work too hard and you make mistakes, and ultimately forget why on earth you’re doing what you’re doing. The sensible route is a compromise. Work hard enough to get the job done, but build in period for reflection and to recharge your batteries. The idea that we are just here to work is a pernicious lie. Many people are fulfilled by their jobs, but if you’re not, then it is a means to an end, not some sacred calling.

There are many myths about the nobility of labour perpetuated by those who benefit most from the sweat of others. Working hard is not a selfless act – quite the reverse – it is more often the hallmark of a selfish soul. Perhaps you are working hard because you enjoy it? If so, you scarcely deserve a round of applause. Maybe you hope to earn enough to obtain something? While you may deserve whatever material rewards you achieve, a medal does not come with it. The fact is, the people who earn most from working, are usually those making the world a more miserable place to live.

We should no more laud the hard work of, say, bankers, than we should be praising Jack the Ripper for his tenacity and devotion to his chosen vocation.

Leaving work aside for a second, what of the family? Surely everybody approves of this institution, the very embodiment of affection and selfless devotion. I am blessed to be part of a small, but loving family, and think the world of all of them. Yet I’ve no intention of creating another family of my own at present. Some people charge that those who choose to live child-free are selfish. Once again, I’d suggest that is the very reverse of the true situation, because I put it to you that people seldom, if ever have children for truly altruistic reasons.

There are many motives for starting a family. Perhaps you want to stabilise a fragile relationship? Maybe you like the idealised family life you’ve seen on the TV in adverts and sit-coms? Perhaps you want to rerun your own unhappy childhood, with a happy ending to this one? Perhaps the idea of somebody wholly dependent on you, who’ll love you unconditionally appeals? I suspect the most common motivation is to achieve a kind of immortality, to inflict another version of yourself upon the world.

It could be any one of these, a mixture, or something else entirely. Whichever, almost every instinct to begin a family has a large selfish component. So, my hats off to you for taking on a tough, demanding commitment. But don’t try and pretend you’re doing the world a favour by reproducing. Even with modern contraception, avoiding pregnancy can be more of a challenge than yielding to the biological imperative. In the modern world, just about the only resource not running low is idiots. Creating more isn’t a service to humanity. You’d do more good keeping an allotment.

I don’t hate families, or children, any more than I abhor work. I just reject the absurd ideology that sanctifies them. In place of hard working, how about praising the clever? Or kind? Or even amusing? Virtues far less ambivalent than the blind belief in the moral superiority of hard labour. Similarly, while some of us are in happy families, others aren’t, whether by circumstance or design. But we’re all individuals, who should be equally deserving of the attention and approval of our political masters.

Unless, of course, they’re only really interested in the amount of work we can do to make their obscenely wealthy economic masters even wealthier. And the amount of work our children can do once we’ve dropped from exhaustion. I’m reminded of an old Yorkshire proverb…

‘Ear all, see all, say nowt;
Eyt all, sup all, pay nowt;
And if ivver tha does owt fer nowt –
Allus do it fer thissen.