From baby seats to broken minds – what a grandfather’s view reveals about the ever-changing world
When, some 18 months ago, I became a grandfather, nothing immediately changed that much. Other than the thrill of new life and the relief that all the parties involved were healthy, it was all pretty normal. After all, newborns spend very little time in the not-yet-frail arms of their grandfathers and, when you do hold one, they don’t do much. Thankfully.
A year-and-a-half is not a big deal in the life of an adult; obviously, things can happen, but by and large, the weeks pass quickly. However, when it comes to babies, eighteen months is huge.
The baby has changed from a small, fleshy human miniature into an active person who moves in directions of their choosing. They entertain, display hundreds of different emotions and, perhaps most shockingly, feign upset while simultaneously teasing the dog with the will-I-won’t-I give-you-my-cheese routine.
What’s more, babies’ early-life ecosystem has evolved too. When my kids were small, we carried them around in a lightweight, cushioned bucket that was tethered to the car by a standard seat belt. It was intuitive and easy to use.
Today’s baby seat, however, weighs as much as, and behaves like, an angry five-year-old. A bulky hunk of industrial-age engineering, it has to be shoved at a perfectly oblique angle towards two obscured heavy-metal clasps. It will only engage if shoved with a NASA-style level of precision delivered with a sharp and forceful jerk. This action itself challenges the integrity of any grown-up’s spine, so for somebody in their 60s, the task is doubly acute. And just like that furious five-year-old, it has a spare leg (aka stabiliser) that kicks out at exactly the wrong moment.
It is, quite literally, ‘health and safety gone mad’.
I recently changed job. Twice.
I was seconded to a different department for six months, then returned to my previous role.
My task was, and once again is, to help people with disabilities find work. It involves getting to know the person, understanding what they can do, establishing their challenges, and helping them secure reasonable adjustments. Someone with autism, for example, might be highly capable of organising and stacking shelves, but unable to tolerate the constant hum of fridges or harsh lighting on the shop floor.
I may support someone who has recently become a wheelchair user and needs their employer to make the workplace accessible, installing ramps, providing adjustable desks, ensuring facilities meet proper standards. These conversations can seem daunting to employers at first, but they are usually straightforward once explained, understood and planned.
Returning to the role after six months away, the need for support with visible, physical disabilities has remained steady. What has changed is the sharp increase in people experiencing mental health issues. Actually, let’s not sugar-coat it; there are a lot more mental health problems than just a few months ago. Time flies fast and things can quickly change.
Most people acknowledge their problems. Increasingly, though, others display unpredictable behaviour while denying it entirely. Some believe they are under constant surveillance; others refuse support because they think people like me, who are trying to help, are part of a wider conspiracy.
And somewhere between the ever-more complex baby seat and the growing complexity of the human mind, there seems to be a pattern.
We have become remarkably good at designing systems to protect, contain and optimise the physical world – even if they occasionally fight back- yet far less adept at understanding and supporting the invisible world inside people’s heads.
My grandchild will grow up in a world that is, in this context, safer, better engineered and more controlled than the one my kids grew up in. The irony is that the greatest challenges they face may not be mechanical. They will probably be a combination of human and artificial.
Perhaps that is the realisation that comes with age: as everything around us becomes more sophisticated, what really matters remains disarmingly simple; to be understood and to have access to support when required.